What is the best budget monitor available in the UK? I'm thinking of buying one of the following:-
Taxan Value Vision 17" £165
Samsung Syncmaster 753DF £199
Any ideas? or should I save up and buy a Trinitron screen for about £270?
Athlon XP 3200+, TT Silent Boost (its rubbish as well as loud) Gigabyte nForce2 mobo (stable but lacks tweaking options), GF4 Ti4200 128mb, Lian-Li V2000
Both monitors are quite nice, alternatives are the Hansol (excellent value monitors) or the value range from NEC.
Trinitron technology offers better performance (in most cases) but it demands from your actual needs. If you are not planning to use the monitor at very high resolutions then a quality badget monitor like the above is more than adequate.
Try not to skimp on the monitor!
For all the bits that you can buy for your pc, and the cost involved, its the monitor that you stare at all day. The better the picture the more you'll appreciate it.
When I first bought my 19" monitor it cost a fair bit, and even when I first plugged it in I was still thinking ' bloody hell I spent a lot on this, I hope its worth it', But I've never looked back.
Yes its was expensive (for me) but I dont regret it one bit. It was worth every penny.
No matter how fast your pc is, its not much good if your looking into a blurry goldfish bowl!
I got a Belinea 10 60 30 (19") for only £240. I got better image quality than my 15" monitor that it replaced (unbranded). I get a good image at 1152x864 (my default Windows resolution) and in games then all the way up to 1600x1200 is fine...
USSVoyager
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Speed is everything - Warp factor 9, Mr. Sulu!
If you go to PC World, they're selling the Samsung SyncMaster 750s for £149.
I bought one of them ages ago and they're really good. Sharp image and a massive vieable area for a 17". Plus it's very nearly flat screen which makes all the difference
The only flaw in it's design is that it can only go upto 1280x1024@75hz. Having said that though, I only ever run it at 1152x864 anyway!
Originally posted by Ultim8_Evil: If you go to PC World, they're selling the Samsung SyncMaster 750s for £149. The only flaw in it's design is that it can only go upto 1280x1024@75hz.
Damn good monitor
Thanks for the advice but have you got your figures right? At the Samsung website they said that the max refresh from the 750S is 60hz at 1280x1024 and that the recommended resolution is 1024x768 at 75Hz (max).
I normally run my desktop / office apps at 1024x768 (75hz) but I usually run my games at 1280x1024 and I need the extra refresh rates (ie 75hz) at this resolution (turning on anti-aliasing on my Geforce just kills frame rates) so I don't really want a monitor that can only churn out 60hz at 1280x1024 - I'll get a headache after a while!
I looked very closely at the monitors that they had on display at PC World. Although the Samsung 750S was amazingly cheap (£150) when I looked closely at the text on screen it was a bit blurry. When I compared this to the Sony E220 the Sony's text was pinsharp with no blurring. Having said that the Sony is £100 more!
I have to say that I'm not convinced about the quality of the cheaper Samsungs. It seems that the reason that the Samsungs tend to get good reviews is because the models reviewed are the ones based on the Aperture Grill / Diamondtron / Trinitron tubes (ie the expensive ones).
Damn, I still don't know what to get. I'm tempted to break the bank and just buy a Mitsubishi Diamondtron 720 for £270.
I don't know whether I should just get a decent CRT now or just buy a cheapy and wait 12 months for the prices of TFT to come down.
[This message has been edited by davidstone28 (edited 01-14-2001).]
Athlon XP 3200+, TT Silent Boost (its rubbish as well as loud) Gigabyte nForce2 mobo (stable but lacks tweaking options), GF4 Ti4200 128mb, Lian-Li V2000
Originally posted by Gasman: Try not to skimp on the monitor!
For all the bits that you can buy for your pc, and the cost involved, its the monitor that you stare at all day. The better the picture the more you'll appreciate it.
No matter how fast your pc is, its not much good if your looking into a blurry goldfish bowl!
Hey Gasman, very sound advice. So, do you fancy donating your Iilyama to me to stop me getting eyestrain?
Athlon XP 3200+, TT Silent Boost (its rubbish as well as loud) Gigabyte nForce2 mobo (stable but lacks tweaking options), GF4 Ti4200 128mb, Lian-Li V2000
Try it on your present monitor and see what ya think.
Edit Bit:
You'll be in for a bloody long wait for prices of TFT to drop! Monitors are'nt like the rest of pc hardware, their prices dont seem to drop by that much from one year to the next, unless you're after a model thats about to be replaced by the manufacturer.
Originally posted by Gasman: Try not to skimp on the monitor!
For all the bits that you can buy for your pc, and the cost involved, its the monitor that you stare at all day. The better the picture the more you'll appreciate it.
I couldn't agree more. Even going from a cheap 17 to a good 17" makes all the difference; good refresh rates, stable picture, nice colours.............blah blah blah you get the idea.
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Or, like I said earlier, the Belinea 10 60 30 19" monitor for only £240. 3 year on-site replacement, 1152x864@85Hz (maybe some of the higher resolutions have a refresh rate of 85Hz too, I cant remember), stable picture etc etc.
USSVoyager
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Speed is everything - Warp factor 9, Mr. Sulu!
As with USSVoyager, I've got a 19" Belinea 10 60 30. Very nice it is too, I'm very happy with it. Cost me £230 inc VAT & Delivery from Dabs about 5 to 6 months ago. I've seen better quality monitors, but not at that price!
A good site to check for PC component prices in the UK is http://www.pcindex.co.uk
Have Fun
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Keep On Rockin' 'n' Overclockin' ;-)
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