Bah, LCDs. What a mess.

[Goragoth]

The signal coming out of the video card is digital, using analog means the signal has to get converted to analog, which is fairly easy, then back to digital for an LCD (which is much more difficult). Using DVI-D means it's straight digital to digital which eliminates image variations and color anomalies as well as the latencies from conversion.

Well I know what DVI does and I can figure that converting a signal multiple times isn't a good thing but I was really looking for the specific visual impact the conversions would have, which I guess you sort of answered.

I would suggest you take a look at the Dell monitors I mentioned as well as the Viewsonic Pro series of which the VP201 uses the same exact panel as the 2001FP.

Righto, so the Dell is getting glowing recommendations and the specs/features all look very good especially at that price too. So what are the chances of the shop I bought the HP from giving me a full refund if I return the panel complaining about the problems I've had with it? I guess I'll find out after some emailing, hopefully it won't be a problem. This is getting pretty expensive but on the other hand I guess a nice 20" LCD should last me several years. HPL1955: NZ$880, Dell 2001FP: NZ$1,460. Damn 'puters are too expensive

 

[Goragoth]

Contacted the retailer: 10% (i.e. in this case NZ$88 ) restock fee applies. I guess I can swallow that if I have to. Not sure if I get the money back or just in store credit but either is fine since I need to order a new PC from there soon anyway.
However, reading the Prad.de forums the Dell didn't exactly get glowing reviews either (people are saying that the default colour settings are bad although this may have been corrected in later revisions, also apparently the back lighting isn't 100% consistent and there are some issues with weird stripes). Overall it still sounds like a more satisfactory monitor than the one I have currently though.

 

[Ty]

Does one connection over the other matter in terms of colorspace?

I'm waiting for a nice, kick butt ,widescreen gaming LCD....err...waiting till I can afford one that is.

 

[epicstruggle]

send fallguy a pm, i believe he not only owns a dell 2001 model but the newer 2005 widescreen model. His input might convince you to get a their lcd.

epic

 

[ANova]

Does one connection over the other matter in terms of colorspace?

I'm waiting for a nice, kick butt ,widescreen gaming LCD....err...waiting till I can afford one that is.

Yes, DVI is always better. As for widescreen gaming LCDs, Dell has the 20" 2005FPW which is 12ms and 600:1. Viewsonic also just came out with the 22" VP231wb which is 16ms and 500:1. Those are among the best I've seen so far.

 

[Goragoth]

Well I revisited my budget calculations and going with the Dell would basically mean no new PC for me so its a no go, besides I'm not convinced that it would be the right choice anyway. I doubt there is a single monitor out there that would satisfy me completely (yeah I'm very picky). So I think I will stick with the current monitor, which is pretty good for just about everything except some games/movies and set up my old CRT as well for those cases (where the CRT really shines). I'm going to do some rearranging on my desk and see how that goes.

I would also like to point out that I have yet to see a LCD with the same level of colour reproduction as a CRT, I spent quite some time fiddling with gamma and colour settings on my LCD and while it does look better than most other models I have seen the colours still look a bit off. Of course CRTs have their own set of problems: blurry text, prone to interference (my monitor has visible ring patterns at the sides of the image and the picture isn't completely steady, i.e. it moves up and down slightly) and ugh, the flicker is bad even @85hz. So the only solution for me: dual setup.

 

[Goragoth]

Looking over the site where I bought my monitor once again I did notice one monitor I hadn't really thought of much before: the Philips 190B5CS.
It has DVI and looks quite nice but Prad.de does not say what kind of panel it uses. It is quoted as having 25ms response + 500:1 contrast, which sounds very much like S-IPS (MVA panels usually have higher contrast around 700:1+ and TN panels have faster response times). The monitor also comes with a zero dead pixel gurantee, something that is certainly nice. Only no USB hub but that isn't a big deal really. So does anybody conclusively know what sort of panel it uses and has any reviews or anything at all about this monitor? Unfortunately Google searches tend to just return hundreds of retailers trying to sell the monitor and very little of substance