Thank you very much for such an informative thread! I'm going to be buying three LCD monitors, and I've been doing a lot of research and have some notion of what I want to do, but still have a few questions left.
I have a genetic eye condition that has slowly wiped out most of my peripheral vision, so I am now replacing my CRT monitors with LCD monitors. I was just diagnosed with it - slowly losing your peripheral vision is a very sneaky process. My field of view is now 20 percent or so (borderline legal for driving). That my new monitors be easy on the eyes is obviously very important.
First, a few things I have discovered in my research that hasn't been posted about here that I can tell:
Samsung 226BW: recent customer reviews on newegg indicate that current stock now has panels that have the hidden service menu disabled, so now the only way to find out the panel type is to disassemble the unit. These customers seem very happy with these panels, so hopefully they are at least A panels, but how can we know? It still seems like the best choice for 22" widescreen monitors as they are only $270 at newegg, while the lowest price on the only real competitor, the LG L226WTY, is $353 at zipzoomfly.
Benq FP241W vs LG L246W: people say the L246W has the same panel as the FP241W. It seems commonly accepted on Hardforums and newegg customer reviews that both monitors have a P-MVA panel, but here you say it's an AMVA panel. Which is it, and what would the difference be? The FP241W is $640 at newegg, and the L246W is $550 at BestBuy; the cheaper cost is apparently attained by reducing the connection suite, with the L246W not even having a DVI port, but instead supplying an HDMI>DVI cable. A review
here has the reviewer giving the L246W the edge on color and speed and the FP241W the edge on the connections, and keeping both the L246W and the FP241W.
My first monitor is on my main gaming PC (8800GTX, E6600, etc). It's a 24" (22.5" viewable) 16:10 widescreen CRT (the HP A7217A, also known as the Sony GDM-FW900). It is getting a bit hinky from old age anyway with odd blackouts if I stomp on certain areas of the floor and twinging when opening a windowed application like Firefox. I use this monitor almost exclusively for PC gaming - I don't play console games, and watch movies on a real TV. My original plan was to step up in size to a 24", like the Benq FP241W or the LG L246W. But with my reduced field of view, at my normal viewing distance I can no longer see the edge of my FW900 when looking at the center, so it seems like I should think smaller rather than larger. The 20.1" NEC 20WMGX2 seems like the ideal candidate for this in every way.
My second monitor is on my Mac Mini, which I use exclusively for web browsing, email and other text work - no games or movies at all. I do use it a lot, so "easy on the eyes" and good text are most important. It's an old Optiquest Q95 19" 4:3 (18" viewable) CRT that I have been running at 1024x768 because that's the comfortable size for me. My original plan was to keep it at 19" with something like the Viewsonic VP930b which got a lot of good reviews, but then I was thinking of the NEC 20WMGX2 since it's such a nice monitor (and you seem to prefer the 20WMGX2 over the VP930b even for text work). But then you said its dotpitch is not the best for text work, and that a 22" or 24" would be better for text work. 24" seems too big for just text work and my limited field of view, and I want to avoid the 22" TN panels entirely if I can, so should I settle for the 20WMGX2, or is there some S-IPS 19" monitor with better dotpitch?
The third monitor I am replacing is actually my wife's. She has an older LCD monitor, the 19" 1280x1024 4:3 Hyundai B90A, which is analog only (VGA cable hardwired). The computer has an 8600GT and Intel E4500. She does office work, web browsing, email and plays Popcap games (a lot) and is generally satisfied, but I'm sure a modern digital monitor would be a lot better (and she is expecting a new one as a gift - if I get new monitors, so does she!) Some speed is necessary for the Popcap games which rules out a lot of the "work only" monitors listed here like the Samsung 971P. I'm not sure if she would be comfortable with the smaller dotpitch of the 20WMGX2, and I definitely don't want to get her a 22" TN panel, so I'm thinking of bumping her up to the Benq FP241W or LG L246W (the lack of connections on the latter is of no concern as it will never be used for anything but her PC). It would be a pretty nice surprise for her if she got a bigger monitor than mine. Or, like for my Mac Mini, is there some S-IPS 19" that has a better dotpitch and is much easier on the eyes? I think I'd avoid glossy finish for her as she needs the monitor to be easy on the eyes too.
Wow, that was a lot of questions! I appreciate any suggestions you might have.