Monitors

[Arathena]

So, I have a shitload of gift certificates to spend at best buy. I need a monitor that isn't from the stone age, preferably under 300$. Can I do any better than 1980x1080 resolution? And what the hell am I suppsed to be looking at specwise these days? Tech has passed me by now that I'm poor.

[Select]

Ara, as a scientist, you shouldn't be admitting that!

[Alarik Zekaiden]

You'll want to get one that's as close to a 2 MS response time as possible, which is good for gaming. You'll also want to get one that's HDCP compatible, especially if you plan to play Blu-Ray content in the future. Contrast ratio is a little funny, as apparently there's no set standard for it. From what I've been told, you'll want at least 1000:1 contrast ratio, and 3000:1 or higher if you can get it (although I've been also told that anything higher than 3000:1 is generally a waste, so who knows?). I'd also check out reviews that mention grayscale range and banding, mostly for watching movies, or reading text at high resolutions.

1980x1080 native resolution is fine, but there's a higher one that's like, 2500ish by 1500 ish or something like that, but it doesn't get much higher than that. 16:10 aspect ratio is the sweet spot for multimedia, but you lose a slight bit of performance in games. Most games run best in 4:3 aspect ratio.

[Ddrak]

I'd say there's not much sense going past 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 (the 1200 is slightly better in my opinion if you can get it). Personally I've had good experience with Samsung monitors lately.

Really though, there's not really much you can go wrong with in a modern LCD. The response times are all good enough that you won't notice them, contrast ratios are all 5000:1 or better and they're all gonna support HDCP so it's really just buying one you like the look of. You could possibly even do better looking at an LCD TV that has multiple inputs (computers run directly into the HDMI port, which is really just a different pinout for DVI) so you can run your PS3 into the same screen?

Dd

[Arathena]

Good thought, but my PS3 already has a HDTV attached to it, and needs to have its own dedicated display device, as it spends about 12 hours a day streaming shit off of Netflix.

And, fwiw, my current monitor has something like a 25ms response time and a contrast ratio of about 400, so.

[Arathena]

Got an Acer H233H.
Much nicer than the old monitor, and it gave me the most monitor real estate for the money, while still leaving me money left over to spend on anime... My eyes are poor enough that i'm not going to have a problem with the 5ms response time, especially after having spent so long with a 25 ms response time monitor.

Any Blu-Ray content I reasonably expect to play is going to be rolling through the PS3, through the TV.