If you had, say, $200 to $300 to spend on an LCD monitor for programming (web) applications and watching movies (i.e., gaming is irrelevant), which one would you buy?

I bought this one on January for $1189 (around USD 339 with importing taxes and shipping included, the US site has it for $199). It should arrive in a week or so. That will be my first LCD and while the contrast is 1:1000 instead of 1:2000, I doubt I will notice any difference since I am still using a 17'' CRT one. It is 1080p but not HDMI (DVI/VGA, I will be using it via VGA since I still have an AGP video card).

Anyways, guess I could recommend it because, even though I still don't have it with me, it is the one I chose as my first LCD.

HP LP2065 (S-IPS)

that price range is to low for any quality screens.

i remember buying a view-sonic 13in lcd screen for $450. and thats with the display item discount.

i want 52in duelys
and a bigger desk until then im stick with my 2 hp 1502s i got for $50 each from a yard sale

I haven't tested a wide range of lcds, just a few laptop lcds and my two samsung 720n's. I'd probably go with another samsung since these two are working out so well for me. I use one as a tv half the time (with a tuner) and watch movies on it and even though it's only 17" I don't mind the picture from 10' away at all.

My Dell 2001FP has served me well for as long as I've had it (a few years at least). It's 1600x1200

I'd buy a 22 inch wide screen monitor. My dad and I have 19 inch veiwsonic VA1912wb monitors (no bad pixels and they still work great after a few years) but that is because the bigger ones were still around 400-500 dollars at the time. I like wide screen better because I use unusually long variable names when programming.

Any PVA or S-IPS monitor.
I got one of these, http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/28/dell-2007wfp-20-inch-lcd-reviewed/ and it blows away my Samsung 226BW (my Samsung is one of the first generation S panels, so it's the good model) in terms of colour. Movies, games and pictures just look some much better on the monitor. It also is extremely customizable and has very sturdy construction. Also the viewing angles are excellent. So if you want to lean back further away from the monitor, you don't have to worry about half the colours fading out.

I can't find it on Dell's website, but for second hand these should be in your price range. I would recommend them.

If you have the extra money to spend, going for the 24 inch or 27 inch of the same model is also worth it.

I don't have any recommendations for cheaper monitors since except for a few rare cases, they are usually TN (I think Asus shipped a 20inch PVA for $240 or so not too long ago).

If that's all you're going to do with it, any brand name LCD will work.

High action movies will give you similar ghosting to fast games... So not just any brand name lcd will work. Unless they all sell LCDs with little to no ghosting all of a sudden.

I would buy the one I did buy. As I don't buy per my gaming needs so I bought the Acer 19" Widescreen LCD (V193w).

I bought a Samsung 2343BW around New Years for about CDN$300, IIRC. 23", 2048x1148 native resolution,... It seems pretty nice to me, but we all know I'm not really a hardware expert.

Looking at the selection of TN monitors, I can't find one with a greater then 5ms reaction time. I tested my 8ms (Non TN though, don't know if its measured differently), I can only manage to get it to ghost in a few very rare cases (I remember it doing it a little in UT2K4 in some parts, but I tried it right now, and it looks fine to me). Considering movies run at 24 fps you would need a pretty bad monitor to get it to ghost.

I got nothin.

The last monitor I bought was the SyncMaster 213T, about $850. Had it for about 3 years.

Susan!

I'm using two Samsung Syncmasters (940BW) ... 19" widescreen with 1440x900 resolution each.
Works alright for me at least, rather cheap too. Haven't seen any ghosting

[Edit]
Oh, and I don't watch movies on my monitors. Thats what I got a 42" LG HDTV for

I was really impressed with my Dell 22" E228WFP when I got it. It's the best low price monitor (~240USD) I've come across.

We use it for watching movies in bed from about 15' away and find it easily big enough (widescreen monitors are great!), even when trying to read subtitles. The upodate speed is very good, but the resolution is a little low (1680x1050).

I think my model at home is a Samsung 2253BW. Great monitor. I paid $350 for it, but they have dropped in price and been superceded by a newer model by now. I've always gone with Samsung and loved them, never a dead or lit pixel, never any problems at all.

Acer monitors are decent for the price as well. They sell for between $150-$230 CAD here for a 22" screen. I can't say whether they are durable or not.

That is more or less true these days. Most panels are 5ms or 2ms with very little ghosting.

I have had good luck with a Samsung SyncMaster 206bw (it seems to have been superseded by a newer and even nicer model). Inexpensive ($229 USD), excellent colour quality, good contrast ratio, snappy refresh times.

Acer is an anagram for crap.

Just thought I'd point that out.

I mostly agree

A friend bought a 22" acer though and it does look great.. I would be worried about it dying if it were mine, though.

I ended up ordering an HP w2408h (1920x1200, 24") for $199. No taxes or shipping costs, yay Internet.

I got the monitor yesterday. Still trying to get used to it. Tried it at 1360x768, since I am used at 1024x768. But some fonts were rendered really awful. Now I am at 1680x1050, the fonts is somewhat better but some images appear somewhat broken. 1920x1080 makes everything really small. Didn't try 1920x1200, it can only be worse.

Of course, I am using it via VGA, so that may be the problem.

1920x1080 is the native res, so that is what you will want to set it at. Change font sizes, or DPI (or whatever) to make stuff bigger.

It will only look good at the native 1920 x 1080 resolution. If fonts are too small, then enlarge them.

Well, trying it out... everything is so... sharp... will take me a good while to stop getting dizzy

I picked one up a long time ago when they had the cheapest monitors available (19" widescreen). Sure enough it broke, but thankfully they accept local drop off (I'm looking at you Western Digital) and their repair facility was really close to me. A few weeks later they shipped it back to me and its been working for 3 or 4 years now.

ahem slight thread hijack I feel, but does anyone know anything the level of support in flat-screen televisions and monitors with SCART inputs for ye olde non-interlaced video mode? The only LCD TV screen that I've used supported only interlaced video on its SCART and aerial sockets with the effect that a whole bunch of Playstation and earlier games looked extremely odd.

I think SCART is primarily a European thing, so no comment on that specifically. I've never hooked up an old console up to my 32" LCD, but I think the lower resolution ones would look bad unless the TV could zoom at 2x or 3x and center.

But I finally got the 24" LCD monitor today, and it's great. Now with four monitors (1024x768, 1280x1024, 1280x1024, 1920x1200) plugged into my PC, I have no shortage of screens to look at.

This gives me two thoughts:
The first one involves a time travelling picollo, the second is:
What, you had three monitors on one PC and were in dire need of a quality fourth?!

It depends what I'm working on.

Generally three is sufficient, but when grading homework, it's not. I get around 150 documents per assignment, and I have to look through them all, grade them, merge groups together, etc. And I particularly needed a widescreen monitor so I could actually see the spreadsheets, flowcharts, and other diagrams without requiring excessive scrolling.

If I had four monitors, I'd have a severe shortage of things to plug them into. I guess that when I eventually get an LCD-or-similar TV, I'll just have to cross my finger that it supports non-interlaced video. I'm sure I read somewhere that it's not an official part of either the NTSC or PAL spec, so I guess not supporting it is forgivable.

Almost every PC video card these days supports at least two monitors. I have two such cards. Cheap PCI cards only cost $20 to $30.

But, of course, if you are using a laptop, you're probably stuck with dual display. And if you have an Apple workstation, then you probably have to drop about $5000 before you get two video cards.

TWO video cards? Mr Jobs told me that only some sort of super-rich astronaut from the future could ever possibly want such a thing! For us so-called 'consumers', it's two screens including the built-in one and that's it!

On the plus side, my vague understanding is that should Microsoft and therefore motherboard vendors start supporting EFI, then things like graphics cards will be no more platform specific than things like hard disks.

http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/597855

I cannot wait for my next two LCD monitors to arrive.

htop rocks. And yes, that desk is asking for a tripple 22" LCD setup.

It's 24". Nice, crisp 1920x1200 resolution.

Ah sorry, I'm a wee bit tired. I thought I rechecked what it was before I submitted, guess not carefully enough.

You could become one of those hardcore flight-simmers who stacks multiple monitors all around them to emulate a real cockpit.

Looks excellent for the price. I have a HP2035 and for computer equipment you really can't go wrong with HP. But 4 monitors! I have two and that's enough for me. One for coding the other for email/browsing.

I have a 23inch samsung 226 thingy at work which has a 2ms response time and 3000:1 contrast ratio and that is just lovely.

How?