URGENT need of opinions. What do you guys think of these monitors?

[Bad Dude]

1) NEC/Mitsubishi FE770.

2) Samsung SyncMaster 950b. This one is important since I consider to buy this one.

Please anyone who owns one, please give me your input. I don't want to spend more than $160 total for the 19" or $140 for the 17" one. Which monitor do you guys suggest for this price range?. Thanks.

I need a very sharp monitor for photo editing and video editing, and sometimes AutoCAD.

Thanks for your time guys.

 

[ai42]

What sort of work are you in? Perhaps narrow down what your looking for.

 

[tart666]

The 950b.

The color/sharpness is pretty good. The bandwidth is higher than the NEC also. It's for sale for about $145 shipped at dell this week.

However, both of them are pretty bad: 1024x768 is the highest useable res (at 85Hz) for 950b. It's even worse for the NEC.

So, definitely 950b if these two are the only choices you are considering.

 

[Bad Dude]

I don't understand, please explain further Tart666.
Thanks.

 

[tart666]

What? out of the two monitors you asked about I would pick 950b.

There.

Although, I repeat, 950b is ONLY useful if you are planning on using the 1024x768 maximum resolution. If you go any higher, the refresh rate will drop below 85Hz. That will render the monitor, in my opinion, unuseable. And the NEC is offering even lower resolution, 800x600 at 85Hz.

Considering the above I would hunt around for a better 17". how about samsung 700NF at $172+shipping.

 

[glugglug]

70 KHz max horizontal refresh on the NEC sucks ass. You can't even get a semi-ergonomic (upper 60s or better) refresh in 1280x1024 with this, which makes me really wonder what possessed them to bundle an actually quite good 0.21mm dot pitch with it.

85Khz refresh on the 95b will get you to lower 80s refresh rate in 1280x1024 (way too low IMO...)

1600x1200 68Hz would be usable IMO but on the low side for refresh (definately would not want to go lower than this), so out of the 2 choices listed, this one is acceptable (barely), the 17" is not.

Really I don't think it would take that long to find something better than either of these, and cheaper.

 

[tart666]

An easy way to check for supported refresh rate in the monitor specs is to find the bandwidth in the spec sheet. It should be above 210MHz, which allows you to use 1280x1024 at 85 Hz. Or, you can just look for the "1280x1024 at 85 Hz" to be mentioned explicitly.

Anything below that is unacceptable IMO, and you should not be considering that monitor.

 

[glugglug]

Bandwidth and resolution is a separate issue, especially at low res/high refresh combos.

To get maximum vertical refresh at a given resolution, look at the maximum horizontal refresh and divide by your desired vertical resolution * 1.05 (extra 5% for vertical front porch/sync/back porch times, generally you can get it down to about 2.5% making custom timings with powerstrip, but better to overestimate the required interval).

So 70kHz horizontal refresh at 1280x1024 would give you 70k/(1024*1.05) = 65Hz max vertical refresh

Conversely, to get 1600x1200 @ 85Hz you need 1200 * 85 * 1.05 = 107.1kHz horizontal refresh capability on the monitor.
Or for 1280x1024 @ 85 Hz: 1024 * 85 * 1.05 = 91.4kHz horizontal refresh

 

[tart666]

MHz = (Vertical resolution X horizontal resolution X refresh rate) X 1.32

from here