Recommend a TFT Screen? 22"+?

Hiya all,
I'm thinking of upgrading from a 19" Benq FP91G+ (8ms, DVI and VGA inputs, 19" 4:3 ratio) to a 22" (or larger) widescreen. Must have DVI and VGA, budget is upto/around £200, current screen/box/keyboard is silver so it'd be nice if it matched though not essential.
I was looking at a Cibox 22" but have no experience of this brand; also I'm tempted to move all the way to 24" and 1600x1200 loveliness! Video card will soon be an 8800GTS 640, or, if budget allows, 8800GTX 768 (w00t!).
Advice please! Especially if you have personal experience of the displays, their foibles, build quality, warranty, dead pixel, suppliers, etc.
Thanks in advance,
Bob.

24" screens are 1920 x 1200 and I would recommend a 8800 GTX as a minimum. The 22" screens are all pretty similar but its a lottery if you get a good one. I have Video 7 22" which is OK but if I was choosing one now it would be the LG226WT.

If your budget can stretch to it I'd go for the Samsung SM226BW. I've just bought the 20 inch version, there are no dead pixels and the build quality is great. The main advantage of these screens over others currently on the market is the fact that they have HDCP which means they will playback HD-DVD and Blu-Ray whereas most screens at the moment won't, due to copyright protection.

It's selling on amazon for £230 including delivery and you can check out wikipedia for more on HDCP, I think it's definitely worth the extra £30.

The Cibox is amazing. At the price from Scan with DVI input it's an absolute steal. (I got mine on a Today Only deal for an extra £12 off the already-low price.)

I've calibrated mine using a Spyder2 and got a white point DeltaE of 0.8 (!!) with grey-tracking at 0.1. Both are superb results for anyone interested in colour fidelity. (The Spyder help docs note: "if you get Delta E less than 1, consider taking a trip to Las Vegas"). Needless to say it looks great after calibration (out of the box it was, predictably, far too blue). I'll need to dig out some more tools to see what the gamut looks like, and I doubt it's as good as the IPS screens you can get in the 24" range, but the Dell 2407-HC is over twice the price.

No bad pixels in my sample. The only problem is the stand, which is very cheap with only a tilt adjustment, and incapable of preventing the display from rocking with small movements of the desk.

charleski,

I'm just a bit interested in the Cibox (although a 19" would do), so a couple of things that aren't too clear elsewhere:

what's the running and standby power (seen 48W and 2W, but not for certain)

what sort of warranty is it, as some are return to base and i want on-site?

Thanks.

I've had a look at the (sparse) printed docs that came with it and there's no mention of the power draw. I would imagine these would be around the same as other monitors in the class.

The warranty is RTB, and Scan are pretty good at handling RMAs, so they would be the first port-of-call. The documentation does list Foxconn centres in the Netherlands and Germany as well. On-site maintenance of a product like this would be impracticable anyway, so a fault means you need a replacement.

I'd stay away from LG..... mine died a few months after purchase and it took me 3 months of hell to get it replaced with a very scruffy refurb. Enough to put me off for life.

It's pretty hard to stay away from LG for an LCD panel, as they make some of the best there is. I'd agree with you for their peripheral branding, as there are some dodgy products out there with LG on them, but for LCD panels they're pretty good.

Far-East companies have become too engrossed in the keiretsu nonsense and need to pull back to concentrate on products that they can produce well.

[Edit]BTW: LG panel assembled by Foxconn and then branded with a name that doesn't even have a website...
Chinese and Korean manufacturers might be able to produce high-quality products, but they just don't have the first clue about marketing. It's sad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by charleski

I've had a look at the (sparse) printed docs that came with it and there's no mention of the power draw. I would imagine these would be around the same as other monitors in the class.

The warranty is RTB, and Scan are pretty good at handling RMAs, so they would be the first port-of-call. The documentation does list Foxconn centres in the Netherlands and Germany as well. On-site maintenance of a product like this would be impracticable anyway, so a fault means you need a replacement.

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Thanks for this - I find it a bit ironic that Scan's blurb goes on about:
'Why risk cheaper un-known brands, you know won't be around to even honour their warranties?'
for a manufacturer that isn't even around in the first place!

I wouldn't touch RTB for a big, heavy, fragile item - too fraught and expensive.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Giraffe

I wouldn't touch RTB for a big, heavy, fragile item - too fraught and expensive.

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I'm not aware of any monitor seller that offers on-site maintenance for LCDs. Dell, for instance, merely offers a next-business day exchange in which you have to return the defective screen. It only weighs a few kilograms.

Some simply swap it for another one - turn up, leave the replacement and take the old one.

samsung syncmaster 226 bw the v2 is out soon
i have the v1 and very happy with it

This Samsung monitor is very popular here in Canada

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=604046

I was quite surprised when I found this http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-8614.aspx, having actually seen one in the flesh earlier that day at a friend's I was quite impressed with it's quality. Only real flaw IMO is the size of the stand, but it does give it a very high level of adjustability.

First - thanks to everybody for their opinions and advice!

Second - I've bitten the bullet and ordered a Cibox 22" which has vga, dvi (hdcp capable) and doesn't bust the bank. When it arrives I'll post what my impressions are; if the stand does prove to be a problem I can always replace it with some desk-clamp arm or wall-mount gubbinery.

Cheers,
Bob.

I love my 22" monitor although of course 'bigger the better' however a 24" would just bump up my gfx card requirements again so its a no go (atm).

Right - got the new screen; from ebuyer 'cos I was ordering other stuff at the same time. ( ebuyer product 129910 ). First off the box it ships in is really small; its barely bigger than the screen but sufficient because it got to me safely. I got a uk power cable and a VGA cable but no DVI; I'm using the DVI off my old 19" display. It is *really* wide - I find I'm moving my head from side to side instead of taking in the whole screen at a glance - I either need to sit further back (like mom used to say) or just get used to it. It is *really* bright; after some calibration using the nvidia display optimisation wizard its great though. NO dead pixels (yay!) which is always a gut-wrenching moment for any new display.
Movies - great. 16:9 movies full screen have slim black bars (its native aspect is 16:10) but the edges dont have that backlight bleed effect that can detract so much.
Games - Stalker and Half-Life are both cracking in widescreen mode; bigger field of vision, more to see, feel more natural than the 4:3 display.
Build - the stand isn't that bad - seems reasonably stable perched ontop of a box on my desk; yes it wobbles but not anything heart-stopping.
On-Screen Menus - typically cruff, but usable; how often do you need 'em? They're good enough I guess.
It has an advanced power-save option where it leaves the backlight powered up for a few minutes longer than normal; this is supposed to extend their life; it means no delay during reboots with a powered off screen so its good for tweaking the bios settings during overclocking sessions. It can be disabled to behave like most other panels with a short delay to power-down.

So far, so good! The only problem now is I have to pass it on to the chap I'm building a PC for (boo!) but it's made my xmas wish-list.

Thanks to everybody for their input,
Bob.

Hi - the newer samsung is a SM226CW - it is supposed to be better but the BW version is very good anyway...

Don't dare looking at Eizo [or equivalent] Pro screens, it'll make you realise how crap consumer LCD screens really are :D.