LCD question - Planar 17.4"

[pyrrhus]

I've got an urge to buy an LCD. I have a Sony G400 that has to go in for repairs, so a nice 17.4" LCD would do good as a replacement while the Sony's gone. I really have no desire to carry the G400 to college with me next year, either...

I was looking around and saw several good reviews of the Planar 17.4" - 1280x1024, 25ms refresh, etc. I can get one for ~$550, but I don't know how well it work for me. I play games frequently, but I usually don't play them at 1280x1024. If I wanted to play at 1024x768 (one of this display's "supported modes"), would it look like crap? Anyone have one of these?

thanks

 

[Haribo]

you rich mofo!

 

[pyrrhus]

Ha! Hardly, but I wish. It's gonna be a Christmas present. I've started doing a lot more work on my computer and I think an LCD would work a lot better than the Sony for office apps. It'd be great if I could do ll my gaming on it, too.

I guess it has to scale down to 1024x768, but how well does it do this?

 

[Walliser]

when LCDs "scale down" you'll usually get the letterbox effect, just like on TV. It should nto affect the picture quality, all you'll see is a black border on each side.

As for gaming, I don't know, I was thinking about getting a LCD but I was reluctant since I've never seen any (fast) games on an LCD, so I put it off for a while. It also helped that I got a free trinitron screen

 

[Ben50]

I have a planar 17.4 in LCD and I love the thing. If you play games a lot you will want to play them in 1280x1024 because it looks so clear. It is ok in lower resolutions but is kind of blurry. If you are going use the monitor specifically for 1024x768, then you should look for an LCD that has that as its native resolution. You will be much happier with the image quality that way. When using it in 1280x1024, it is better than any crt I've ever seen. Plus I love the fact that it has perfect geometry unlike every crt I've ever used.

BTW mine is hooked up through DVI on a Gainward GF3 so it runs games well at 1280x1024. Make sure you have video card that can handle high resolutions so you can play it at the native resolution of the screen.