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Widescreen LCD monitors: why not to buy one

C

Cryption

Member
I've been wrestling over the idea of buying an LCD monitor for almost two years now. I've been holding off until the major manufacturers released 2nd-gen or 3rd-gen monitors and fixed rampant problems such as dead or stuck pixels.

I use my computer primarily to program and do web work. So I am curious about widescreen LCDs and the obvious added screen real estate they provide.

What are some of the disadvantages to using a widescreen monitor?

I will most likely be playing Half Life 2 on whatever LCD I buy. Is it even possible to play a game such as Half Life 2 on a widescreen?

I'm looking for an LCD screen capable of a 1600x1200 max resolution and DVI inputs.

Any suggestions are welcome.
 
halflife definatly supports widescreen but i dont know if windows or other games with automaticly configure properly to widescreen. Any help out there?
 
Well I use a dell widescreen in my university's cs lab so I can attest to windows being compatible, that's just a matter of video card compatibility.
 
Widescreen LCD's are, in fact, smaller. If you do the math, the 2001FP has about 10% more screen real estate than the 2005FPW. Game cutscenes and such tend to not work properly, either, and games may only run at 1-2 resolutions. This is from someone who owns a widescreen monitor, so you can trust me on this one.
 
I love my Dell FP2005 Widescreen. It supports 1:1 pixel mapping as an option, so if you output 1280X1024 to it it will only show those pixels (no stretching). That means, even if a game doesn't support the 1600X1050 native resolution, you still can play it without quality degredation.

Native support for the screen resolution is driver-dependant, though. My ATI mobile drivers do not (ATI won't distribute them even though their catalyst drivers would natively support it, they won't work with ATI mobile), so when I use my laptop with the screen, I have to use powerstrip to have a custom resolution.

A long story short. Widescreens are great when you do side-by-side comparisons of material...or you do software development in say the .NET IDE and you want to be able to see all the code as well as have the properties pages and left-side toolbars visible. I did alot of research, and the 2005FP was the best performance/quality combination I found. With the right coupon hunting, you can get the sucker for around $600 delivered. It's a good gaming LCD to boot!
 
Also, in some games (I play 99% flightsims), you can go into the .config file, and set your resolution, for that game, manually.

I.E., I have a laptop with 1680x1050, and Pacific Fighters doesn't natively support that res, but inputting that value into the .config file results in a "normal" screen. That is, I have no stretching, I just have a black border on either side of the screen.

 
Originally posted by: CindySue22
Also, in some games (I play 99% flightsims), you can go into the .config file, and set your resolution, for that game, manually.

I.E., I have a laptop with 1680x1050, and Pacific Fighters doesn't natively support that res, but inputting that value into the .config file results in a "normal" screen. That is, I have no stretching, I just have a black border on either side of the screen.
Click to expand...

Which leaves you with the equivalent of a 17" LCD. Remind me why a 17" LCD is worse than a 20" LCD for gaming?
 
actually, i would suggest the other...

was studying for my test, and found it pretty neat that i cascaded the sample exam questions with the exam solutions, side by side without the need of horizontal scrolling....

then when i was analyzing the codes to a program, and rotated and bam...able to view large portions of the program at one time, made the overall process a lot easier.
 
Actually, as far as the resolution goes, if you install the monitor inf file that is on the CD Dell sends with the monitor, it should add that resolution settings to your drivers (my FireGL card lacked the setting before I installed the driver).

The only problem I've run into is that the "Rotation" tab seems to be missing from my advanced display options. Is this normal? (FireGL 8800 8.062 driver version, running on DVI-out)
 
why to buy one? the 2005fp is the same res horizontally and lower vertically (compared to 2001fp). although it is a bit taller, i dont think that makes up for it
 
size wasn't one of the reason that made me purchase widescreen though...it's the (maybe shallow) 'cool' factor, higher contrast ratio, and lower response rate.

i dont know how much the specs plays in the end.

i just wish anandtech would do a review or comparison on it...their 19" conparison was pretty lame...
 
After using a widescreen display on my notebook, pc and hdtv, there is no going back to a 4:3 display. Regular displays look tall and weird to me now!

Cheers!
 
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