Well…it’s camera hardware of a sort: Computer monitors

[ravnostic]

I’m thinking of getting an add-on for my laptop. Some of the ‘puters at work really change the vibe of my photos (sometimes goodly, sometimes badly), and I’d like something to show me the images more betterly from a technical standpoint.

Problem being I’m not really versed in monitorese. I can tell you my nearly 4 year old laptop (which is going strong, no problems yet!) is an acer (TM) Aspire 5610, Purchased July 15th 2007, on sale for clearance even, so it wasn’t ‘top o’ the line even then.

I’d like a monitor recommendation from someone who has been able to compare several types, or has several types, and has a preference among them.

Or at least good suggestions/links of what might be a better choice?

[CauseISaidSo]

I don’t know what your budget is, but I’ve got this one and I love it.

[chupathingie]

I’ve been using this one for maybe the past year and have been happy with it… 2048X1152 (native 16:9). I was most impressed with the color, all of my other LCD monitors seemed to have poor contrast with reds… deep reds always appeared saturated. The extra resolution is nice for spreading out applications with child windows (gimp and krita especially) without resorting to plopping them off onto an adjacent desktop.

My one gripe is that it’s only a 23″ and my vision ain’t what it once was. If it weren’t for compiz/desktop zoom I’d be hunched in front of it trying to read the text in EVE.

Oh, and the built-in speakers suck, but they all do in my experience. Not that it matters, I’ve been piping sound out to a ganged home theater amp feeding a pair of maggies for years now.

[Curious]

i’ve got an LG Flatron 2340v for my main monitor and a Samsung 204T for my other in a dual monitor setup. the LG is 23″ wide screen and back lit LED. it’s HD at 1080, etc. etc. and pretty nice. i haven’t tweaked it and it tends to run a bit too blue.

the Samsung is 20″ square and a bit truer to real life color wise.

as far as recommendations go i really like Samsung for quality and customer service. i had a 19″ CRT die at 35 months and they sent me a re-certified 19″ wide screen since my CRT had been discontinued. because my CRT wouldn’t fit in the wide screen box i did have to pay shipping on the return. but they didn’t want a CC in the meantime and the shipping was $40 so i was quite happy.

got the LG because it was on sale for <$200. couldn't find a Samsung for that money.

[ravnostic]

Well thanks for the opins, all. I wound up at Fry’s Electronics, looking at all the monitors in my price range with the same images being played. For my money, this displayed the images with the sense of vibrancy I was looking for:

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-B2230HD-21-5-Inch-WideScreen-Monitor/dp/B0040BDOA8/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1304373881&sr=1-1

I took her home, hooked her up (bonus: works with my HD antennae as a television set as well–out the door went the CRT 25 inch clunker–I now have more room to leave stuff around in before cleaning day!).

The picture is far brighter that the laptop; it has that ‘backlit LED thing’ going. The colors are excellent in comparison, too. There’s more gradation (?) in the brightest areas and darkest areas, as well. Not that you can do good justice with a camera taking pictures of monitors, I figure at least the same shot side by side would reveal something of the differences, no?

So I took the image, cropped the two to individuals, and here’s the old along side the new:

Here the new one looks blown out; that isn’t the case, but to expose the old one with any decency of brightness, I had to over-expose the new one.

All I know is I’m happy with it. Cinched two entries for ‘Cloudscapes’ instantly. Still toying on the third.

//also grabbed another CF card (8 gig, most my canon allows), a 2 gig mp3/music player (enough for my needs), a new mouse (did you know you can wear out mice? I didn’t till I had), and some CD Roms, all within my TV budget price. –>happy camper<–

[chupathingie]

[piningforthefjords]how I miss irfanview…[/piningforhtefjords]

Big difference between the two. You won’t need a desklamp anymore… 😉

My wife has a Samsung, and the big screen in the livingroom is also… she loves her monitor, and the pic on the big screen looks great. Had I the money at the time, I’d have bought one…

[Curious]

[piningforthefjords]how I miss irfanview…[/piningforhtefjords]

does your current OS just not support it? because google returns several places you can download it.

[chupathingie]

been a while since I looked, but last I knew there was no linux port.

/runs to google

[Kestrana]

I have a widescreen Samsung and yes I like it a lot. However I really don’t use my desktop much anymore.

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