LCD: Planar or Samsung?

[Big Lar]

Hi All, I'm finally in the market for a Flat Panel LCD, and have narrowed it down to either the Samsung 181T, or the Planar CT1904N/ I am looking for opinions from our fine members here as to anyone who has seen, or run 1 of these units, and Input as to the Positive and or Negative points of either of these units. Thanks in advance, and I hope this is the correct place in which to post this.

 

[azkiwi]

I haven't seen any of these monitors (I'm shopping too). Have you checked out Viewsonic and Compaq? The Compaq 18" is highly rated by many. One problem is the latest crop of monitors have only been released in the last 3 months and reviewers don't seem to be catching up..
The Planars I have seen don't have especially good spec. The latest manufacturing trend in LCD is Pixelworks (aka OptiSync among others) which significantly reduces cost and also allows accurate scaling of the display to resolutions other than the native - this is a big deal.

 

[Big Lar]

Thanks for the Heads up on the new tech, There are so darn many to choose from, and so very little places to actually view them.

 

[IMO]

The new Viewsonic VA800 have very fast pixel response time and brightness!

 

[azkiwi]

All the new Viewsonics have great specs, especially the Graphics and Pro series - I'm looking at the VG181/191. Not sure if the VA is as modern. Keep an eye on pixel pitch though - surely there has to be some visual tradeoffs when pitch gets up near .30.

By all accounts the Dell 2000 is a smokin' screen - IF you can pony up $1350! The VG191 can be had for around $1050.

I agree there is a swag of models available but precious few to see in person. In part that has to be because the technology is in flux and beginning to move from corporate welfare to you and me. While it can be costly to be on the leading edge of tech - we are all used to that, right?

 

[imgod2u]

I'm pretty happy with my Sony SDM-N80. It cost me hell though. The viewsonics are very nice and Dell makes some pretty good ones too. It all depends on how much money you have. I think there was a review a while ago for the Solarism monitors which was suppose to be much brighter, more contrast, and fast pixel response time, great for gaming. Then there are the 3d LCD monitors.......

 

[Big Lar]

I must confess, that I am also looking at the Viewsonic VG191B, Specs on it seem to be identical to the Planar CT1904N, Havn't seen the Dell LCD yet, Guess I had better check it out as well. Thanks for all the Input to date, Its a tough call on this 1.

 

[Chippy]

Any new opinions/observations/experiences from anyone here???
I'm trying to decide between:

Viewsonic VG191B 19in (~$950 + shipping online)
Compaq TFT8030 18in ($1300 + shipping online)
Dell 2000FP 20in (~1359 w/Free shipping online)

Only use is for LAN gaming every 6 weeks at KC Beatdown
so FPS performance is a big deal to me....

 

[Big Lar]

Chippy; I got the Viewsonic VG191B, and like it alot, couple issues I ran into tho,1= the .inf for the monitor wouldn't take right for me, but using the inf off the viewsonic site helped alot,2= you need to run whql drivers to get the Digital to boot correctly, as i just picked up a G3 ti500 today,( visiontek), with dvi out, and with just the dvi hooked up with say the 22.80,or 23.11 Nvid drivers, it would give me an " Out of Range " error, but with the certified? drivers, I have it running well with the 21.83's. As to screen appearance and ghosting, Appearance is fantastic, and ghosting is simply not there, in 3dmark 2k1 anyhow. I have 1 seems to be Permanent "Bright" pixel, and 2 more that show on rare occasion when viewing a very dark background. No dead pixels tho. Hope this helps, as IMHO this is 1 fine LCD, and given the choice, I Would buy another 1.

 

[Jen]

Hi Larry

another question is does the cold weather affect the LCD monitiors. winter time for me is like freezeing in this house. so i want one that will work in cold weather



thank you

Jen

 

[Big Lar]

Hello Jen The specs say the screen will run to 32f, wouldn't wanna try it, as 1 would need a Polar Bear outfit on..., but I personally run this 1 in this room at about 55f, and see nothing detrimental happening.

 

[Jen]

sounds real good friend..........that was what i was wondering about..........at my place i see 40 F at times in this room makes for some nice overclocking then.

been looking for a good LCD monitior this sounds to me like it is very good



Jen

 

[azkiwi]

I have the VG191 and no complaints. 1 bright pixel and no probelms at all with installation. I wouldn't bother with a couple of the utilities provided (esp. True Internet Color), but in W2k everything went without a single hitch. In fact when I upgraded my motherboard and CPU I had no issues either.
I'm still using a Voodoo3, so it must be driver issues with the new video cards.

 

[Big Lar]

40F... dayummm I don't even run my water that cold anymore
azkiwi, I believe your right, and that it is driver related, seems many on goggle have vid card drivers, with most running the 21.83's, and a few having better luck with the 22.50's.

 

[Chippy]

Another new wrinkle in the LCD quest - I'm hearing great things 'bout the Planar PV174. Anyone have or seen this model???

Also, any new opinions/observations/experiences from anyone here???
I'm trying to decide between:

Planar PV174 17.4in ($699 w/Free shipping online)
Viewsonic VG191B 19in (~$950 + shipping online)
Compaq TFT8030 18in ($1300 + shipping online)
Dell 2000FP 20in (~1359 w/Free shipping online)

Only use is for LAN gaming every 6 weeks at KC Beatdown
so FPS performance is a BIG deal to me....

Thanks to all those that reply!

 

[test99]

The PLANAR LCD is the best deal around.

It is cheap and great performing. Many people have them and have nothing but good things to say about them.

 

[Dre]

Here's another thumbs up for the Planar 17.4". I have it and love it. I play RTCW on it with no complaints.

 

[ksdavis]

<< Here's another thumbs up for the Planar 17.4". I have it and love it. I play RTCW on it with no complaints. >>



Question for you. I just got my 17.4 (about an hour ago!) It's hooked up to my old GeForce2 GTS via analog (RGB VGA) connection. Windows/Web/etc. is great; however, I'm noticing *a lot* of ghosting on RTCW, both at 1024x768 and 1280x1024. I tested RTCW on a Dell 1702FP before buying a Planar and didn't notice much ghosting.

Could this be because I'm using VGA rather than DVI? I've got a GeForce 3 Ti200 on the way with DVI to use that. The 1702FP (which has twice the fall/rise refresh time of the Planar) was using DVI and it looked great. Are you getting good results because of DVI? Or are there some magic settings you used?

It's a beautiful monitor otherwise, and it scales to lower resolutions more crisply than almost any other LCD I've ever seen.

 

[badga]

i got a PNY GF3ti200 last week for the DVI and while i saw an improvement in the 2D (office apps, IE) I saw no change in the 3D gaming. I never would have called it a lot of ghosting though but my comparison was to gaming on my GF2go equiped laptop where the ghosting pretty much made it unplayable. I asked the question elsewhere and no one indicated that there should be a 3D advantage, even Anand's article on DVI only mentions 2D image quality.

 

[Chippy]

ksdavis;
Let me know how you do with the Planar 17.4 & DVI hook-up. I was just about to purchase one to go with my geForce 3 Ti 500 (Which has a DVI output), and ghosting would bother me if it's severe... keep us/me informed!!!
Thanks.

 

[Dimitri]

ksdavis, please tell us which planar model that is, the pv174 or the translucent ones? My PV174 ghosts pretty bad too through DVI or VGA doesn't matter one bit. I haven't tested any other LCD's though so I can't say for sure how bad it is compared to other LCD's, but I just have a hard time believing this monitor is 25ms response time.

 

[ksdavis]

It is the PV174 -- the pivoting 17.4 inch, white bezel. I too am a bit skeptical of it being 25 ms response time; but, I don't really know how to test and find out! I will try with the DVI and see how that does. I'm also going to play with the brightness and contrast a bit. One interesting thing was I noticed it a lot more in RTCW than in Unreal Tournament... exactly the opposite of what I expected!

I'll report in what I find out.

 

[ksdavis]

Well, I don't have my new GF3 Ti200 video card in yet (it's at FedEx ground hell in Newark, grr) so I haven't tried the DVI yet.

*But* I wanted to update you all on the results of some more game testing I've done. I decided on an, er, unusual solution: I turned off enough features/textures/etc. in RTCW that the framerate went down to about 25-35 FPS on my GeForce2 GTS. To tell the truth, things still moved fast enough for me (high frames don't do much for me), the ghosting disappeared (as you'd expect ... 25ms / 1000ms per sec == 40 FPS theoretical max), and things looked beautiful. Heck, I never knew that RTCW looked that good! Very playable, beautiful picture.

Hmm.. just to compare, I went in and turn downed the video to low quality settings and went back to about 65-75 FPS and still didn't notice much ghosting. I didn't have gamma correction on high so things weren't bright, but I spun around a few times and things looked good. Not as great as with lower FPS, but still good.

If I sound kind of ambivalent, well, I am. I think that for me, it may just take some getting used to playing on an LCD... but I really like the screen in every other way. I'm not a super hard-core gamer--I probably play 3-5 hours/week--so I can live with the tradeoff.

Of course, let me see how it looks once I have a fast video card in. Anyone know how to _slow down_ a video card?



If it sounds like I'm ambivalent, well, I guess I am a bit.

 

[badga]

i am a little confused. You turned OFF "enough features/textures/etc. in RTCW that the framerate went DOWN to about 25-35 FPS on my GeForce2".....isn't that the opposite of what one should expect....eyecandy lowers the frames, one generally turns them off to boost frames. I am interested in the results to your experiments. It sounds like your theory was the higher FPS on a panel that can only output 40FPS is causing excessive ghosting, etc. Please clarify

 

[Dimitri]

I'm guessing he meant turning ON enough features to slow down the FPS to ~30?
As I stated in another thread, RtCW didn't look as blurry to me as Half Life. While HL was at a constant 60fps (limited by refresh rate) and RtCW was probably in the 30-50 range (I have everything jacked up and at 1280) there was a little less noticeable ghosting. My guess is when ksdavis upgrades his video card he may notice more ghosting/bluriness. This is of course just an educational guess based on how the pixels work and what my personal experience was.