I got it on Monday and I've been playing with it when I get home from work so I'm still playing with it, but here are my impressions so far.
First off, it is BRIGHT. The thing looks like a night light when the lights are off. I turned down the brightness to 48, I think, and I might turn it down a little more. In any case you do need to turn down the brightness some or you will go blind if you are looking at white backgrounds for any length of time. As far as the size of it, it looks MUCH bigger than my 17" CRT. Definitly the biggest I need for now and most likely in the future. Comparing it to my brother's 19" CRT the screen is more square than rectangle but it looks just as big. One other thing, you WILL need to change your resolution up higher. 1024x768 just won't cut it with the LCD. I cranked my up to 1280x1024 and it looks good. The only problem is that some games don't have that resolution. Oh well, I can deal with that. They still look great, but would look better with the native resolution of 1280x1024.
I checked it with the Monitor's online test to check for dead pixels and the such. No dead pixels and I'm sorry, but I just can't see how the colors could be more vibrant and colorful than this. As I said before, I'm Color Blind so when it comes to colors I most likely couldn't tell you if one red is more red than another. All I know is that compared to my old 17" CRT this thing looks GREAT as far as colors go.
Next comes the gaming. The first game I loaded up was Morrowind, just to look at the scenery. If I didn't know any better I would say I was looking at a post card. The LCD DEFINITLY makes that game come more to life. Next was Battlefield 1942. I played that and I could see no blurring or ghosting anywhere. It was a LITTLE bright in some places, which is why I turned down the brightness in the first place, but it looked great. One wierd thing though, the menu in Battlefield 1942 was very pixelated but the game itself looked good. I dont' know why that is, but I'm not too worried about the menu... as long as the game looks good, which it did. Next was Need For Speed II Hot Pursuit. Again no lag and it looked great. I also tried some Unreal Tournament, I don't have UT2003, and that looked good as well. I plan on installing the UT2003 demo this weekend and play with that some more and see what it looks like. The last thing I tried was Madden NFL 2003. I watched an exhibition game and while watching it I did notice one time when a player was running off the field real fast I could see some blurring around his helmet. It was white so that might have increased the blurring some, but I didn't see it any other time. All in all, it looked great and no blurring or ghosting so far expect for that one instance.
Now on to the DVD. The one I watched was Fast and the Furious. It looked good..... BUT during the scenes that are dark, very little light, it is VERY dark. It's not dark to where you can't see anything, but it is darker than on a CRT. I'm going to turn the brightness back up to 100 when I watch the next one. I also noticed one scene where the colors just were all distorted, it was a scene at night. It might have just been the way I was looking at it, I was leaning back in my chair some so I might not have been looking directly at it and that might have had some effect. I only saw that in once scene though. In any case I have to agree, so far, that the DVD MIGHT not be as good as on a CRT, but it still looked good to me and I'm going to watch alot of DVD's again to see how it looks. I haven't had the chance yet, been to busy playing with it, to play with the adjustments and see if I can get a better picture for the DVD. If anyone has any ideas on what I can do, help would be appreciated in that area.
My final thoughts on this, if you want a 17" LCD for gaming then you can't go wrong with the Hitachi. It looks great and I am VERY pleased so far with it. I just don't see where it could be less colorful than the Samsung. I don't have them side by side so I can't say, but I sure don't see anything wrong with the colors myself.
One more note, if you do plan on buying a LCD, or any monitor, get it from Monitors Direct. I am VERY pleased, since it works and I don't have to send it back.
Also they had a great price and free shipping and great warranties.
Any more thoughts or questions are welcome.
First off, it is BRIGHT. The thing looks like a night light when the lights are off. I turned down the brightness to 48, I think, and I might turn it down a little more. In any case you do need to turn down the brightness some or you will go blind if you are looking at white backgrounds for any length of time. As far as the size of it, it looks MUCH bigger than my 17" CRT. Definitly the biggest I need for now and most likely in the future. Comparing it to my brother's 19" CRT the screen is more square than rectangle but it looks just as big. One other thing, you WILL need to change your resolution up higher. 1024x768 just won't cut it with the LCD. I cranked my up to 1280x1024 and it looks good. The only problem is that some games don't have that resolution. Oh well, I can deal with that. They still look great, but would look better with the native resolution of 1280x1024.
I checked it with the Monitor's online test to check for dead pixels and the such. No dead pixels and I'm sorry, but I just can't see how the colors could be more vibrant and colorful than this. As I said before, I'm Color Blind so when it comes to colors I most likely couldn't tell you if one red is more red than another. All I know is that compared to my old 17" CRT this thing looks GREAT as far as colors go.
Next comes the gaming. The first game I loaded up was Morrowind, just to look at the scenery. If I didn't know any better I would say I was looking at a post card. The LCD DEFINITLY makes that game come more to life. Next was Battlefield 1942. I played that and I could see no blurring or ghosting anywhere. It was a LITTLE bright in some places, which is why I turned down the brightness in the first place, but it looked great. One wierd thing though, the menu in Battlefield 1942 was very pixelated but the game itself looked good. I dont' know why that is, but I'm not too worried about the menu... as long as the game looks good, which it did. Next was Need For Speed II Hot Pursuit. Again no lag and it looked great. I also tried some Unreal Tournament, I don't have UT2003, and that looked good as well. I plan on installing the UT2003 demo this weekend and play with that some more and see what it looks like. The last thing I tried was Madden NFL 2003. I watched an exhibition game and while watching it I did notice one time when a player was running off the field real fast I could see some blurring around his helmet. It was white so that might have increased the blurring some, but I didn't see it any other time. All in all, it looked great and no blurring or ghosting so far expect for that one instance.
Now on to the DVD. The one I watched was Fast and the Furious. It looked good..... BUT during the scenes that are dark, very little light, it is VERY dark. It's not dark to where you can't see anything, but it is darker than on a CRT. I'm going to turn the brightness back up to 100 when I watch the next one. I also noticed one scene where the colors just were all distorted, it was a scene at night. It might have just been the way I was looking at it, I was leaning back in my chair some so I might not have been looking directly at it and that might have had some effect. I only saw that in once scene though. In any case I have to agree, so far, that the DVD MIGHT not be as good as on a CRT, but it still looked good to me and I'm going to watch alot of DVD's again to see how it looks. I haven't had the chance yet, been to busy playing with it, to play with the adjustments and see if I can get a better picture for the DVD. If anyone has any ideas on what I can do, help would be appreciated in that area.
My final thoughts on this, if you want a 17" LCD for gaming then you can't go wrong with the Hitachi. It looks great and I am VERY pleased so far with it. I just don't see where it could be less colorful than the Samsung. I don't have them side by side so I can't say, but I sure don't see anything wrong with the colors myself.
One more note, if you do plan on buying a LCD, or any monitor, get it from Monitors Direct. I am VERY pleased, since it works and I don't have to send it back.
Also they had a great price and free shipping and great warranties.Any more thoughts or questions are welcome.
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