Planar 17.4" LCD Monitor for $593.10 Shipped at Dell Home

[IshmaelLeaver]

Are people really having problems seeing it from angles?

Mine can be viewed from other angles besides straight on, but the image gets washed out.

 

[Eviscerate]

<< I've yet to see an LCD that looked pure black while it was still on showing a black screen. The screen always has a glow to it and looks more dark gray than black. >>



Thanks for the input, I guess this is just a limitation of LCDs. Have you found that it bothers you when playing FPS games that have dark levels? Do some LCDs display darker black than others, or are they all about the same. Would a higher contrast ratio just make whites brighter or would it also make blacks darker?

On another topic, I have noticed that when using cleartype some text has a slight color fringe. I thought this was only supposed to happen on CRTs. On my CRT @1024x768 the color fringing was pretty bad but @1600x1200 it was almost perfect. So, @ higher resolutions cleartype looks better on a CRT, but I thought that it would look perfect on an LCD @1024x768.

The link below mentions that "It improves readability on color LCD monitors with a *digital interface*, such as those in laptops and high-quality flat desktop displays."

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/cleartypeactivate.htm

Does this mean that analog interface LCDs will not properly display cleartype? Would the color fringes go away if I had a digital connection and a DVI video card? Of note is that cleartype @1024x768 looks a whole lot better on this LCD than it did on my CRT. I just wonder if it would look better over a digital connection. I imagine the best case scenario for cleartype would be 1600x1200 on a digital interface LCD, mmm, yummmy!

 

[rosco6912]

ok well i'll be honest - the blurrynees of anything below 1280x1024 is noticeable... but if you have the money to buy a monitor like this you have the money to buy a good enough card so that you can play your games in the correct res.

i play diablo2 and it eventually becomes unnoticeable..

i am very happy with my new monitor.

 

[Eviscerate]

<< ok well i'll be honest - the blurrynees of anything below 1280x1024 is noticeable... but if you have the money to buy a monitor like this you have the money to buy a good enough card so that you can play your games in the correct res.

i play diablo2 and it eventually becomes unnoticeable..

i am very happy with my new monitor. >>



Actually, the Rad-5 is very sharp in my opinion. In fact with cleartype off, text looks incredibly sharp (although not as smooth as when cleartype is used). It maintains this sharpness with cleartype on, it just has color fringes as a result of the sub pixel font rendering. What I am interested in is whether or not this color fringing would occur with a digital interface @1024x768. As far as games go, they look great with the exception of black not looking truly black.

 

[Suki]

Sh8t. I missed this deal. I went to Dell to see if they still have it but the price was changed to 759 now. With this price you pretty much can buy the best LCD monitor out there for 17". Anyway, which is the best by the way?

 

[Dimitri]

I've heard many good things about the Compaq TFT7020 monitor. If you're a student you could get it for less than $650.

 

[JameyF]

<< Sh8t. I missed this deal. I went to Dell to see if they still have it but the price was changed to 759 now. With this price you pretty much can buy the best LCD monitor out there for 17". Anyway, which is the best by the way? >>



I know how you feel. I was thinking of getting a second or maybe even a third (for my dad) at this price. I just wanted a bit of time to try it out and see if I liked it enough. I don't have to have dual monitors going, and my dad said he wasn't impressed enough to spend $600. I guess I'll wait to see what deals develop later in the year. If you missed this deal, something else will replace it soon. That's one thing I'lve always seen here. Jump on the deal before it goes away. Something similar may come along, but it may take a while. I hate to wait, so I try to buy ahead of time. I sure hated I passed up on the DDr memory when it was cheaper. I've bought 4 sticks over the last couple of months, and to think 3-4 months ago, it was half as much.

 

[mpjohnst]

I'm planning on using my LCD to watch DVDs too. Will there be a problem since DVDs are 640X480 and the native res of this panel is 1280X1024? DVD quality is very important to me...

 

[mrVW]

Download ZoomPlayer... awesome scaling of DVD's.

 

[mrVW]

I want to get a second one of these, but Dell is still at $759. Why did they have it at $659, was it a sale or something?

PCWorld gave this a great review...

 

[mrVW]

I ordered my second one last night... best deal I could get was $649 - using the free shipping deal + 15% coupons on FatWal*... still good. Read the PCworld review, the picture quality was rated very high. I'm very happy with my first one (side by side with a Sylvania/Princeton 17" that is brighter but no where near the picture quality).

 

[flashsim]

Thanks for the heads up. I was looking for a deal on those Planar and a 15% off sounds great!

 

[blues008]

Is this deal still good with 15% off?

 

[bLuEScReeN1337]

blues008: that is what I wanted to know because I am thinking about getting two of them and going dual

 

[Searchname]

<< Kind of OT, but what are the disadvantages to using the analog input over the digital input? I'm looking to get a new video card and a flat panel in the future, but vid cards with DVI are considerably more expensive. >>



Look at the ATI Radeon 8500s! They come standard with DVI and not at a bad price!