22" flat panel monitors

[shankle]

Why are all the 22" flat panel monitors wide screen?

What kind of problems do  widescreens present for programmers?

I know that the 19" flat panel monitor is not absolutely square
but it is nearly so. It's not what they call a wide screen monitor.

Your thoughts would be appreciated,
JPS

[Tedd]

Well you get to write really long lines of code! Probably not such a bonus for asm programmers :bdg
From the other side, the screen is just a set of width and height parameters, so as long as you know these values, programming for any size/shape rectangular (a square is one type of rectangle) screen is not a problem.

But, I think they're more targeted at multimedia users.

[Ghirai]

I think so too.

You'll be fine with a 19'' tft :P

[hutch--]

 :bg

i can only just suffer watching DVD movies on a 21 inch CRT, a wide screen flat panel would be a nice toy that would make the movies look even better. Interestingly enough I have seen some very large ones that are not all that expensive along side what they used to be so give it time and I will get a 48 inch wide screen flat panel to watch movies with.

[skywalker]

I want to get an HDTV but...
I don't like the way the HDTVs waste 1/3 of the screen height with those two bars. What's up with that?

Looks like something from Outer Limits. :-)

[Wistrik]

In the 80s/90s that was called "Letterbox" or theatrical format. To display the format on standard screens, the image's vertical height is reduced to preserve the aspect ratio. Otherwise the image would appear stretched vertically or smashed horizontally. The unused space above and below the centered image is blackened to help avoid distraction.

If you turn off widescreen mode on normal screens, the sides will be cut off but the image will fill the full vertical height of the screen. Since important information is usually kept near the center of the image, this works just fine most of the time. But some folks insist on getting the theatrical experience. (It's worth it for some movies.)

Widescreen Displays can show the full width of the video without the need for vertical shrinkage, thanks to the screen having the same aspect ratio (or close to it) as the "Letterbox" or theatrical format.

Unless you get Widescreen HDTV, you're stuck with the shrunken "Letterbox" format that standard TVs use.

[Mark Jones]

...if that monitor will rotate 90 degrees then you -MIGHT- just be able to read one whole page of a PDF file. :U

[Wistrik]

I'm trying to get a Samsung Syncmaster 215TW. It's 21" wide-screen and always out of stock locally (due to good reviews, etc.). I can just see myself coding assembly and Java on that thing. All that wondrous space...

And for Word and PDF documents, I can tilt it to read the whole page at once.

There are larger screens, sure, but I only sit 18-24 inches from the display and I don't want to have to pan my head too much to see everything. Anything is a big upgrade from my current 15" CRT.

[shankle]

I'm spoiled.
I have a 19" flat panel and could NEVER go back to a 17", let alone a
15" monitor.
A 20,21,22" would be paradise in my opinion.
Very Easy on the eyes.
Necessary for those of us getting up in years.
jps

[hutch--]

Jack,

Be seduced by one of the large displays, your eyesight will last longer for it. I have been using a 21 inch crt monitor for the last couple of years and it does everything well. I have two other 19 inch crt's as well for my other boxes and it allows me to run 1280 x 1024 with reasonable sized fonts. I do not like the current batch of flat screen displays, fine for text and web browsing but substandard on video and colour accuracy is not that good. I think a couple more years of development are needed on them before they come up to scratch.

Interestingly enough I like slightly curves screens as they are more angle tolerant for viewing where a flat screen looks distorted from even a slight angle.

[Wistrik]

It's true that many FPDs are inconsistant in quality. They'll be good at one thing but horrible at another. I read a number of reviews before I settled on the 215TW, and after getting to see it in person last weekend, I ordered one for myself. It's at the top of the heap for it's size and price group, with accurate color, uniform color dispersion across the screen, fast response time, good contrast, good black level, sharp picture, and so on. I do a little of everything on my computer at home, including writing, coding, media editing, and playing the occasional game, so I need a screen that'll adapt to what I'm doing at any given moment.

As to curvature; it's not that big a deal for me. I'm either directly in front of the screen or I'm not at the desk at all. I've used a CRT at home since 1988, and I have a flat-screen at work. Hands down I prefer the flat screen, especially for document writing and coding.

[shankle]

It's going to take a lot of seducing to get a tightwad like me to spend $700+
for a 20-22" flat panel. Hope I can wait long enough for prices to come down and quality
to get beter.

Please Wistrik explain 215TW  or give a sight so that I can read up on it.

regards,
JPS

[Wistrik]

A few posts up the thread I provided a link to a site that reviewed the 215TW. Depending on where you order it, you can get it for anywhere from $400 to $550. You could also go to Samsung's website and look at their specifications for it. Google is pretty good at finding stuff if you provide model names/numbers, such as "Samsung Syncmaster 215TW". It comes in black or silver; the one I ordered is black.

I suggest reading the reviewer's site, as I have a headache right now and can't recall anything except that it swivels 90 degrees for document viewing. Obviously it has more than that or I wouldn't be buying one.

[ninjarider]

i've always wanted a big tv and after see the 60" sony i want it really bad. your suppose to be able to plug your computer straight into the t.v. it has a card slot so you can throw away your cable box.

whats the difference in quality between crt's, flat panel lcd's, and plasma's

[Wistrik]

I got the new monitor yesterday and it works great. I did learn some new things about LCDs, however.

- Native Resolution: this is the resolution, 1600x1050 in this case, that looks best on the monitor. The manufacturer isn't kidding. This means that lower resolutions, especially below 1024x768, won't look as good as they would on a CRT. I tested two older games that run at 640x480 resolution and 800x600 resolution and they were rather pixelated by the time they were stretched across the big screen. The second game supported window mode, which looked great but was a bit hard to see because 800x600 only fills about one-quarter of the screen. I found out that sitting further from the screen made the full-screen graphics more acceptable. However, I'll probably relegate such old titles to my older computer, which has been reunited with its CRT. (My CRT has a .21 inch dot pitch and provides very sharp images at all resolutions from 320x200 to its limit of 1280x1024; its only limitations are its darkness and small size of ~15 inches diagonal. In other words, it's perfect for older games.)

- There is also the matter of running games designed for a 4:3 aspect ratio on a screen that roughly provides 16:10. If you don't use window mode, the game's graphics will appear slightly flattened horizontally due to being stretched. If you rotate 90 degrees, they'll be stretched vertically.

- Analog versus Digital: my NVIDIA 6800GT has two digital outputs. My analog CRT had to connect to it through an adapter. Interestingly, I couldn't get the digital hook-up to work for the LCD until I plugged into the card's second video port. This could have been due to the fact that I installed the display drivers with an analog monitor hooked up. As one might expect, digital looks better than analog.

- The LCD screen is much brighter. I was getting a tan before I turned all the brightness settings down. Comparing my old CRT to this LCD is like comparing a bug light to a sun lamp.

- The viewing angle is pretty good but as I mentioned before, I rarely try computing at extreme view angles. Since I tend to spend several hours (with breaks) in a computing session, I sit directly in front of the screen and maintain good posture. Otherwise I end up with headaches and muscle tension.

- The screen rotates up to 270 degrees. Samsung provides an application called MagicRotate but it conflicted with NVIDIA's display drivers so the desktop couldn't be rotated. To fix this problem, I had to uninstall MagicRotate and use NVIDIA's settings instead. This is unfortunate because Samsung's software is capable of auto-sensing the monitor's orientation and adjusting the desktop automatically.

- The screen also swivels on a sturdy eight inch round stand, and can tilt forward and back. It also has a height adjustment; it must be at maximum height in order to rotate without hitting the surface it's sitting on. The monitor is well balanced and stays where you put it.

- There are built-in brightness settings for internet, games, text, sports, movies, and your own custom setting. For goof-off sessions where I do a number of things, I use a custom setting that averages the rest. The Text setting produces less brightness so as to reduce glare and eye-strain while editing text. Samsung provides MagicTune software to let you change these settings without having to use the on-screen display (OSD).

- Due to the monitor's default resolution of 1600x1050, low resolution photos and JPG images with high compression ratios will have all their faults fully revealed. Better to use high resolution photos and non-lossy image formats, unless of course you're building a website. But then there is the PNG format.

- There are built-in speakers which have their volume set to zero by default, and a headphone jack that disables the speakers when in use. The monitor has S-Video and composite inputs, as well as inputs for sound devices. So you can hook up your DVD player or your console game unit if you wish. Given the native resolution, I don't recomment playing older, low-resolution games on it.

- Text looks absolutely beautiful and razor sharp, especially with digital signal. This was a key point for me because I spend most of my computer time coding and creating documents. With the wider screen I can use the default view to see long lines. Or I can rotate 90 degrees and view more lines, or even full pages of PDF/Word documents. Very, very nice.

In summary, I'm very pleased with this monitor. No doubt I'll learn more intricacies as I continue to use it.