PX191, 191T, 192T, 1900FP, 1901FP, 2000FP?

[Muse]

These seem to be among the best (have I left any out?) of the 19" and 20" LCDs around today. Are these so similar that it doesn't make much difference what you get or are there significant differences? I think all are about 25 ms response time, and the prices are similar. I'd heard around 6 months ago that a 17 ms Samsung 19" LCD was going to be available in May, but I've heard no more about it. It was "insider" information and maybe (evidently) not reliable.

I am currently using an NEC 22" FP2141BK CRT (aperature grill), so the LCD will make this a dual display system. Also, at the moment, I'm using a KVM for my other PC, which I'm not using often. It would be nice if I could use at least one of the monitors with that other PC, but I figure it's probably not possible to have dual display on both boxes - not a biggie. My current video card in this system is a BFG Asylum GeForce4 Ti 4200 128 MB which has a DVI and a VGA connection and presumably supports dual display via the Nvidia dual display features. On my NEC 22" CRT, I usually use 1280 x 1024 for browsing, since text is often too small at 1600 x 1200. If it's readable at 1600 x 1200 on a 2000FP, I would maybe be happy with that, but I haven't seen it so I don't know. However, I've seen people saying the 2000FP is great at 1600 x 1200, but I'd have to see. All I know is I used a 15" LCD on a Dell laptop at work and was tremendously impressed by the sharpness of the text. Text on a CRT is ALWAYS fuzzy compared to what I saw on that Dell's TFT.

I saw where the 191T was being positioned by Samsung as a dual display monitor and the 192T a single display? I don't understand that. Why would the 191T be better for dual display? Does the Planar look better? The specs seem to say that the contrast is better.

I have a few games but haven't gotten into them yet. I guess I could game on the NEC if ghosting is an issue with my LCD. Main thing, I guess, is ease on the eyes for reading text, browsing, programming, email/newsgroups, that kind of thing. Oh, I do have around 50 DVD movies, so that's important to me. I have a 10% Dell coupon and would like to keep cost around $800 maybe.

Thanks for any hints, tips, sage advice, etc.

 

[TourGuide]

Text on a CRT is ALWAYS fuzzy.

Well, my Sony is pretty sharp on text. 😀

 

[JZilla]

Not having first hand experience with any of them except the 191T (which does ghost/trail/smear whatever you want to call it), I would say 192T or the Planar. With a slight preference to the Planar due to their excellent warranty. But this is only based on what I have read in different forums.

PX191 Thread

1900FP Thread

Remember that the 1900FP is a 191T undercover. The 1901FP is either a 192T (rumor around here) or a LiteOn (says LiteOn Corp. in the technical documents available on dell.com). Check the big lcd thread at Ars, it contains a lot of useful information. One guy bought a 1901FP, said it ghosted and I think he returned it (gplracer was his name, also posted at the H Forums).

 

[Mem]

I saw where the 191T was being positioned by Samsung as a dual display monitor

I think it`s to do with the ultra thin bezel,as for ghosting well I`m using a Samung 191T and play online games like CS,UT,NS,TFC and it`s pretty good,only get slight ghosting on fast paced games and have to look for it to really notice it,not enough to bother me,infact both the 191T and 192T have the same response time,if you want faster you`ve to go with the 17" 16ms models which are the fastest you can get at the moment.

I`m very happy with my 191T and it seems to be a good allround LCD ,one of the best for a 19" model IMHO.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: JZilla
Not having first hand experience with any of them except the 191T (which does ghost/trail/smear whatever you want to call it), I would say 192T or the Planar. With a slight preference to the Planar due to their excellent warranty. But this is only based on what I have read in different forums.

PX191 Thread

1900FP Thread

Remember that the 1900FP is a 191T undercover. The 1901FP is either a 192T (rumor around here) or a LiteOn (says LiteOn Corp. in the technical documents available on dell.com). Check the big lcd thread at Ars, it contains a lot of useful information. One guy bought a 1901FP, said it ghosted and I think he returned it (gplracer was his name, also posted at the H Forums).

Could you provide a link to that thread at Ars Technica? I went looking for it today and gave up after around 45 minutes of messing around with registering and discovering I'm already registered! Swell, what's my username and password?? 😕 Then I hunted for LCD stuff but didn't locate the thread, I think? Thanks!

Edit: Also, what's "the H forums?"

 

[JZilla]

Hard Forums

LCD Thread This is page 83 where gplracer start to comment on the 1901FP.

But Mems comment is actually very good. I think all 19" lcds will exhibit minor ghosting. Question is: Is it enough to bother you while you are playing?

I am waiting for the 192T to be available in a shop where I can get a thorough look at it. The 191T looks ok to me, only minor ghosting. But the problem is that I would have a hard time spending my money on something that could annoy me down the road. So I hope that the 192T (where ever it is) will a reasonable price tag, and have less ghosting than the 191T. Currently the price of a 191T in Europe is ?738, and this is my budget, and I find this price to be quite reasonable for a quality 19" lcd.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: TourGuide

Text on a CRT is ALWAYS fuzzy.

Well, my Sony is pretty sharp on text. 😀

My NEC FP2141 22" aperature grill CRT is the sharpest CRT I think I've seen for text, but it's nowhere near as sharp as the 15" TFT on the Dell Latitude I had an opportunity to use on the job around 3 years ago. Putting my nose up close to the screen and looking at a single letter, it looked like it had been painted on the screen, it was THAT sharp. I've done that test with a number of LCD's and they often but don't always look that sharp. It's that level of sharpness I'd like. My NEC is very very good, but I know I've never seen a CRT that came close to that Dell laptop for sharpness.

 

[TourGuide]

it looked like it had been painted on the screen, it was THAT sharp.

I am actually giving STRONG consideration to what you are doing Muse with the LCDs and for the same basic reasons. When you make your purchase, please let us know what your experiences are and post here.

I was browsing and looking at that Dell 2000FP the other night, but I was concerned when I saw it's contrast ratio. It's my understanding (from what I've heard) that you want something a bit higher than that. In other respects it fits the bill nicely. I need something with 1600x1200 native because I've got 8.5x14 docs I have to look at fairly regularly.

 

[BMW330ci]

I HIGHLY recommend the Apple 20" Cinema display. I have it hooked up with my PC (Radeon 9600) and the resolution is set at its native of 1680x1050. It looks absolutely stunning in 2D and 3D! DVDs look awesome. You must purchase the ADC-to-DVI adaptor which will run around $100.

I have owned approximately 6 LCD monitors (Samsung, Sony, Philips, Planar) and nothing comes close to the Apple Cinema 20". It is worth every penny.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: TourGuide

it looked like it had been painted on the screen, it was THAT sharp.

I am actually giving STRONG consideration to what you are doing Muse with the LCDs and for the same basic reasons. When you make your purchase, please let us know what your experiences are and post here.

I was browsing and looking at that Dell 2000FP the other night, but I was concerned when I saw it's contrast ratio. It's my understanding (from what I've heard) that you want something a bit higher than that. In other respects it fits the bill nicely. I need something with 1600x1200 native because I've got 8.5x14 docs I have to look at fairly regularly.

Hey, Tourguide. I've seen glowing posts about the 2000FP in these forums and no complaints AFAIK. People claim that browsing at 1600 x 1200 is great, but like I say, I'd have to experience this first hand to believe it. It's not that I think they are wrong, I just would have to see for myself to believe it. I can't speak to the issue of contrast ratio with it. There's a good deal on it at Dell SB until the 20th, 15% off, or so I'm told, making it $850 or so, before taxes if applicable. See middle of this page.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: BMW330ci
I HIGHLY recommend the Apple 20" Cinema display. I have it hooked up with my PC (Radeon 9600) and the resolution is set at its native of 1680x1050. It looks absolutely stunning in 2D and 3D! DVDs look awesome. You must purchase the ADC-to-DVI adaptor which will run around $100.

I have owned approximately 6 LCD monitors (Samsung, Sony, Philips, Planar) and nothing comes close to the Apple Cinema 20". It is worth every penny.

I went to http://www.apple.com/displays/acd20/ and the price there is in the area of $1200 maybe $1300, significantly over my budget, which is not much over $800. Can it be found for much less?

 

[Muse]

I wound up ordering the PX191 yesterday at Dell Home. Found a $35 coupon with Google, and on top of the other discounts it came out $639.10 shipped to CA. That 700 contrast ratio wasn't matched by any of the others, and I like the vertical adjustment capability. Better warranty, too.

 

[JZilla]

You have chosen wisely. That's the one I want the most, but Planar isn't selling in Europe apparently.

Edit: Be sure to give us a review.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: JZilla
You have chosen wisely. That's the one I want the most, but Planar isn't selling in Europe apparently.

Edit: Be sure to give us a review.

OK, I'll be happy to. However, it will probably be of limited value in that the only LCD I've used is a 15 inch on a Dell Latitude Laptop over 3 years ago. In any case I'll report back here. I think it will arrive Monday although there's a chance I could get it today (any minute, but I'd be a bit surprised).

 

[Ronin]

I have over 100 1900FP's here and now the 1901FPs (since that's what they're shipping as a package with the 8300's I'm ordering), and I've been fairly satisfied with the quality, the image, and the overall look of the 1900/1. Also, they can be bought for right around $600, so they're a pretty good value.

 

[gplracer]

Did I hear my name? The 1901fp is a great monitor. It is just not a great gaming monitor because of ghosting issues. Some games like racing games look fine. The games that do not look good are the ones that have a lot of gray. Things like quake III look fine but when you are moving things go out of focus real quick. I have a Viewsonic vp171bv right now. I like the lcd monitor and games are fine. I really do not see the ghosting I saw on the 1901fp but web surfing is not as good because the monitor is smaller and so is the text. Actually, I was thinking of sending it back and getting a 2141. Why do you want a lcd? Maybe I should not get that crt?

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: gplracer
Did I hear my name? The 1901fp is a great monitor. It is just not a great gaming monitor because of ghosting issues. Some games like racing games look fine. The games that do not look good are the ones that have a lot of gray. Things like quake III look fine but when you are moving things go out of focus real quick. I have a Viewsonic vp171bv right now. I like the lcd monitor and games are fine. I really do not see the ghosting I saw on the 1901fp but web surfing is not as good because the monitor is smaller and so is the text. Actually, I was thinking of sending it back and getting a 2141. Why do you want a lcd? Maybe I should not get that crt?

I think the 1901 (and probably the 1900, 191T and 192T) actually have about 40 ms response times for gray. I think the PX191 would do better, but it's just a guess.

Why do I want an LCD? Well, I think it would be better for browsing, especially if and when you do it for hours. Also for programming, email and stuff like that. Also, I will have dual display, which I've never done but figure I'm apt to really like it when I get into it. I don't know how I'll like dual display with a CRT and LCD, though. Never heard of people doing that but I figure it's doable.

 

[gplracer]

Thanks for the pm disregard my last one. You answered it here.

 

[Muse]

It's been some time, so I'll post a review of my new Planar PX191. I was hesitant to post because I haven't gotten my replacement DVI capable video card. It seems that I ran into some hard luck after ordering my LCD from Dell. Firstly, Dell reported online that the monitor shipped FedEx, but the tracking number came up "invalid" at FedEx site. After several calls and emails Dell finally emailed me that they'd made a mistake and that it shipped Airborne Express. Airborne, showed the monitor as scheduled to be delivered on a Friday (9 days ago, and 9 days after my order date) and although shown as "out for delivery" on that day at Airborne's tracking site, it didn't come. I made several calls to Airborne and was indeed on the phone with one of their agents when their truck pulled up in front of my house the next day, Saturday 8/30/2003. Strangely, my BFG Asylum GeForce4 Ti 4200 128 MB DVI/VGA capable video card's fan went bad a few days before, and although they promised they'd 2-day ship a replacement to me the next day if I faxed them my proof of purchase, they dropped the ball. Many calls later have the card coming this coming Wednesday, 09/10/2003 (My bad card was in their hands two days after it went bad). So, I'm using my MSI geforce2 Pro 64 MB DDR videocard, which only has a VGA connection with the PX191. I am experiencing some ghosting with text (especially in portrait mode, apparently), which I hope will disappear when I start using the DVI connections on my replacement BFG card.

The first thing I noticed was that my fonts were too large using the PX191. I was using an even larger display before, my NEC FP2141 22" (20" viewable) aperature grille CRT. However, even though this is the sharpest CRT I've ever seen, I was obliged to use much larger fonts than I'm using now to make text easily readable. Thus, I had 18 point as my Anandtech Forums font, text size was "Larger" in Internet Explorer, and I used 14 point in some of my applications. I reduced all of these considerably immediately after setting up the PX191. I now use the default font in Anandtech Forums, "Medium" in Internet Explorer, and 10 point in most other applications. The sharpness of text (in spite of the slight ghosting I'm having now with the VGA connection) is just spectacular -- the reason I became interested in getting an LCD in the first place after using a laptop a few times in 2000.

At first, it took a day or so to get used to. I was used to a CRT and I immediately recognized the characteristic look of an LCD and I wasn't used to it. But after a day or so to warm up to it, I fell in love with this display. I wish I had my BFG card right now so I could use nView and have both monitors working side by side so I can compare. I haven't turned on my NEC since before setting up the Planar.

My NEC has a neat feature called Super Bright modes. There are two of them and it allows you to toggle the display between 3 different brightness settings. They are all relative to one another, so you can only change any of them by changing all of them with the brightness control. However, it's great for video applications, which require higher brightness. I was initially disappointed that the PX191 doesn't have a similar feature. However, NEC/Mitsubishi has a utility that adds even more convenience for controlling brightness. They have freely downloadable Brightness Controller, which I discovered to my surprise and delight also works with the PX191! I suggest that you all download this very handy utility, which I imagine will work with all displays. It's original purpose is to allow you to run your video applications (such as movies or TV from a TV card) at full brightness and at the same time have your other applications run at any lesser brightness level you want. It consists of an icon in your tray which you click to reveal a checkbox and a slider. If checked, you can adjust the brightness with the slider. It only controls non-video applications, which is what you are usually running anyway. It's far more convenient than changing brightness with the monitor's own control. What you can do is set the monitor at the brightest setting you will want to normally use and then use the slider to make your day to day adjustments.

I made the Windows 2000 adjustment, "smooth edges of screen fonts" but haven't noticed an effect. Does that do anything useful? I always have that off for my CRT. I believe the PX191 manual advises turning this on so I thought I'd try it.

I'm running Windows 2000 and it doesn't support Cleartype. I wonder if I should go out and get XP. I've shied away from it partly because of the seeming complexity of dealing with Microsoft's weird means of monitoring its licensing. Online registration, limited reinstalls? Seems daunting, so I've stuck with Windows 2000 which doesn't have any of that added complexity to deal with.

I don't believe my PX191 has any dead pixels or subpixels! I did the test in Monitor's Direct's Tool Kit and couldn't see anything.

The bezel is 2 cm = 3/4 inch compared to a minimum of 1.75 inches on my NEC CRT. The adjustability of position is outstanding. Tilt up/down is SO much easier than the CRT, and side to side, even easier. Could hardly be better. Also, the PX191 rides up and down a post for approximately 4.5 inches vertical adjustability. It goes up easier than down, and I suppose this is due to some sort of hydrolic system. The portrait/landscape adjustment is easy indeed. I've heard that the Samsung 191T is difficult. It's a snap with the PX191. The antiglare coating is very excellent, far more effective than that on my NEC CRT. The brightness is far greater than adequate in the worst of conditions, and I'm running at 16% maximum (moderated with the NEC/Mitsubishi Brightness Controller slider, as I've said).

My Windows 2000 thinks it's a Plug and Play Monitor. Is there a driver for it? I haven't been able to find one.

Before I even turned the monitor on I tested the current draw of the adaptor. I figured that it would draw 15 watts or something like most wall warts. However, I was pleased to find that with the monitor off, it draws an undetectable amount of power, certainly less than 2 watts. Therefore, I won't bother to turn off power to it when the monitor is off. In fact, even when the monitor on and power brick on, I detect less than 2 watts power draw (sum of both) when the computer is off. Although the specifications say 40 watts, when running it only drew about 27 watts when I measured.

 

[fredtam]

I would love to see the comparison between your crt and lcd.
I would also go with XP. The activation is not complex at all yet gets exagerated often. It takes about ten seconds online and collects no personal info. It is different than registration which is not required. When you activate it creates a fingerprint of your system. You can reinstall it an unlimited number of times on the same system. When you activate after something like a format it compares your system's "fingerprint" against the one stored in a database and if it matches activation is automatic. It does however monitor 10 components on your sysyem and if you try to activate it after changing four or more of those components within 120 days it might assume you have tried to install the OS on a new computer in which case you will be required to call and get a new code.

 

[Mem]

Hehe it`s quite simple ,text on a LCD is awesome compared to the best CRT there is,I`m so use to the crispness of LCD that looking at CRTs now is like going back to the stone age IQ wise,anybody that has a good LCD knows what I mean.



Muse, glad you like you LCD and welcome to the LCD club 😉.