Good Deal?

[woodchip]

The link is for a 21\" ACER monitor. Since I lnow not a thing about flatscreen monitors and I will be buying one, let me know your thoughts:

http://tinyurl.com/5cmu3z

[Herculosis]

That looks like a good price for that monitor, but if it was me, I'd spend a little more and get a better one.

Check out the LG W2252TQ. We got one of these for someone in our office, then followed that with 3 more, and then 4 more after that.

Acer Spec:
300cd/m2 brightness
5ms response time
700:1 contrast ratio

LG Spec:
300 cd/m² brightness
2 ms response time
10,000:1 contrast ratio

I've been using one now for the past month or so, and its awesome. Best Buy's been running sales on them about every three weeks. I think we paid 269 for them (might have been 289).

jmo

[Krom]

Widescreen monitors deliver a cinematic experience by allowing you to see more images than you would on a standard screen of the same display size.

False, if you calculate the actual screen area a widescreen monitor has less viewing area than a standard 4 by 3 (and further less than a 5 by 4) monitor of the same diagonal measure. A 16:10 \"widescreen\" monitor with the same diagonal size as a 4:3 monitor has 6.8% less area. Widescreen itself is stretching the truth a bit, a widescreen monitor of the same diagonal is not wider than a fullscreen monitor, it is simply less tall.

Basically it works like this: you could invent an \"ultra widescreen 20\" diagonal monitor\". But nobody would really buy it because it measures 1 inch by 20 inches, even though it has a diagonal measure of 20.025\" its still nothing but a narrow strip with an area of 20 square inches. Compare to a standard 4:3 fullscreen monitor with a 20\" diagonal measure that equals 16\" by 12\" for an area of 192 square inches.

The diagonal measure should have been abolished when they started making \"widescreen\" monitors of different aspects.

[Herculosis]

... a widescreen monitor of the same diagonal is not wider than a fullscreen monitor, it is simply less tall.

That part's not correct. As a diagonal gets more horizonal, the width goes up. Conversely, the width goes down as the diagonal gets more vertical. Area is maximized at the 45 degree point. Even your own example with the "ultra-wide" vs. a 4:3 shows the width of the latter at only 16".

I totally agree about using the diagonal measurement convention though. It would be easier for everyone if they just gave width, height, and resolution.

[Testiculese]

The Acer's contrast is garbage. 700:1 is piss-poor by 2005 standards.

[Krom]

... a widescreen monitor of the same diagonal is not wider than a fullscreen monitor, it is simply less tall.

That part's not correct. As a diagonal gets more horizonal, the width goes up. Conversely, the width goes down as the diagonal gets more vertical. Area is maximized at the 45 degree point. Even your own example with the "ultra-wide" vs. a 4:3 shows the width of the latter at only 16".

I totally agree about using the diagonal measurement convention though. It would be easier for everyone if they just gave width, height, and resolution.

I could have done better there by saying "not much wider", but I think you missed the area part of my unrealistic example; the fullscreen monitor is only 16" wide, however it has nearly 10 times the surface area... It is a extreme example of how widescreen monitors lose more in height than they gain in width. (For reference a 20" diagonal 4:3 monitor would be 16"x12" and a 16:10 one would be 16.8"x10.5".) The "wider" they get, the more pronounced the difference becomes because of the diagonal measure standard.

Since they say a picture is worth a thousand words lets turn my example into one:

Each rectangle has a diagonal of roughly 200 units, but the top one has an area of 19,200 pixels, while the bottom one has is only 2000 pixels. Which shows why comparing them on diagonal (or any other single dimension) is completely useless.

Which is why it would be nice if monitor manufacturers would agree that diagonal measure alone is insufficient to distinguish between different monitors.

(And yes; that is the original Descent font.)

[Floyd]

\"wideness\": a²+b²=c² ; c=const. (diagonal), a is shrinking for b widening
screen area: a*b=A ; for the above widening of b, A shrinks, until the point when b->c, a->0 then A->0

[Herculosis]

...but I think you missed the area part of my unrealistic example...

Not at all. I was just nitpicking.