[Retired] The LCD Thread

[Ardan]

Originally posted by: OmegaShadow
I'm about to upgrade my 15inch to a 22inch lcd.

what are some things that i should look for in a good gaming lcd monitor?

high ratio? 2000:1 or higher
low response? 5ms or lower


those are like the only two that i know so far, can anyone else give me some more info?

I am in the market as well to replace a Samsung 215TW with another 22-incher that probably will be used in games more than other things and the LG L227WTG listed at the top of his gaming section is supposed to be pretty good. I'm leaning towards that one (looks great with that glossy screen even at Best Buy, too) and everything I see online points to it being very good for gaming and other uses. As a bonus, I found a few people I know around town here that have purchased it and told me that the backlight bleed is very minimal (for them, at least).

I was contemplating the G2400W as well, because its quality is great, no doubt about it, but went back to the LG. As has been said in this thread before, the wide gamut seems to make various colors look more natural to me. Plus, that glossy screen sure looks clear as a whistle (or it could be 'clean' too! )! His guide at the front is a very good starting point, too. There are plenty of things to consider, which I'm sure others will tell you. I just thought I'd give you my 2 cents and let you know what I've found to be a good gaming screen through some research. Good luck choosing your own!

 

[coreyb]

I'm looking for either a 22" or 24" glossy screen monitor that will be used mostly for gaming. Any help is appreciated.

 

[ericinho]

4:3 vs. widescreen 16:10

Is there actually an advantage of a widescreen compaired to a 4:3 ratio screen, besides the fact that the wide screen is ofcourse ehm, wider ;-)

An 21" 4:3 has 1600x1200 native resolution, while a 21" WS has 1680x1050...
does this have any advantages or disadvantages in dotpitch for example?
Or does a non-wide screen has less trouble with color/gamma shifting?

Thanks!

 

[coreyb]

any opinions on the Samsung 2232BW?

 

[panfist]

Originally posted by: ericinho
4:3 vs. widescreen 16:10

Is there actually an advantage of a widescreen compaired to a 4:3 ratio screen, besides the fact that the wide screen is ofcourse ehm, wider ;-)

An 21" 4:3 has 1600x1200 native resolution, while a 21" WS has 1680x1050...
does this have any advantages or disadvantages in dotpitch for example?
Or does a non-wide screen has less trouble with color/gamma shifting?

Thanks!

If you want to compare the dotpitch you have to look at the specs provided by the individual monitor. You can find 19" viewable monitors with 1600x1200 resolution, you can also find 24" widescreen monitors with a 1680x1050 resolution. There is no advantage one way or the other, for example people with less than perfect eyesight might prefer a larger dotpitch.

As for any other advantages or disadvantages like color or gamma I don't think there is anything inherent to widescreen vs. regular for LCDs. For old-school CRT monitors this might be the case, but for LCDs since each pixel is controlled individually instead of a scanning beam, they don't suffer those disadvantages.

The only thing I can thing of being an issue on widescreen monitors might be worse backlight bleeding simply because the perimeter around the display will be longer, but I never thought that backlight bleeding was a big problem for mid- to high-end displays anyway.

 

[Ardan]

Originally posted by: xtknight

It's possible the 215TW's anti-glare coating is aggressive. The glossy panel is clear as a whistle. ( clean as a whistle? whatever, you know what I mean )

Now that I think of it, I noticed the Westinghouse L2410NM in your list and on newegg. I think I could comfortably afford that price. I have yet to really examine that model, however. Do you guys know if it has a lot of input lag? I know there's some input lag on this 215TW, and it is acceptable to me (doesn't impact my game at all), so I wonder if it is comparable to or better than mine. I don't think I'll consider the H-IPS, now. I agree that it wouldn't be worth it for me to purchase that. I suppose I could go the safe route and purchase the L227WTG, see if it is perfect for me first, and then return it to BB if it isn't, unless that Westinghouse model is perfect enough to just buy it off of Newegg.

It probably has less input lag than your 215TW if anything. I don't really know that much about the Westinghouse model myself but I assume 10e can tell you anything you want to know.

I went searching your thread here and found some posts where he was talking about it, and I decided that its best to go with the L227WTG at Best Buy. That Westinghouse looks like it could fit the bill, but I'm more sure of the LG because I have seen it in person. Plus, it would be easier to return that one if I didn't like it than if I bought the Westinghouse on Newegg and didn't like it . Plus, I'll be doing much more gaming on it than movie watching, so it would make sense to go with the LG. Some told me that it is very crisp, clear with text and I probably read text more than all of those combined. I suppose I better go buy it now, though, because a massive winter storm is bearing down on me :Q. If the counties in the southwest corner of the state have blizzard warnings out now, well I better not waste time going to Best Buy! Thanks for the assistance.

 

[Oppear]

Originally posted by: xtknight
I think 22" is the sweet spot; it's as big as many people would like their monitor.

The Eizo is certainly a good choice if that's what you want. Keep in mind the lower 22" Eizo model (S2201W) is a TN. It's probably going to be very hard to find a high quality IPS panel, anyway.

Disadvantages..well the VA has more color shift than an IPS. It would reveal more dark detail but again the color shift can be a little annoying. Please read the OP.

I think you'd be happy with the Eizo though despite color shift. It should have great color accuracy and contrast, and probably decent response time.

Thanks for the advice.

Actually, I have grown a bit with my decision. I believe there is no reason for me to go with the 22", since it hasn't got a good edge over the 17". My 17" has 1024 pixs vertically.
It would mean that even if I go larger, 22" or 19", which are the same height, there would only be a zoom effect from my 17", nothing more.
The 24" gives me another 180 pixels vertically, thus more information on photos and internet browsing. The width doesn't play as significant role here and to think about it, the 22" is actually a 19" and "wide" being better only in few applications, like movies and multiple browsing,games.
Oh and I almost forgot, 24" is tomorrows standard.
(Yes there are maybe some 1920x1200 22" screens, but are they any good?)

Just my 2 cents for others in this thread.

Edit. I was in a comp.hardware shop today and on the stand there were the screens, one was a 19", facing directly at me, and the other 22" screen to the left, but positioned in a ~20 degree angle, thus not looking as wide as it is. They seem'd exactly the same size. Would have felt weard buying essentially a 19" in disguise.

 

[cheap]

Well my 21" Trinitron got so fuzzy I couldn't read text comfortably any more so I drove to the only BB in my area that still had couple LG 22" L227WTG in stock and got myself one. So far I'm pretty satisfied. Looks sharp and clear. No dead or stuck pixels that I can see. Most of the time text looks just as good as a new Trinitron monitor. Sometimes when the text is really small and it doesn't quite fully match any pixels on the screen (my guess) then the text will appear grey or fuzzy instead of sharp black. I think that can be fixed by playing around with sharpness slider but I haven't tried it yet, it's a pretty rare occurance to have a really small text on web sites, usually disclamers and stuff.

It looks good out of the box to me, the only thing I did was turn down brightness to 80 but I think on sunny days when a lot of sunlight gets through my blinders I'm going to have to set up a day profile with 100% brightness and a night profile with 70-80% brightness. Does anyone know a web site where they list best values to get the best calibrated picture out of it? Or where you can run tests yourself to get the values?

The only thing I was dissapointed about is that it doesn't do 75hz refresh rate at native resolution. It does 75hz at every other resolution but native. Bummer since at native resolution where it looks best it's going to limit games to 60 frames per second.

Thanx to xtknight and others on this board for tirelessly helping people out and keeping the list up to date. Saved me a lot of time and head ache.

 

[patrickj]

Can anyone using the HP 2065 comment on how it looks if you don't run it at the native resolution of 1600x1200? I like size and price and that the screen should be s-ips. I'm just concerned that 1600x1200 might be a bit small to read and that the display will look crappy at anything other than the native resolution.

Thanks.

 

[pilafi]

VX2435wm problem: 3 stuck sub-pixels appeared. One hot green one on Monday, and two dead red ones yesterday. It didn't have any before and I only have it for 20 days or so. I need one more, according to Viewsonic, to send it back for replacement. I always thought stuck pixels are a manufacturing defect and they're there from the beginning. How is it possible for a monitor to develop stuck pixels during use?

EDIT: Well, it seems there's another dead sub-pixel, a blue one.

 

[cheap]

One more thing, this 22" LG screen is amazing at upscaling lower resolution to native. Quickly firing up an older game like Quake2 for couple of minutes running at 1024x768 upscaled to 1680x1050 l didn't notice any problems. Image might've been slightly stretched sideways, but it wasn't apparent to me since I haven't played it in a while. I didn't notice any bad pixelation or artifacts. When viewing text though you can tell you're not in native resolution. I thought not having 1:1 resolution would be a problem in older games that don't support this panels native resolution, but it's not a problem at all.

EDIT: The only thing I'm thinking is that running games in non native resolution might add input lag since the screen has to spend some time to rescale it but I'm not sure.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: OmegaShadow
I'm about to upgrade my 15inch to a 22inch lcd.

what are some things that i should look for in a good gaming lcd monitor?

high ratio? 2000:1 or higher
low response? 5ms or lower


those are like the only two that i know so far, can anyone else give me some more info?

I recommend you read the OP as a primer. Unless you think that you have a specific need though I would just follow the gaming LCDs recommended in the OP. The L227WT is the best gaming choice at 22" right now. Other 22"s (all TNs anyway) are decent but not quite as fast.

Originally posted by: ericinho
4:3 vs. widescreen 16:10

Is there actually an advantage of a widescreen compaired to a 4:3 ratio screen, besides the fact that the wide screen is ofcourse ehm, wider ;-)

An 21" 4:3 has 1600x1200 native resolution, while a 21" WS has 1680x1050...
does this have any advantages or disadvantages in dotpitch for example?
Or does a non-wide screen has less trouble with color/gamma shifting?

Thanks!

There's not really a difference when it comes to gamma shift.

Dot pitch has nothing to do with aspect ratio, but a bigger dot pitch will give you bigger fonts.

Originally posted by: coreyb
I'm looking for either a 22" or 24" glossy screen monitor that will be used mostly for gaming. Any help is appreciated.

Please take a look at the OP.

Originally posted by: Oppear
Thanks for the advice.

Actually, I have grown a bit with my decision. I believe there is no reason for me to go with the 22", since it hasn't got a good edge over the 17". My 17" has 1024 pixs vertically.
It would mean that even if I go larger, 22" or 19", which are the same height, there would only be a zoom effect from my 17", nothing more.
The 24" gives me another 180 pixels vertically, thus more information on photos and internet browsing. The width doesn't play as significant role here and to think about it, the 22" is actually a 19" and "wide" being better only in few applications, like movies and multiple browsing,games.
Oh and I almost forgot, 24" is tomorrows standard.
(Yes there are maybe some 1920x1200 22" screens, but are they any good?)

Just my 2 cents for others in this thread.

Edit. I was in a comp.hardware shop today and on the stand there were the screens, one was a 19", facing directly at me, and the other 22" screen to the left, but positioned in a ~20 degree angle, thus not looking as wide as it is. They seem'd exactly the same size. Would have felt weard buying essentially a 19" in disguise.

It's actually surprising that a 24" only has a couple hundred pixels vertically on a 17".

Originally posted by: cheap
Well my 21" Trinitron got so fuzzy I couldn't read text comfortably any more so I drove to the only BB in my area that still had couple LG 22" L227WTG in stock and got myself one. So far I'm pretty satisfied. Looks sharp and clear. No dead or stuck pixels that I can see. Most of the time text looks just as good as a new Trinitron monitor. Sometimes when the text is really small and it doesn't quite fully match any pixels on the screen (my guess) then the text will appear grey or fuzzy instead of sharp black. I think that can be fixed by playing around with sharpness slider but I haven't tried it yet, it's a pretty rare occurance to have a really small text on web sites, usually disclamers and stuff.

It looks good out of the box to me, the only thing I did was turn down brightness to 80 but I think on sunny days when a lot of sunlight gets through my blinders I'm going to have to set up a day profile with 100% brightness and a night profile with 70-80% brightness. Does anyone know a web site where they list best values to get the best calibrated picture out of it? Or where you can run tests yourself to get the values?

The only thing I was dissapointed about is that it doesn't do 75hz refresh rate at native resolution. It does 75hz at every other resolution but native. Bummer since at native resolution where it looks best it's going to limit games to 60 frames per second.

Thanx to xtknight and others on this board for tirelessly helping people out and keeping the list up to date. Saved me a lot of time and head ache.

Calibration varies a lot per monitor; you may see it beneficial to get a colorimeter, which I describe in the OP.

Originally posted by: patrickj
Can anyone using the HP 2065 comment on how it looks if you don't run it at the native resolution of 1600x1200? I like size and price and that the screen should be s-ips. I'm just concerned that 1600x1200 might be a bit small to read and that the display will look crappy at anything other than the native resolution.

Thanks.

PRAD covers it briefly here: http://prad.de/en/monitore/review-hp-lp2065-part12.html

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: pilafi
VX2435wm problem: 3 stuck sub-pixels appeared. One hot green one on Monday, and two dead red ones yesterday. It didn't have any before and I only have it for 20 days or so. I need one more, according to Viewsonic, to send it back for replacement. I always thought stuck pixels are a manufacturing defect and they're there from the beginning. How is it possible for a monitor to develop stuck pixels during use?

EDIT: Well, it seems there's another dead sub-pixel, a blue one.

I don't really know how they appear during use. Probably similar to burn-in where one pixel could get stuck in a certain position. Either that or pressure causing the liquid crystal solution to somehow redistribute, if that's even possible.

Originally posted by: cheap
One more thing, this 22" LG screen is amazing at upscaling lower resolution to native. Quickly firing up an older game like Quake2 for couple of minutes running at 1024x768 upscaled to 1680x1050 l didn't notice any problems. Image might've been slightly stretched sideways, but it wasn't apparent to me since I haven't played it in a while. I didn't notice any bad pixelation or artifacts. When viewing text though you can tell you're not in native resolution. I thought not having 1:1 resolution would be a problem in older games that don't support this panels native resolution, but it's not a problem at all.

EDIT: The only thing I'm thinking is that running games in non native resolution might add input lag since the screen has to spend some time to rescale it but I'm not sure.

You can be sure it won't add input lag by using your graphics card to scale. ( Assuming the graphics card doesn't add lag; I don't think so )

How does Quake2 look on your Trinitron compared to the LG though? Which one do you prefer? I'm very familiar with that game and it always looked better on CRTs to my eyes, with all the dark colors and low bit depth textures.

 

[cheap]

Originally posted by: xtknight

You can be sure it won't add input lag by using your graphics card to scale. ( Assuming the graphics card doesn't add lag; I don't think so )

How does Quake2 look on your Trinitron compared to the LG though? Which one do you prefer? I'm very familiar with that game and it always looked better on CRTs to my eyes, with all the dark colors and low bit depth textures.

Scaling would be done through the monitor itself. Graphics card feeds it an image of 1024x768 and in turn the monitor has to break it down, add more pixels, and map it onto a grid of 1680x1050. In TVs they call it upconversion.

It's been a while since I played games, more than a year "sober" if you will (yeah, it was that bad, didn't get out of a seat for 9 years), so I kind of forgot how good they're supposed to look on Trinitron. Just quickly running through a level I didn't notice anything odd, looked just as good to me but I can't be sure that this point. I can tell you though that blacks really look black on this LCD during daylight. Like if I go to shacknews they have a black background at top left corner and at 2 feet viewing distance it's indestinguishable from the black biezel around the screen. At night I don't know, it might be a bit brighter, I haven't spent much time on it yet. I will take some comparison shots later at night because right now you can see reflections if I snap a picture. Even then, it's not going to be a fair comparison because my 21" Trinitron is burned out, it's fuzzy and a bit washed out at this point. A common problem with Trinitrons. But say a brand new Trinitron vs This LCD I would definitely pick the Trinitron. It's not going to look worse in games and you will have the benefit of high frame rate. It's just that now days it's really hard to get your hands on a used Trinitron monitor that's not half way burned out.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: cheap
Scaling would be done through the monitor itself. Graphics card feeds it an image of 1024x768 and in turn the monitor has to break it down, add more pixels, and map it onto a grid of 1680x1050. In TVs they call it upconversion.

Actually, the graphics card also has this capability. The graphics card processes the 1024x768 image on the front-end and sends it as native resolution on the back-end after performing the processing.

It depends on what you tell your drivers to do.

It's been a while since I played games, more than a year "sober" if you will (yeah, it was that bad, didn't get out of a seat for 9 years), so I kind of forgot how good they're supposed to look on Trinitron. Just quickly running through a level I didn't notice anything odd, looked just as good to me but I can't be sure that this point. I can tell you though that blacks really look black on this LCD during daylight. Like if I go to shacknews they have a black background at top left corner and at 2 feet viewing distance it's indestinguishable from the black biezel around the screen. At night I don't know, it might be a bit brighter, I haven't spent much time on it yet. I will take some comparison shots later at night because right now you can see reflections if I snap a picture. Even then, it's not going to be a fair comparison because my 21" Trinitron is burned out, it's fuzzy and a bit washed out at this point. A common problem with Trinitrons. But say a brand new Trinitron vs This LCD I would definitely pick the Trinitron. It's not going to look worse in games and you will have the benefit of high frame rate. It's just that now days it's really hard to get your hands on a used Trinitron monitor that's not half way burned out.

Glad you're happy with it, though. TNs do have a pretty good black level these days.

 

[cheap]

Well, I took a few pics at night with and without flash. They're not the best but I gotta sleep, then work early in the morning and don't have much time to perfect them. First set of pics I tried to show black level on lcd but ended up with a white glow in the actual picture so it looks like backlight bleeding. There is absolutely no back light bleeding and LCD shows perfect black and white as far as I can tell. Any white on black you see in the pictures is the camera problem at night, not lcd.

Then I showed a couple of ingame shots split between the two screens. Then a couple of pictures with flash enabled, and the final pic is a full screen in game shot on LCD running at 1024x768.

This LCD screen is really good but if anything it just shows how badly burned out my Trinitron is. It's 7 years old at this point and has been refurbished once already. I set brightness all the way down and it was still too washed out. Contrast had to be near 100 otherwise it would look really bad. On LCD I had brightness at 20, contrast at 73, gamma at 0, sharpness at 7.

To get a fair comparison I need to get my hands on a lightly used Trinitron CRT which is pretty much impossible now days.

Pics

In the end though this LCD is pretty good and fast for games. Desktop use is ok, you see the color shifts at different viewing angles since it's a TN panel, but I can live with that until they make other panels faster and more suitable for gaming.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: cheap
Well, I took a few pics at night with and without flash. They're not the best but I gotta sleep, then work early in the morning and don't have much time to perfect them. First set of pics I tried to show black level on lcd but ended up with a white glow in the actual picture so it looks like backlight bleeding. There is absolutely no back light bleeding and LCD shows perfect black and white as far as I can tell. Any white on black you see in the pictures is the camera problem at night, not lcd.

Then I showed a couple of ingame shots split between the two screens. Then a couple of pictures with flash enabled, and the final pic is a full screen in game shot on LCD running at 1024x768.

This LCD screen is really good but if anything it just shows how badly burned out my Trinitron is. It's 7 years old at this point and has been refurbished once already. I set brightness all the way down and it was still too washed out. Contrast had to be near 100 otherwise it would look really bad. On LCD I had brightness at 20, contrast at 73, gamma at 0, sharpness at 7.

To get a fair comparison I need to get my hands on a lightly used Trinitron CRT which is pretty much impossible now days.

Pics

In the end though this LCD is pretty good and fast for games. Desktop use is ok, you see the color shifts at different viewing angles since it's a TN panel, but I can live with that until they make other panels faster and more suitable for gaming.

That looks pretty good (having the flash off sure makes the CRT look like a dirty window). The black level on the LCD is a tad higher I'm sure, it's just that it's so low you don't notice it. The camera is ultra sensitive to light so it would capture anything that seeped through. When people capture their LCD with backlight bleeding, it's like a picture of light blue, when the exposure is high enough.

It's very interesting you're happy with a TN coming from a Trinitron. Most people with Trinitrons would never dream they would like a TN because of the color shift but they really are the best for gaming and at least you gave it a try. Black level on modern TNs is 0.15-0.25 now when it used to be 0.25-0.40 nits.

I assume you don't notice any input lag. The L227 is supposed to have 0.

 

[Tasiin]

Originally posted by: cheap
...

This LCD screen is really good but if anything it just shows how badly burned out my Trinitron is. It's 7 years old at this point and has been refurbished once already. I set brightness all the way down and it was still too washed out. Contrast had to be near 100 otherwise it would look really bad. On LCD I had brightness at 20, contrast at 73, gamma at 0, sharpness at 7.

Your CRT hasn't actually "burned out". The later generations of Trinitrons have a firmware issue that causes them to become overly bright as they age. In some cases, it seems to be hastened by using the "color return" function that's in the on-screen menu on a few models. Since yours already seems to be pretty far along though, you may want to try using that anyhow as it may temporarily fix the problem.

It can be permanently fixed if you don't plan on simply junking your CRT and replacing it with the LG, but it does involve a bit of effort (though it's easy if you have an HP P1110, but that looks like a Dell to me in your pictures). There's a long thread about it here. Most people report that their monitors are back to being nearly as good as new after using Windas.

I'm somewhat disappointed to hear that the L227WTG can't do 75Hz at native -- if I had to buy a TN, I think I'd want one that could do that. Maybe the LG W2252TQ that no one seems to know much about yet can? Probably a long shot, though.

 

[xtknight]

Tasiin: You were the one having trouble finding an LCD right (LP2065/2007WFP yellow tint/AG coating dilemma, etc.)? How is this going?

 

[Squidmaster]

Is there a reason that the Dell 2408WFP only shows up in one category on the front page monitor listings? I'm considering it as a multipurpose gaming/light graphic design monitor along with the DoubleSight DS-263N and I'm not sure which way to go. If the Doublesight really is that much better, $100 difference isn't much to ask in the long term.

Any thoughts?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Squidmaster
Is there a reason that the Dell 2408WFP only shows up in one category on the front page monitor listings? I'm considering it as a multipurpose gaming/light graphic design monitor along with the DoubleSight DS-263N and I'm not sure which way to go. If the Doublesight really is that much better, $100 difference isn't much to ask in the long term.

Any thoughts?

I'm sure many a happy 2408WFP would disagree, but I think the DS-263N is worth $100 more easily due to the S-IPS panel. Color shift can get annoying. It's not so much a problem for text/web browsing/gaming, but for image editing IPS is the way to go given the choice.

If you're editing sRGB photos don't forget to use a color profile with the DoubleSight for gamut conversion (wide gamut monitor->sRGB photo). The ICM on the CD should be sufficient for this.

The 2408WFP is in Office Work and Print Work now, but I should probably add it to Multimedia as well.

 

[redlinez33]

Color shift can get annoying. It's not so much a problem for text/web browsing/gaming,

Am i the only one that easily notices the color shifting in games and is VERY annoyed by it? IMO picture quality in games is important, and the color shifting is very noticeable in dark scenes...........


For the post above. I have had both. The doublesight I have is far superior than the Dell... No black crush, no color shifting, no noticeable input lag are just some reasons why the Doublesight is superior to the Dell, oh ya, and its 1.5" bigger!

 

[Tasiin]

Yes, that's me unfortunately.

Since I don't think any of the IPS screens I've tried will cut it due to various issues (grainy or overly reflective coating, flickering, etc.), I've been thinking I might try a more modern TN now that I'm not aiming to completely replace my CRT with it. Funnily enough, out of all of the IPS panels I've tried I think the NEC 20WMGX2 might've been the best, and that's saying something considering how much I hate glossy screens.

I really have no idea what to expect from a TN. I know they're generally disliked, but I'm not sure whether their shortcomings would be an issue for a display that will only be used for the desktop and maybe for some games where the low framerates and ghosting aren't too annoying. I'd really like to get one that can support at least 75Hz at the native resolution, but it seems to be very hard to find information about which models can do that. The only one that's confirmed to be able to do it (that I know of) is the Samsung 226BW, but that's a panel lottery with four different panels of varying quality. I think I'll pass.

I was somewhat interested in the L227WT after finding out it had nearly no input lag, but the fact that only the glossy version is available in the US and the possible lack of 75Hz have killed that for me. Have you heard anything about when Samsung's new models (the T220P and others) that were seen at CeBIT might be released?

 

[cheap]

Originally posted by: xtknight

It's very interesting you're happy with a TN coming from a Trinitron. Most people with Trinitrons would never dream they would like a TN because of the color shift but they really are the best for gaming and at least you gave it a try. Black level on modern TNs is 0.15-0.25 now when it used to be 0.25-0.40 nits.

I assume you don't notice any input lag. The L227 is supposed to have 0.

I don't really have a choice at this point, I've been putting off switching to LCD for as long as I could. Of course if they had S-IPS panels that are just as fast as TNs I wouldn't mind paying more for better viewing angles. I've never used an LCD before so not sure how input lag feels but just quickly running through couple of single player levels I didn't notice any sluggish controls. Mouse and movement felt smooth and instantanious. Once in a while though my mouse started to freeze for couple of seconds but I think it's my trusty old MX510 going bad on me.

Ultimate combo though would be a 24" widescreen trinitron for games and then a good S-IPS for desktop/web and run them side by side. Pretty much the only place you can get such a trinitron is off ebay at this point and I don't want to take a chance and shell out $300 and get one that's washed out.

Tasiin: That's interesting, I will check that thread out but I'm sure like you said it's too late for this monitor, the tube itself is ruined. Back when Sony was about to discontinue tube monitors in 2000 something, I bought their 19" AHM 440 monitor I think for $400. It only had one year warranty and sure enough right after one year ran out it started to go fuzzy on me and get brighter. I used it like this for like another year until it got so bad I couldn't read text any more it was so fuzzy so I took it to a technician. He said the electron gun wasn't calibrated probably, it was too intense and overtime burned the screen out. He said if I took it to him right away he might've been able to save it but at that point the whole tube needed to be replaced. So I'm guessing same thing happened to this one too. It's very possible that firmware controls the gun and some bug in it ends up ruining the screens.

 

[cheap]

Tasiin: This LG monitor doesn't seem to have any ghosting. It doesn't allow me to switch it to 75hz at native resolution even when I try to force it it still remains at 60. Any other resolution it can do 75hz but of course that's not as good. I'm not a heavy gamer at the moment, finally got it under control, but I'd still like to get through all Half Life 2 with all addons, far cry, and a bunch of other great games I never got to sometime this year. So for casual gaming I think it will have to suit me for now and hopefully in couple of years they will have much better and faster panels for desktop and game use. Also this monitor doesn't have adjustable height, it can rotate and tilt up, but not go up and down or tilt down. Since it's a TN panel that means you have to adjust your seat (if you have a high desk) to make sure your eyes are positioned accross the middle of the screen, otherwise if you're at the very bottom of the screen you will see color change at the very top of the screen. So not having a fully adjustable stand is kind of a minus for a TN panel because it's very important to look at the middle of this screen at 90 degree angle.