I need a new monitor, and am interested in an LCD in the 22" - 25" range.

Any first hand wisdom on the best buys for price and performance in this category much appreciated.

Sandy King

Hi Sandy, I started a thread a while back on the same subject, have a look here for some comments http://www.hybridphoto.com/forums/showthread.php?t=198

Still haven't got round to replacing mine, a friend has coaxed some more life out of my existing monitor.

Apple just lowered the price of the fabulous 23" monitor. $899

I've had a 20inch Apple Cinema display for about a year now and it is amazing, would love the 23 and if I won lotto would get the 24inch iMac (the display on the new 24inch iMac is the best looking display I have ever seen)

I've had a 20inch Apple Cinema display for about a year now and it is amazing, would love the 23 and if I won lotto would get the 24inch iMac (the display on the new 24inch iMac is the best looking display I have ever seen)

I suppose these can only be used with Macs??
What about PCs? I'm in the same position as Sandy and plan to replace this year.
Tim

They will work on any computer with a DVI connector, which is now pretty common in Macs and PCs. I bought some of these for PCs at my office. They are very nice, and oh-so-sleek.


I suppose these can only be used with Macs??
What about PCs? I'm in the same position as Sandy and plan to replace this year.
Tim

They will work on any computer with a DVI connector, which is now pretty common in Macs and PCs. I bought some of these for PCs at my office. They are very nice, and oh-so-sleek.

Thanks Clay

At the current price the Apple 23" Cinema Display is the hands down winner. Take a look at Eizo's too but I don't think they have anything in that price range for that size.

I have a 23" Cinema Display that is now pushing 3 and also 3 Eizo's ... all are steller performers.

I gather from the responses so far that no one considers that any of the consumner type LCD monitors in the 22" - 24" range deserve any consideration? By that I mean the type of LCD monitors on would find at CompUSA or on ebay in the $350 - $600 range.

Sandy King

We bought two of these monitors for our Sun Workstations. They have this nifty rotating feature so you can see a display in portrait mode my rotating the monitor. They seem to be pretty nice.

http://review.zdnet.com/HP_LP2465/4505-3174_16-31919307.html?tag=pdtl-img



I gather from the responses so far that no one considers that any of the consumner type LCD monitors in the 22" - 24" range deserve any consideration? By that I mean the type of LCD monitors on would find at CompUSA or on ebay in the $350 - $600 range.

Sandy King

Sandy,

I have had one of these (http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=320-4335) for about a year and a half and have been happy with it. It took some getting used to at first coming from a CRT. The built in adjustments are kind of limited, but the driver for my video card gives all the adjustments I want and more.

Sandy,

I think you will be quite satisfied with the more mid-range monitors.

I usually use www.newegg.com for comparison purposes and frequently buy from them too.

We buy many monitors at my work and often default to Acer brand as good price perfomance compromise.

You also might think about using two monitors, for me it is a very productive way to work.

You can get two 19" monitors for $400. One monitor can have say an image filling the whole screen while all the toolbars and such can be on the other.

-dan

I have a 23" Cinema display and it is great. I also have a Dell 30" which is just as good. I wouldn't hesitate to try the 24" Dell. The Dells don't have the same feel as the Cinema Displays but they are much cheaper with very similar image quality.

Last I looked at the cheap 24" displays at CompUSA I found them lacking, but there may be some good ones out there.

I have two of these and they are very good:

http://www.formac.com/webapp/products_displays_overview.php

Cheers

We use the 23 inch Apple Cinema Displays at work for 2K motion picture restoration on HP xw 8000 dual processor Xeon workstations (PCs) and love them; they have been real workhorses! I only wish we had 2 per workstation OR we had the 30 inch screens!

As long as you have a graphics card with enough horsepower, you are fine. We use ATI Fire Graphics cards at work, but I am partial to the Quattro Pro Nvidia Series for serious graphics work -- besides, the higher-end software packages for Digital Intermediate and Color correction in the motion picture business use the gellato CPU code from Nvidia.

Well, I solved the monitor issue by purchasing a new 24" iMac. It was kind of like buying a big monitor and getting the computer for free.



Sandy

Just an update on this.

The new 24" iMac is here and working great. The screen is really a delight to work with.

However, I still wound up getting a new LCD monitor for the old G4, which I need to run one of my scanners. I got a 22" Samsung SyncMaster 225 BW for $270, delivered. I have the new iMac and the old G4 in the same room and can pretty much visually compare both monitors. I don't believe there is any doubt but that the 24" monitor on the iMac is better, but the Samsung is surprisingly good, much better than some of the other 22" monitors I looked at locally.

But the big iMac is quite something.

Sandy

Sandy, thanks for the update on this. I've been looking at LCD's, and the Samsungs seem to be good bang for the buck. Good to hear your first hand opinion on them.

Yeah I'll bet that 24" iMac is fantastic. Have fun.

susan

I'd like to add that as a user of Apple 23 inch Cinema Displays in color critical applications, I find the monitor to be a joke. Garbage. We have 20 + Apple CD 23's in our office, regularly calibrated and most of them suck. Sure, they look nice, but that's it. The real color-critical guys and gals have replaced the Apples with Eizo ColorEdge 21 inch, and are happy with them. My cheap 20 inch Philips LCD at home is much more accurate than my Apple CD.

The inaccuracy lies in that different parts of the screen have different hues. I.e. poor uniformity.

This monitor is a few years old now, so maybe the new CD's are better. But I would not recommend them for other than good looks.

Any new recomendations now that there are 23 inch monitors in consumer oriented stores?
Thanks