And another.... help me pick a monitor!

[GimpyFuzznut]

Sometime soon I'm going to be dropping some cash on a nice LCD screen. I've gotten used to using them at school and really love them for everyday browsing and work. So, I need some help from fellow anandtechers.

I'm in Canada so keep CDN prices in mind.

Option 1) Dell 2407WFP. Its on sale at Costco till December 3rd and I'm seriously considering it. It has a whole gang of inputs which is nice and I like the 1920 resolution.

http://www.costco.ca/en-CA/Browse/Produ...did=10295824&whse=BCCA&topnav=&browse=

Option 2) 2xE207WFP. I can buy two of these monitors for cheaper than the 2407. This would definately provide more screen real estate but do I really want to go dual widescreen monitors?

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod...c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=CADHS1&sku=320-5123

Keep in mind, I'm chose the Dell monitors because they seem to be the only freaking screens out there that have the option to map 1:1. I DON'T FREAKING UNDERSTAND WHY! I DON'T WANT STRETCHED PICTURES. SIMPLE ISN'T IT? Ok sorry for the craziness, it just irritates me. If later down the line, I'll only be able to play a game at 1600x1200 or whatever, I don't want to have to upgrade to just keep up with my screen. I'd like to just scale down the resolution and not have things look like complete garbage. I don't want to have to deal with games that don't support widescreen either. Just give me black bars!

Any other options people out there recommend? Which choice would you go for? I'm leaning towards the Dell 2407. Who knows, maybe in a year, I can pickup another one.

 

[KeithTalent]

What exactly are you going to be using it/them for?

If it is for gaming I would recommend the 2407 (I have one and love it) assuming you have the horsepower (read: a nice GPU) to drive it.

If you are mainly using it for other things such as a lot of multitasking, office work, etc, the duals may be a good choice as you can have more things going on at once. Though I do a lot of office mutli-tasking on my 2407 and there is enough real esate at 1920x1200 to have a lot of wndows going.

Cheers,
KT

 

[dawza]

What will you primarily be using the monitor(s) for?

If you will be doing a lot of work (i.e. programming, spreadsheets, PDFs), need the extra desktop real estate immediately, and cannot afford two 2407s, then two E207WFPs would be better. I am not a huge fan of 20" widescreens for working on, though, as I do miss the extra vertical pixels the 1600x1200 20" monitors offer.

For gaming/multimedia/surfing as the primary function, a single 24" will be much more enjoyable. Plus, as you stated, you can always add on another 24" down the road if need be.

I am currently running a 2405 along with a 2007FP. The 2405 is much more enjoyable and hence is used for everything; I turn on the 2007FP to run dual when I need to do some serious work. Despite not matching up perfectly size-wise (the 2007 has a slightly smaller dot pitch, and hence is physically a bit smaller), the identical vertical resolutions (1200) allows me to move things from one monitor to the other without any sizing issues.

Edit: Beat me to it- what KeithTalent said

 

[Dannyboyayyo]

i just got my 2407 yesterday and its sooooooooo amazing. No problems like dead pixels or stuck pixels. Its so big i'm still trying to adjust to it

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

A mix of both really. I love to game and will probably spend more time gaming. But I also need to do work for school that usually involves having multiple documents open. Programming, lab reports etc. I also do Photoshop and web design work. I'd also like to throw some TV functionality in there as I might put this thing my bedroom. So movies and X360 would be nice. And I mean.. I am leaning towards the 2407. Because while dual screens may be nice, I still have an old CRT I can use as an extra screen AND a laptop I use for browsing and IM clients. The thing that has me scared about the 2407 is problems with HDCP and 1080 signals not working over DVI. But in the end, I still have a nice TV in the basement and maybe should just stick to using this screen as a computer monitor and not a TV.

And that dell at Costco is nice. No shipping or waiting for the thing, I can just go pick it up for 30 bucks cheaper than Dell's price, which is already 100 bucks off!

 

[KeithTalent]

Just get the 2407, you will be very happy. I do a lot of the same things with mine that you will do and have absolutely nothing negative to say about it.

:beer:

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

Especially coming from a 19 inch CRT!

 

[Csst]

If you really want to go all out . get the 37in westinghouse.. you won't be disappointed. look at my SIG.

Csst

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: GimpyFuzznut
Especially coming from a 19 inch CRT!

I was coming from my 15" laptop screen (the only computer I had for a verrry long time) and I am still working to pick my jaw up off the floor after setting this thing up almost 4 months ago

No doubt she is a beauty :thumbsup:

 

[Aikouka]

Dual LCDs by far. Once you go to them, you typically don't go back and cannot stand using one.

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

Csst, can you tell me if the Westinghouse has scaling options? My PC isn't going to be able to handle gaming at 1920x1080 for quite a while.