Monitors, what's good, what isn't?

[WhiteLotus]

Can someone please give me a quick rundown on what to look for in a monitor, i mean is wide screen usable these days?

in short is this (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145315) a good monitor to get?

[Drauk]

I just bought my first LCD (widescreen too) and I'm liking it, but the the quality wasn't the same like my 17" CRT, in other words, CRT quality is so much better. I'm enjoying playing Assassin's Creed, Crysis, RB6: Las Vegas on the widescreen. The one I got is 2053BW, don't know the difference with your's, you compare at samsung website.
You can check this out too: http://mattbrett.com/2006/01/widescreen-gaming-woes/

I should update my System specs when I get that chance, at work right now.

[WhiteLotus]

Intersting cheers bud.

Another question, does any one here go dual screen?

[EviLZeD]

looks like a decent monitor but it doesn't tell you if it supports dvi on that ebuyer page if it doesn't have dvi i wouldnt buy it. I just recently got a wide screen lcd and most of my games support it, if there is a game that i cant run in wide screen resolution i use nvidia drivers to fix the aspect ratio which you can probably do too with ati drivers

[Darknova]

The latest LCD screens are (depending on the panel) better, or on par with older day CRTs.

Widescreen is perfectly useable, even older games that will only run at 1280x1024 I can play happily on my 20.1" widescreen without it looking horrible.

And Samsung are one of the best makers of LCD panels :)

[WhiteLotus]

looks like a decent monitor but it doesnt tell you if it supports dvi on that ebuyer page if it doesnt have dvi i wouldnt buy it. I just recently got a wide screen lcd and most of my games support it, if there is a game that i cant run in wide screen resolution i use nvidia drivers to fix the aspect ratio which you can probably do too with ati drivers

why, whats wrong with no DVI?

[Darknova]

why, whats wrong with no DVI?

DVI gives a much better picture than VGA

[WhiteLotus]

DVI gives a much better picture than VGA

noticeable a lot or just a tiny bit?

[EviLZeD]

noticeable a lot or just a tiny bit?

i think for the price of that monitor it should have dvi its more sharper and its digital were as vga is analogue not only that vga is getting out of date there's already going to be a replacement for dvi which is display port?

[Darknova]

noticeable a lot or just a tiny bit?

Noticeable, it's a much sharper picture, and I find the colours are better too.

[WhiteLotus]

ah OK cool thanks.

[Black Panther]

Can someone please give me a quick rundown on what to look for in a monitor, i mean is wide screen usable these days?

in short is this (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145315) a good monitor to get?

What to look for in my opinion are ms, contrast ratio and viewing angle.

As regards panels, PVA panels are much better than TN panels, but then there's a jump in the price plus PVA are more common on 24" monitors and larger.

I have the monitor in my system specs, it's TN and 22".
To test the viewing angle put a purple/fuchsia background and sway your head side to side and up and down, you'll notice that with a TN panel the colour might change to blueish etc and that won't happen with a PVA panel. However I thought that reason wasn't important to justify the price increase in my case because I always look straight at the monitor while gaming/browsing!

I can say I'm happy with my LG. Your quoted choice is better in that its contrast is 8000:1 whereas mine is 5000:1. BUT check if that's with DFC (Digital Fine Contrast). Mine is 3000:1 normal and 5000:1 with DFC. The LG also has a 2ms response time.
On response times check if they're gray-to-gray or black-to-white. Normally monitors which quote a response time of 5ms or lower are always quoting gray-to-gray.

I think a monitor is one of the items which is best that you see working and test out. Normally I purchase my items from abroad because prices here are kinda phenomenal, but I didn't do that with my monitor.

One thing to look out for in an LCD monitor is it's black rendering. Take a demo of a game which is dark with you and see if it renders well or whether it shows purple or green shadows around the objects (ghosting). A simpler way to check for possible ghosting is to use the Windows Paint program, paint a large square and make it grey. Then inside paint a solid red smaller circle. Then select the whole thing, and move it around with the mouse. Check whether the red circle 'bleeds'.

[AsRock]

Samsung 204B and i'm happy with it. All though for my liking i have to turn the brightness all the way down.

The LCD with brightness all the way up takes 40w and 20 with brightness turned down.