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sworthy · Nov 29, 2003, 03:13 AM

So I've been looking at lcd's and I am dying to get the apple 20" but I just can't justify the cost, no matter how lustful I am. But, the 17" doesn't have enough resolution for me.

I thought I could easily solve the problem by going w/ an 18" or 19" display (what's bigger than 17" but smaller than 20"?), but they all seem to have the same resolution as the standard 17" lcd's of 1280 x 1024.

So my problem is I'm looking for something that blurs the two displays. About halfway on the price, and about halfway on the pixels, but I can't seem to find anything. Widescreen 17" was a thought, but they have even fewer pixels than the standard 4:3.

Any ideas?

StevenWRX · Nov 29, 2003, 11:44 PM

I am saving up for a formac 19".... i love it!

-steven

Seqiro · Nov 30, 2003, 12:49 AM

The ViewSonic VX2000 is a great display. It's about $250 less than the Apple display shipped and has 1600x1200 resolution.

http://www.techonweb.com/shop/produc...=844545&src=PG

spiky_dog · Nov 30, 2003, 12:59 AM

how about two 17"s? a radeon 9000 will drive two adc displays with the aid of a 3rd party dvi-adc convert, or you could just go with standard dvi displays...

sworthy · Nov 30, 2003, 06:02 AM

Originally posted by StevenWRX:
I am saving up for a formac 19".... i love it!

-steven

My problem exactly, check out the formac 17" and all other 17" lcds, they both have the same resolution, you just get a physically larger screen.

Seqiro
The ViewSonic VX2000 is a great display. It's about $250 less than the Apple display shipped and has 1600x1200 resolution.

http://www.techonweb.com/shop/produ...d=844545&src=PG

This is something at least to take into consideration, but it's barely cheaper than the 20" (w/ my edu discount) and if they're going to be that close I might as well get the 20".

spiky_dog
how about two 17"s? a radeon 9000 will drive two adc displays with the aid of a 3rd party dvi-adc convert, or you could just go with standard dvi displays...

I'm using a 12" powerbook to drive the display, so I can only get one, and I've found that two screens is not nearly as useful as one larger one.

So am I right that no 18 or 19 inch displays exist that have a higher resolution than 1280 x 1024?

I guess I might have to wait until the rumored new displays come out then pick up an "old" 20" on the cheap (well, relatively at least).

Boochie · Nov 30, 2003, 05:10 PM

I haven't seen any. I have the Apple 17" LCD, and in my opinion anything physically larger with the same resolution wouldn't look so great -- LCD monitors really bring out the sharp edges, and a denser pixel count makes things look a bit smoother.

Of course it can go too far in the other direction too -- my Dell laptop from work has a 15" 1600x1200 display, and the text is pretty tiny unless I futz with the settings. Of course, when I do that in laptop mode everything looks wacky when I connect it to my desktop monitor. Oh well.

Originally posted by sworthy:

So am I right that no 18 or 19 inch displays exist that have a higher resolution than 1280 x 1024?

I guess I might have to wait until the rumored new displays come out then pick up an "old" 20" on the cheap (well, relatively at least).

jtwiskowski · Dec 4, 2003, 07:28 PM

I was looking at the Apple 20" display but am convinced they will be updated soon. I also looked at the Apple 17" but already owned one a few years ago.

The ViewSonic VX2000 is an excellent display. One of the fastest and brightest for the money.

However, I ended up with a Sony HX-93 ... it is roughly $799-899 and has an 800:1 contrast ratio (unheard of by me until I read it on Sony's site). It has three inputs, one DVI, two VGA. It even has audio inputs for all three if one wanted to use the display's built-in speakers.

The brightness is amazing, almost too bright. It has an "Auto" setting that detect ambient light and automatically adjust brightness for you which is REALLY cool.

Although only 1280x1024, like Apple's 17", it is a 19" display. It is not bad as some would say. 1600x1200 would have too small text for me. This seems the perfect size. (for me).

I have it hooked up to my Dual 1.8 G5 w/ Radeon 9600 Pro and it look stunning. I also hooked it up to my 12" PowerBook and it looks just as amazing.

If you plan to play games or edit/watch alot of video content ... proper brightness, contrast, and response time is needed. The Sony display has all these things. The quality rivals my new new Samsung 27" HDTV even!

Hope this helps! In other words ... check out some 19" displays!

chaldean oracle · Dec 4, 2003, 10:03 PM

It's butt ugly, but the Dell 2000FP is a well-regarded 20" monitor that's available for firesale prices now:

Dell 2000FP for $749

That's a ridiculously good price on a 1600x1200, 20" LCD.

(It's on sale because they've introduced the 2001FP, which has a much slimmer bezel and has wider viewing angles and faster response times)

Cadaver · Dec 5, 2003, 12:50 AM

Originally posted by chaldean oracle:
(It's on sale because they've introduced the 2001FP, which has a much slimmer bezel and has wider viewing angles and faster response times)

The 2001FP is a really nice display, btw.

chaldean oracle · Dec 5, 2003, 01:03 AM

Originally posted by Cadaver:
The 2001FP is a really nice display, btw.

yup, mine is in the mail. $710 with institutional pricing.

chaldean oracle · Dec 6, 2003, 01:55 PM

Thanks to a post at ArsTechnica:

The brand-new 2001FP can now be had for only $750.

You might like the looks better or worse than the Apple 20", but for a 1600x1200, 20", S-IPS panel (previously only found in Apple and the NEC 2080UX), with 16ms response time, that's a tremendously good deal.

sworthy · Dec 6, 2003, 09:32 PM

Yea, I'm definitely not too fond of having a dell logo stare me in the face, but it seems like it's by far the best deal out there. It should work no problem with my 12" powerbook, right?

chaldean oracle · Dec 7, 2003, 10:10 AM

Yeah, I plan to do a little work with rubbing alcohol, steel wool, turpentine, or a combination, to "fix" the logo once mine arrives. I did the same to my Microsoft mouse -- great mouse, but who wants the logo?

As long as your 12" is a new DVI model it should work fine. I'll be using it with a Titanium 15". I think trying to run it over VGA would be unsatisfying.

sworthy · Dec 7, 2003, 10:44 PM

How high do you think the stand is (from the ground to the base of the screen)?

On my current 15" apple studio display lcd it's about five inches.

In an ideal world I'd get the 20" cinema and put my pb underneath, like in the picture at the beginning of the thread, but I won't be able to do that with the dell. So, I was thinking about doing something along the lines of this and putting the powerbook underneath (it's plenty wide for the 12").

My only worry is that this will put the display too high, what do you think?

chaldean oracle · Dec 8, 2003, 07:26 PM

My 2001FP came today!

I will have to see what can be done about the darn Dell logo, but otherwise I'm very happy. Certainly for $750 (plus tax) it's the best deal in jumbo-LCD-land right now.

sworthy, per your questions about arranging it top/bottom vs. side-to-side: the stand is adjustable, with enough float to put the Powerbook underneath if you want, or down to about 6" high.

All I have is a phonecam, which makes things pretty fuzzy, but here are a couple of pics of the arrangments: