Anyone bought a 19" LCD DVI monitor lately?

I am looking at buying myself a 19" LCD DVI monitor.

When I bought a whole new PC last year this time, I elected to give LCD monitors a chance to come down in price, and held onto my 17" Samsung SyncMaster 750s CRT.

Well, that year is now past and the prices have indeed dropped from $700 to around $350-$450 and up.

My hope is for:

1. 19 inches (1280X1024 pixels) screen size so I can see my pictures really well.
2. DVI input ( I see zero sense in an analog VGA signal to an inherently digital display..it MUST be worse)
3. 8ms rise time (so the images will not smear/ghost if I run a DVD)
4. 700:1 or higher contrast ratio, so that black will really be black ( I hope)
5. 300 CD/m^2 brightness ( though the photography buffs say that is too high...I'd have to see)
6. SWIVEL mode, by which the screen can be rotated to be in portrait mode

I found all of these specs in one product at a decent price: The Hyundai L90D+ at about $415-$475. So I went to see the good folks at the computer shop today. They had 9 returns....dead pixels. They advised me not to buy it.

They had nothing else that swiveled in that price range!!

They also said that no-one ever asks for swivel features! Great, so I am the only nut that will rotate his screen to see a picture in portrait orientation!? More than that, I want to see THE ENTIRE PAGE of a letter sized or A4 document at readable size on my screen. I have to stare at patents all day, and I desperately want to see the entire page all in one shot, as though I have the actual document in front of me.

Is that such a weird expectation?

Their best proposition for me is the Acer 1916ASD, which has all of the specs above, except the Swivel feature and comes in at about $375-$391.

So, to my questions:

Has anyone recently bought an LCD Monitor and happens to know which ones can swivel?
Do I stay with my 17"CRT. I don't wantto spend money on an already redundant 19"CRT?
Do I forego the Swivel function and buy a regular 19" LCD and keep struggling with the mouse to read a page?

Hmm, I am not a techie at all so I don't know much about all those listed criteria. I initialily thought you meant swivelling the whole monitor when you referred to the swivel feature.

However I did notice today a 20" LCD for just under $300 at SuperStore. It might be worth looking at.

I do indeed mean swiveling the entire monitor! One gets a software package that then turns the whole image through 90 degree as well for stuff like MS-Word.

I'll check out the Superstore. Thanks!

Morning Harry. Been a long time since being on SACANADA.

I have a Dell 19inch LCD monitor. It is pretty amazing. It does the swivel thing if I understand you correctly. Hope the pic comes out clearly enough. Swivels physically too.

Had no problems since getting it about 4 months ago.

Running it with both DVi and Analogue. Analogue connected to work laptop so I can change between my home pc and work.

Cant tell you much about the contrast ratio or rise time but I get very clear pictures when watching dvd's.

Running at 1280x1024, max resolution for it.

Hope that helps

Simon

Chubs,

do you have a model number?

Yes I do.

1905FP.

Simon

Harry

The Dell 1905FP has got a boetie with even better performance - the 1905 FPT. However, I agree with Chubs that Dell makes great monitors. I have the 17 inch version of the FPT, and it is brilliant.

Pierre K.

Harry
I have a 19" Dell at the office that can do the swivel thing. Unfortunatly I never really looked at the model number and will only be back at the office on the 25th. Being in building management it's great to be able pull up a graphic of the building systems for a specific building without having to split the pages. I can get all the basic info for a 12 storey building on one screen if I rotate the image (landscape<--->portrate) and then rotate the screen.

For me though the best feature is the two USB ports on the left side of the monitor. Plug and play without having to go faffing around the CPU inside the cupboard under the desk.

Folks, thanks for that!

I had somehow not picked up on the Dell option. They come in quite cheaply at about $225 ( as an add-on...I have to find out how much as a separate purchase.)

HOWEVER, the Dell monitors have specification problems: They are really VERY slow. So, if you watch a DVD on it, it will smear in my opinion. Maybe one of you will know.

The Samsung 940B type, which seems to be the default purchase roundabout now at $415, is two-and-a-half times faster. Also they have a much larger angle of view at 170 degrees.....BUT...no swivel. The lowest priced 8 millisecond monitor I can find that has swivel, is the Viewsonic VP930B at $560!! The price is that high because its contrast in 1000:1. So black is really black!...and overkill, really!

Seems I just cannot win! Very frustrating! Maybe I should wait yet another year! Ai tog.

--------------------------------------Viewsonic----Dell FP1905FP

Horizontal View Angle (degrees)-----170-----85

Vertical View Angle (degrees)-------- 170-----85

Pixel Response Time (milliseconds)----- 8-----20

Question: Has anyone of you run a DVD on that Dell FP1905FP(T). I cannot get information on the "T" version. Maybe it is 8ms or, at worst, 12ms. That might be ok for DVDs.

Hi Harry

Just watched the final battle scene of Return of the King. The picture was pretty good but I certainly would rather watch it on my plasma screen. I think your eye for picture detail is better than mine, but I can say the picture certainly was good enough to watch.

Simon

OKAY!! So here she is!

Today I finally roared off down the road to Anitec in Vancouver City. I had tracked down a LG1980U 19" pivotable LCD.

The panel has a DVI-I input, so there is no conversion from digital to analog and back to digital, as with a so-called "VGA" LCD. This is a 12 millisecond rise time machine.

When I got to the shop I told them what I wanted. They had a huge stack of these. It turns out that it comes with a DVI cable (usually sold separately for about $16-20) and PivotPro Software (typically sold for around $26 by others). I went there, ready to pay them the $439 they were advertising, but they surprised me by dropping the price to $399 at that point! ( "You velly lucky! Today we make Clismass Sale") This made it by far the best buy of any that I had researched, keeping in mind that I'm not an insane geeky gamer. I just want to see DVDs run correctly on the thing.

I rushed home with this lot and spent the afternoon coming to grips with it. The thing has only 250 Cd/m^2 brightness and a contrast of 500:1. The more recent ones have 400Cd/m^2, 800:1 ratio and 4or 8ms rise time. I clearly don't need that. This one has way more than enough contrast for anything to do with photos and it CERTAINLy is bright enough...I had to turn it down. I have not yet noticed anything that is affected by the rise time.

I struggled at first to get my PC to recognise the new display, but rebooting eventually sorted that out after an hour of pointless frustration with two mixed and confused monitors.

When I displayed the full-sized originals of some of the photos I have posted recently on SACanada, it was staggering...one could drown in the picture!! Beautiful experience! However, I can now also see where I messed up some earlier pictures by making them too "sharp" so they would look better on the lousy old monitor!. With this display one can see the "sharpening" very clearly.

I then installed the PivotPro software. This automatically rotates the information that is being displayed when the the screen is "pivoted". This is simply unbelievable....fantastic!! I now have the width of my old 17"CRT, but enough height to see a proper-sized A4 page (used for patents even in the USA). you ave no idea how much that improves my professional life. I read thousands of printed pages like that a week for a living.

I thought I'd share an image of SACanada on the rotated screen:



Yes, I in fact have one unhealthy sub-pixel, but one cannot really see it. I don't think it is worth swapping it around even though I paid $12 more for the right to swap it for a perfect one.