Widescreen LCD

aheartattack

Member
Aug 18, 2006
39
0
0
I've finally decided to ditch my old CRT [Samsung Magic Bright 17"]. I've been debating myself whether I should go for a conroe right now, or the lcd. I think I may be able to put off the conroe till its cheaper. Then the e6700s may be affordable for me. My current rig is:
1. P4 prescott 2.8E(1MB L2, 800FSB)
2. MSI 875P neo fis2r, 1GB DDR-400(TwinMOS)
3. MSI 5900XT 128MB
4. 2x80GB SATA RAID-0 on ICH5R intel RAID.
5. Samsung 17" MB monitor (run at 1024x768 on 85Hz)

I'm really attracted to the widescreen aspect. I have some constraints:
1. In my country (Bangladesh) we don't get Dells or NECs. Samsung, LG, Viewsonic, Phillips are available.
2. As we have no other choice, the damn retailers take a HUGE premium.

I was looking at the Viewsonic VA1912w [VA1912wb in some places]. It's got some good reviews and a slight backlight issue. They give a ZERO bad pixel guarantee. It's $200 on newegg. I'll have to shell out nearly $400 after the retailer's premium. The samsung retailers are a lot more viscious. In these conditions, would this be a good buy.

I'm also worried about the HDCP thingy. This monitor's not HDCP. Does that mean I can't use it with Vista? Will I be able to play DVDs and in time Blu Rays/Hd-dvds with stuff like WinDvD on Vista with this monitor?

I'm a part-time coder going to school. So, I'll be using a lot of Visual Studio, Ecclipse along with very little Word. I've had to hide the sidebars in Visual Studio for so long. That's one of the main reasons I'm inclining towards widescreen. I'm not a hard core gamer, but I do play quite a bit. I'm in the dorms, so my movie viewing will be on this monitor.

In these circumstances, should I upgrade the monitor or go to conroe? [I can only do one now]. If a monitor upgrade is better now, is this monitor my best bet, or are there some others I should consider? Would a none widescreen be better? Am I really 'missing out' with my CRT?

Thanks.
 

dustmann

Senior member
Jul 26, 2006
341
0
71
You aren't really missing anything. A widescreen monitor is pretty awesome, but I dont think it's worth 400 bucks for a 19" ws. HDCP is pretty over-rated in my opinion, as I understand it, you will still be able to view everything you could on XP, just NOT in the high definition. That kinda defeats the purpose of bluray and hd dvd. I think that a 20" ws monitor has a better resolution 1650x1080 vs 1440x900. It might be better to have the smaller resolution if you have a weak graphics card, as it will be easier to play games at a native resolution.

The big 24" monitors with 1920x1200 support HDTV, I believe its 1080i or 1080p that shares the same resolution. They are pretty amazing, but cost a fortune. Don't even look at a 24 or 30" ws monitor haha