LG 20" Widescreen LCD monitor

Stephen

Komplett have this LG monitor on special next week for €289.
20" widescreen, 2000:1 contrast ratio, 5ms, 1680x1050.

Good value? Worth upgrading, considering i'm on a 17" 4:3 8ms LCD at the moment? I think this might be a nice complement to my new e6600/7800gtx rig

TerrorFirmer

I was just looking at that, sweet price. I have a new build myself 6400/x1950 but still stuck with my ancient dell 17" tft - god knows what the response time is. Need a new one...shame at the timing here, I literally haven't a cent left after christmas shopping.

Stephen

I have some money to spare but am reluctant to spend after dropping a grand upgrading a few weeks ago, but this is tempting me...

Redisle

i have this monitor although it cost me more like 320

Its really good, no dead pixels, lovley blacks, nice and bright but the only complaint i have for it is that the stand isnt great... kind of badly shaped and dosent support the panel very well..

FEAR amd Bf2 look really good on this and widescreen movies look class.
i would highly recommend it especially at that price

awhir

back at 320 now....

Redisle

awhir wrote:

back at 320 now....

see the first post.. NEXT WEEK:rolleyes:

Steffano2002

Hi there,

This sounds very interesting! But LCD monitors scare me because of the lag (and poor picture quality but in this case seems to be ok).

Do CRT monitors have a delay/response time?

Stephen

No they don't. Well, they do but its so tiny that we can't detect it. Refresh rate is the most noticeable thing about CRT's in my experience - if you have a crap one it won't be able to display high resolutions at higher refresh rates, giving a visible flickering effect.

The above LCD won't have any noticeable lag either, with its 5ms response time. I've been using an 8ms one for a couple of years and never see ghosting or anything like that.

Redisle

Nah no ghosting at alll with this monitor.... you would only notice ghosting with monitors of 25ms response time or more.. I have this monitor as i said and its really good but make sure your graphics card can handle the games you play @1680x1050 as thats the monitors native res... i play most of my games anyway at lower res(bf2 for example has no widescreen support) and this monitor does a perfect job of stretching them... i would definetly recommend it to any gamers

Steffano2002

Thank you for your replies guys!

This being a widescreen LCD monitor (1680x1050), how does it not stretch the image horizontally when playing games? Furthermore, does it mean I will have to play my favourite games (Call of Duty 1 & 2) with a resolution of 1680x1050? I take it 1024x768 won't work no more, is that right?

I am seriously considering investing in this LCD monitor but I'm not very good with all this technical stuff...

Steffano2002

Oh, and I forgot, I have a nVidia Geforce 7800GTX 256MB (PCI-E). That should do the job right?

astrofool

Alot of games support widescreen now, you would be able to play the game at 1024x768 either with the image streched, or with borders.

Early LCD's were very bad at handling non-native resolutions, but are alot better now.

zappb

That is a stellar deal Stephen - how did you find out about what specials were coming up at Komplett in advance?

RobertFoster

Would this monitor be any good/compatible with the Xbox 360?

optiplexgx270

From here:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055031599

zappb

thanks opti!

Stephen

RobertFoster - Dunno, what kind of outputs does a 360 have? This has DVI-D, VGA D-SUB and supports HDCP copy protection, apparently.

Steffano2002

astrofool wrote:

Alot of games support widescreen now, you would be able to play the game at 1024x768 either with the image streched, or with borders.

Early LCD's were very bad at handling non-native resolutions, but are alot better now.

So there are no risks in purchasing such a monitor whether it be for games or movies?

Redisle

Steffano2002 wrote:

So there are no risks in purchasing such a monitor whether it be for games or movies?

No none at all... all my games run perfectly on this monitor and movies look amazing as they all all wide aspect these days, counter strike plays class at 1680x1050 and battlefield stretches perfectly, FEAR also runs perfect, it dosent have exactly 1680x1050 but i chose a slightly smaller wide resoultion and it stretched it perfectly, i have had this for a few mnths now and i have never seen any ghosting or anything out of place, i even prefer it to my old crt image quality wise because it has a really nice bright backlight.

Believe me you will not regret buying this monitor!
One thing though when i bought it i thought it might be bigger height wise but you must just remember its measured corner to corner.. and its actually 20.1" not 20"... i know that might not seem important but it actually is:)

Edit: There is a really good review with lots of pics here

EDIT 2: I have alot of time on my hands so i just set up a flickr account and took some pictures of my own. See them here

Steffano2002

God you do have a lo of time on your hand ab_cork!

It was very nice of you to do this but I won't thank you... Why? Well, if it wasn't for you I wouldn't be getting this €300 EUR LCD monitor next week now would I???

And if it messes up my games and make me become a n00b at Call of Duty I'm driving down to Cork to have a special word with you!

Redisle

Steffano2002 wrote:

God you do have a lo of time on your hand ab_cork!

It was very nice of you to do this but I won't thank you... Why? Well, if it wasn't for you I wouldn't be getting this €300 EUR LCD monitor next week now would I???

And if it messes up my games and make me become a n00b at Call of Duty I'm driving down to Cork to have a special word with you!

Good luck with it, you wont regret it

Stephen

This thread (mentioned above) confirms that it works with Xbox 360 using the 360's VGA cable. Dunno if this comes with the 360 or has to be bought separate.

RobertFoster

Stephen wrote:

This thread (mentioned above) confirms that it works with Xbox 360 using the 360's VGA cable. Dunno if this comes with the 360 or has to be bought separate.

Thanks. I got a 360 for Christmas and all the TVs in the house are SD. Plus, I've been looking for a good PC gaming monitor too. Looks like a good deal

Stephen

Does the 360 come with a vga cable as standard? Thinking of picking one up myself after christmas.

Makaveli

No, it's about €30 to buy.

Stephen

Just ordered this now that its on the special price on Komplett's website

Steffano2002

Same here! Will be eating a lot of patatoes in January...

Redisle

you guys that ordered it - you wont regret it, i forgot to mention it comes with a dvi and vga cable as standard so theres no need to be going out spending crazy money on a dvi cable.. im using the supplied one now and its perfect.

Steffano2002

Ab_cork, I can PM you my postal address so you can help me with my potato supply if you want...

Steffano2002

Well, got this LCD monitor delivered this morning! Pretty fast shipping considering I only placed the order on the 26th December! Wasn't expecting it for another day or two...

Can't wait to get home and test it out! Hope the picture quality is good and that I don't "feel" the 5ms delay...

All I have to do now is find a way to get it home. Not easy considering I have a motorcycle... :rolleyes:

Stephen

Got mine this morning too

Lovely picture and no dead pixels. You won't feel a 5ms delay at all. Hooked up my PC and the Xbox 360 that I picked up last week to it and everything looks bloody gorgeous

Redisle

Stephen wrote:

Got mine this morning too

Lovely picture and no dead pixels. You won't feel a 5ms delay at all. Hooked up my PC and the Xbox 360 that I picked up last week to it and everything looks bloody gorgeous

yes it is a very nice monitor but now i see that tesco deal for the 32" hd for 399 and im thinking omg i could have had a 32" monitor on my desk for only a little more money!! ahhhhhhh! I know i would probably have damaged my eyes doing that but the though of it is just............:eek:

Steffano2002

Indeed Stephen! What a great monitor! Ab_cork was right! I AM delighted with it!

Impossible to "feel" that 5ms delay in any way and, after a lot of messing about, got my CoD2 to look the bollix! (Had to change display to 16:10 format to play in 1024 x 768 resolution).

All in all, a very good LCD monitor that looks great and that has an excellent picture quality!

Stephen

You should run your games in the screen's native resolution (1360 by something) if at all possible (i.e. if your graphics card/cpu has the horsepower), they'll look much nicer.

Redisle

Stephen wrote:

You should run your games in the screen's native resolution (1360 by something) if at all possible (i.e. if your graphics card/cpu has the horsepower), they'll look much nicer.

i think you mean 1680x1050;)

Steffano2002

The 7800GTX plays CoD2 perfectly in 1680 x 1050 but I get exactly the same in 1024 x 768 when I change the format to 16:10.
Doing this avoids putting too much pressure on my graphics card, am I right?

Stephen

ab_cork: yes I'm getting confused with the various output resolutions of the xbox. Steffano - no problem with working your graphics card hard unless its giving poor framerates

Steffano2002

Stephen wrote:

Steffano - no problem with working your graphics card hard unless its giving poor framerates

I know, I know... FPS is perfect whether it's in 1680 x 1050 or 1024 x 768 but I'm nice with my PC components

Sniipe

I got this screen for christmas, playing a lot of BTME 2 ROTWK and I'm very impressed with it. I use another 15" flat screen beside it for communication during games. It looks daft beside the 20"

awhir

omg i love this lcd

im finding it a small bit bright tho any good settings u guys uses (im lazy )

Stephen

I have brightness at 80 and contrast at 70 and it looks pretty good to me. Default brightness was burning my eyes out of my skull

awhir

nice still think its a tiny bit to bright