new monitor

scargill

I'm buying a new monitor cos the 19" CRT is breaking my back whenever I move it.

I'm thinking of buying one of these: BenQ 17" LCD T705 TCO99 Monitor

It'll be used for gaming (COD,UO,Half-Life,Doom,etc)

will this do the job ? I haven't had an LCD/TFT before so what are the important things to look out for ?

Response Time ? 13ms in the case of the BenQ
Image Contrast Ratio ? 500:1 in the case of the BenQ

(I have a budget of around €300 - €350)

thanks

jor el

With up to €350 to spend I'd go with FP937s+ from jes.de. I just got the FP937s for €315 from them and it's a fine monitor (though it's now listed at €414 for some reason). The response time on mine is 12ms, but the FP937s+ is only 8ms.

snappieT

I'm actually getting one too, but I'm getting this.

It's within your price range, is 8ms, 500:1 (standard), and brightness of 300cd/m2 (as opposed to the 250 I've seen everywhere else)
As an added bonus, it's 19"

mp3guy

TBH, i think response time is a marketing scam. Unless you've got 2 LCD's beside each other with different response times, theres no way you'll notice. I have a 25ms LCD downstairs and a 16ms upstairs, I notice no difference at all. Save yourself the cash, its really not worth it.

scargill

reading the various reviews around I am starting to come to the same conclusions about the response times. anything under 25ms seems to be adequate.

the people who insist that only <10 ms will do seem to be the same people that insist music can only be listened to on a top of the range B&O system !!

Maybe my eyes and ears aren't as refined as theirs !!

I just don't want to spend €400 and be stung !! The Samsung above looks good though so I might go for that.

Stephen

I have a Benq FP71E+ I got off one of the komplett weekly specials a while back for about €300. I like it. Same specs as the one in your post except that the response time is 8ms.
Wrt what people are saying above, you probably will notice ghosting effects in fast games like UT2004 on a TFT with only 25ms response time. Anything 16ms or under should be ok.

Also, on contrast ratio - the higher the better. 500:1 seems fine, bright and vibrant in the case of the benq anyway.

Sgtshaft

snappieT wrote:

I'm actually getting one too, but I'm getting this.

It's within your price range, is 8ms, 500:1 (standard), and brightness of 300cd/m2 (as opposed to the 250 I've seen everywhere else)
As an added bonus, it's 19"

Got this Samsung around one month ago, I am very happy with it absolutely no ghosting with games or movies. Only one problem it developed one dead pixel thankfully in one of the corners.

Edit: whoops one thing to remember is the lack of a DVI connector (which I dont care about)

scargill

supposing the dead pixels appeared in the middle of the screen ?
are dead pixels grounds for exchanging it ?

juliuspret

What is the major difference between using a DVI/VGA15 connector???

Is the picture clearer/less blurring...what exactly as Ive experienced FTF's with both digital and analogue connections and fail to see any real difference worth the extra premium?

Sgtshaft

scargill wrote:

supposing the dead pixels appeared in the middle of the screen ?
are dead pixels grounds for exchanging it ?

If your worried about dead or stuck pixels then read this and this

juliuspret wrote:

What is the major difference between using a DVI/VGA15 connector???

Because VGA technology requires that the signal be converted from digital to analog for transmission to the monitor, a certain amount of degradation occurs. DVI keeps data in digital form from the computer to the monitor, virtually eliminating signal loss.