First time tft.

[Scarlet Infidel]

The hot weather acted as a catalyst for my 7 year old 17" trinitron screen going bang on friday. I am going to use this as an excuse to get a tft monitor, however i have very little experiece of them.

I want a 17" monitor, to give a slight screen increase on my crt and i dont want to spend a lot, maybe £150 including postage. I think i understand all the specifications pretty well but of course they are made up by the manufacturers so cant be trusted. So i need insight form more experienced users. You must be sick of this kind of question but any help would be appreciated.

What do you think of this one ? The specs are good, i think i read that acer is good too. The screen is a bit ugly, id really prefer a black one with a thinner frame, but this is cheap (129.99 plus postage).

Ideally id like one that looks like the dell ones or like this but its just a bit too expensive for me.

Any help or suggections are welcome, im open to all options, bizarre offers and second hand. Thanks.

Edit: I dont play many games but i watch lots of films and tv on my pc so refresh must be reasonable.

[Scarlet Infidel]

Im probably going to get an Acer AL1715S, however there appear to be a few variations on it. In some cases i assume the given spec are wrong but i seem to have 2 choices. They both share most features such as 300 cd/m2 brightness and
24-bit colour. However one model qoutes 8ms refresh with 450:1 contrast, the other gives ratings of 12ms and 500:1. Which do you think is best? Would i notice the differences? Is there a chance they are just specification discrepancies?

[Nick F]

Keep an eye on the aria specials page, they always have fantastic TFT's at really good prices.

[Scarlet Infidel]

The arianet ones are cheap but look like toys. I like the dell ones visually but am a little concerned about the rated 25ms response time, how would this monitor compare in terms of response and ghosting (especially watching video) to the 8ms and 12ms Acer ones?