Topic Title

My office is thinking of purchasing a few 19" LCD monitors and I was curious how if they are good for CAD (we still use DCAD v. 9). One of my co-workers has one at home and he says whenever he scrolls things are jagged until he stops scrolling and then things come back into focus. This sounds like a graphics card problem or a settings issue. But I thought I would ask people who would know more before I make a recomendation to my bosses. Thanks.

Hi Michael & welcome!

I use a pair of LCD's for DataCAD, and they are great! LCD monitors need to be used at their "native" resolution -- which is the maximum resolution they have. If you use a lower resolution, then things have to be approximated, and this makes things much fuzzier and jaggier.

Another point to consider, is the video card: analog (RGB) outputs are going to be quite varied in quality. So, the image quality also depends on the video card.

In an ideal world, you would also get video cards that have DVI (digital) output(s) and you get LCD monitors with DVI inputs, and then both the RGB analog issue and the native resolution issue are both solved at once.

Some of the pros of LCD's:

truely flat screens with greatly reduced amounts of glare and no flicker
excellent geometric accuracy (since CRT's have to bend the electron stream from a single "point" to a (sort of) flat surface)
low power use, and small footprint on your desk

Some of the cons:
more expensive, though their costs are much less than they used to be, and you also need to realize that a 17" LCD is equivalent to a 18" CRT, and a 19" LCD is equivalent to a 20-21" CRT.
they don't have as fast a response time as CRT's -- but this is mostly an issue for gaming. With a reasonably fast LCD, CADD work is fine.

There are three models I would suggest that you look at:
ViewSonic VP171b
ViewSonic VP191b
NuTech L921G
This last one was on sale at NewEgg for only $345 shipped, but they are apparently out of stock; not surprisingly. I would suggest reading the AnandTech article -- you'll learn a lot from it!


Also, see my dual monitors thread.

Anybody have any comments on a
DELL
UltraSharp 1905FP 19-inch Flat Panel Monitor

Thanks

I'm using 2 of them and have been happy with them. The reasons I chose Dell:
1) no hassle return policy - A lot of the online site (Newegg, etc) state that returns will only be offered for 8 or more dead pixels. If I am spending this kind of money, than *1* is too many dead pixels
2) The Dells have 4 usb ports built into their monitors, its a nice feature.

Just be aware if you are going from a 19" CRT you are probably using it at 1600x1200 resolution (or somewhere close to that). Most 19" LCDs are 1280 x 1200.

Dell also makes a nice wide screen monitor 2005fpw which is 1680 x 1050. ( good for watching DVD's) It sells for $750

Always watch for discounts with Dells, seems they are always runnig a special, you might check out www.fatwallet.com for online coupons

I'm confused, you mention that:

Just be aware if you are going from a 19" CRT you are probably using it at 1600x1200 resolution (or somewhere close to that). Most 19" LCDs are 1280 x 1200.


But this monitor on Dell website states a max. resolution of 1280 x 1024.

my bad

1280 x 1024 is the correct resolution for the Dell (and most other 19" LCD monitors)

LCD is the way to go, especially if your like me and can see the "flicker" in most monitors...especially the really big ones. You really have to physically go and look at any LCD monitor your thinkinbg about; and make sure thet the graphics card is optimized for that card. Many cards have to down-shift performance with LCD monitors, when I bought my Gateway they insisted on balancing my LCD and the graphics card perfomance specs.

I've gotten a lot of work done on my 15" LCD over the years at 1000x800 without problems...other than having to zoom-in more....since the image is dead-steady and even. I also have a specific set of bifocals that are ground for the upper-lens distance to my LCD screen, and the lower to my desk and keyboard.

Some day I'll get a bigger screen.... Cha-Ching!!

Good morning, this is a question concerning a 20.1" lcd. I'm pretty serious about buying a pair of these monitors. I'm leaning towards the viewsonic. As I wait and track the costs, and attempt to make a decision, I'm saving tons of dough, but it's time to make the choice between a viewsonic, a princeton, and a planar. I',m familiar with the viiewsonic but have never heard of the other two. Neil's advice has been invaluable, as usual, to get me this far, but I was wondering if anyone owns any of these monitors and what they think of them. They're all 20.1" and have pretty much the same specs and the cost ranges from 609 for the planar to 659 to the viewsonic. Any thoughts would be helpful.
Steve

Hi Steve:

When getting two LCD's, the width of the bezel is an important criteria: if the ViewSonics have the narrowest bezels, then I'd buy them! My 17" ViewSonic VP171b have only 5/8" from the image to the edge of the bezel, so the "center bar" is minimized to ~1.25".

We are in the process of upgrading a number of systems in our office. We've settled on two options: a pair of 17" LCDs or a single 20" horizontal aspect LCD. Both configurations are from Dell and have different requirements for graphics cards. The dual 17" setup uses two UltraSharp 1704FPTs driven by an nVidia Quadro FX 1400 (128MB, dual DVI). The single 20" uses an UltraSharp 2005FPT driven by ATI FireGL V3100 (128MB, single DVI). I strongly recommend the UltrSharp series of LCDs from Dell rather than their lower cost alternatives. I would also urge anyone exploring LCDs to avoid "cheaping out" by driving the monitor(s) with VGA output - DVI makes a big difference.

The 2005FPT LCD has a viewable area of 17 1/4" x 10 1/2" running at 1680 x 1050. It is good for people who are primarily running DataCAD and like to have multiple drawing files open. The dual 17" LCD setup (2 x 1280 x 1024) is prefered by people who tend to run multiple applications. The bezel problem with dual monitors bothers some people more than others.

Mostly because of the graphics card requirements, the dual 17" configuration costs about $200 more than the single 20" wide screen.

Hope this helps.

Greetings,

Here's my current favorite LCD monitor; the Samsung 204T:

The prices of LCD monitors have continued to drop, and there is one in particular that I want to recommend, if you are thinking of buying one. It is a 20.1" 1600x1200 LCD with a DVI input as well as an RGB input, and it is very impressive: very bright (300cd/m2), high contrast (700:1), has fast response (16ms), has a narrow bezel, and the stand is fully adjustable (including height and portrait/landscape pivot) and sturdy, too. The power supply is contained inside the monitor, so you do not have a "lump" on the power cord.

You can buy it for $540 shipped from NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16824001194

Or, you can buy it for $530 shipped from ZipZoomFly:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=232396&ps=ho5

I'll have to bookmark this thread...

This spring will be getting a new monitor for at home and wanted to go flat screen. I want to make sure the price is right.

Thanks for all the great info.

I just bought a Samsung 903B,(has the same Spec as the 204) and am disappointed/frustrated with a couple of things. I can't adjust the aspect of the display and nothing in the manual addresses this. Also the Specs gave no pixel pitch info, and I now find it is .296, which I guess accounts for the graininess of the text in the display. (My previous monitors have been .25, CRTs).
Also I figured I might be victim of my older computer, which does not have DVI, thus I'm into analog display. I expect it will be better with digital, but the aspect thing is bothersome.
Having the screen area is great tho,(up from 17").
Incidentally, the 17" Samsung 703B specs shows it to have .264 pitch. I had assumed the same for the 903B, but discovered the .296 on another sellers site.

jasb

Hello James,

Here's my answer that I posted to DBUG:

Are you using it at the native resolution? If it is anything but the native (1600x1200), then this will result in a much fuzzier image! I don't think that the dot-pitch is going to be the culprit.

If you are reducing the resolution to something less than the native resolution for the purposes of making the icons/text larger, there is a much better way to do this: right-click on the desktop, select Properties/Appearance and select Large/Extra Large fonts. If that is still not enough, then click on the Advanced button and increase the size of things from there.

IHTH

Otherwise, yes the DVI input will give you a big improvement -- and a new video card with 128-256MB of RAM and a DVI output can cost you as little as $60-75, so I'd recommend it, too.

Added comment: the reason that any resolution lower than the native (maximum) resolution is worse on an LCD monitor, is that it essentially has to enlarge the pixels in the signal, so they are very approximate. It is kinda' like zooming in on a digital image: the the pixels "bloom" and they look pretty rough. Like I said, it is definitely best if you run it at the native resolution.

[Edit: is the 903B 19" or 20"? (Or, is it the 930B?) Samsung's typical naming means that it would be a 19" -- and that means that it would likely be 1280x1024 native resolution. This is a 5:4 aspect ratio; while most other monitor resolutions are 4:3. 1024x768, 1152x 864, 1280x960, 1600x1200 -- all these are 4:3. So this is another reason why you don't want to run it at less than it's native resolution -- it will "stretch" the image vertically if you run it at a 4:3 resolution. 5:4 is fine -- most 17" and 19" LCD's run this resolution.]

Tom's Hardware Store website has a great feature when looking at LCD monitors for comparison you can narrow down searches using several criteria filters simultaneously:

http://stores.tomshardware.com/search_a ... page_id=37


Prices have come down considerably since Neil's last post on this thread.