Comments on: Help me pick a big screen monitor:

By: Jordan Breckenridge

Jordan Breckenridge — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 02:13:16 +0000

I just bought a NEC 26″ and love it. Not necessarily cheap, but well worth the price. When doing my research I came across this thread with lots of indepth comments on LCD monitors for a variety of purposes. If you read down, there is a recommendation section that is spot on:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=2049206&enterthread=y

By: Krishna Sadasivam

Krishna Sadasivam — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:24:05 +0000

Om, I'd go with a Samsung 305T - it's a gorgeous 30" monitor. After months of research, it was my pick when compared against the Dell and Apple displays.

By: Steve Riekeberg

Steve Riekeberg — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:48:19 +0000

Especially, if you're a cheap bastard, err, I mean student, like me, the Acers are very attractive. They are very cheap, and by cheap I don't mean low quality, I mean very affordable, the panels themselves are pretty dang nice, especially for the cost. I'm extremely happy with mine.

In my opinion, I wouldn't even look at anything bigger than 24", and I even find that a bit of a stretch--just too freakin' big. At home, I have currently have a 20". One thing I think to note is the resolution versus the size. From what I've seen, most 20" and 22" both tend to be 1680x1050, so while the 22" may be bigger, you're not going to be getting any more screen real estate for the extra money. 24" are 1920x1200, so in that case, you'd have full 1080p resolution, if that's important to you.

I want to echo what others have touched: Instead of one really big screen, you might be better off with two more medium sized displays. I'm not sure how that would work (if at all) with the MacBook, though. (It only has one DVI output, right? I guess you'd probably need some special hardware device or something...)

By: Aaron Houssian

Aaron Houssian — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:51:17 +0000

@ all those using 24"+ monitors I really think that dual 19" monitors are not only a much better deal, but for me create a great workflow I had a 32" monitor, admittedly the resolution wasn't that high, but honestly it just massive just didn't help.

I also agree that this will be task dependent, what you are doing will make a difference as well as your working style.

For me I typically have Dreamweaver, photoshop, Firefox (with way too many tabs open) and a couple of word and/or excel files open, not to mention twitter, IM, Skype popping up and down. I flip from project to project. More space helps.

By: rubywhite

rubywhite — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:48:31 +0000

Go to the Apple refurbished store and get a 23" for $749 with free shipping. You won't regret it - whereas everytime you look at the Dell or Samsung logo you will.

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:50:44 +0000

@ Kent: using a Macbook, the consumer model.

@ others, Thanks for the suggestions. It is a samsung -dell bake off. I am not confused.

Also is 22 inch better than 24 inch monitor? Big question.

By: 'ol yeller

'ol yeller — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:06:55 +0000

After regularly using a larger screen, laptop screens feel like green 13" CRTs.

The dell 24xx series are great - Samsung panels.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:46:13 +0000

Dell or Samsung. ...though I find 24" too large.

By: Alex Soto

Alex Soto — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:09:42 +0000

I picked up a 24" Acer at my local BJ's for $369. It's a lovely display at an affordable price.

By: Mike Gunderloy

Mike Gunderloy — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:26:12 +0000

I liked my first Dell 2407 so much I bought a second. The only caution I'd give (and I've compared notes with other developers who say the same) is that there seems to be variation in the color between the two even at identical settings. But that's a minor nit, and only noticeable if you're going to put two side-by-side.

By: Kent Pribbernow

Kent Pribbernow — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:14:37 +0000

Much as it pains me to say this, I have to cast my vote with the "go with Dell" camp. Right now Dell is THE place to go for excellent quality low-cost LCD monitors, and though I salivate over Apple's products like a two year-old in a toy store, the Cinema display line is abysmally overpriced and underwhelming.

I have the 20" model sitting on my desk now (conjoined with a Mac Pro) and don't plan to upgrade until they revamp the entire line with LED backlit displays and pull their heads out of their pants on pricing.

Apple's premium pricing is beginning to gnaw at me, as well as my pocket book. I'm saving my money to buy a MacBook Pro, and can't possibly afford one at the moment, but I find myself wondering why I should drop over two grand for the same hardware I could get in a PC notebook for half the price?

By the way, you say you're using a MacBook... do you mean the consumer model or Pro?

By: ryan

ryan — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:34:53 +0000

We have these Dell 30″ monitors at work. Mac book pros will drive them. It supports a reasonable 2560×1600 resolution, and I like it. My Mac says it’s a Dell 3007 WFPHC, whatever that is. There is no other label on the machine.

It only has 1 DVI input (the belkin: http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=172698 works well on 30″), but has a USB hub with flash card reader.

Here it is: http://flickr.com/photos/ryanobjc/1130886292/

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:01:10 +0000

Stick with Tom's advice above. If you're picky about your monitors, do not buy the cheapo 22" and 24" monitors. They use 6-bit per color TN panels versus 8-bit per color S-IPS screens. The viewing angles on the TN screens are terrible, and they look kind of lifeless and blurry to boot.

The good monitors still cost more and they're worth it.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:16:29 +0000

If you value high quality, stay away from < $450 24" monitors. I have a Dell 2407WFP at home and a Dell 248WFP at work. The difference in quality is significantly worse for the latter wrt color and viewing angle. Don't even think about using it for anything related to Photoshop or video.

That said, for business stuff like Word, Excel and doing your taxes, it's good enough.

By: Michael Berkowitz

Michael Berkowitz — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:15:16 +0000

I have used a 24″ Dell with my macbook since I first bought it 3 weeks after macbooks were introduced. I definitely find I am more productive using the bigger monitor – it all depends what you do with it. I like having all my comm apps – adium / skype etc off on one side while I use my webbrowser or dev apps with lots of space for palettes spread out on the rest of the screen. I am also using a wireless logitech wireless mouse and the apple wireless keyboard.

I just ordered an ergotron dual army myself – I want to have even more space so one arm will hold my 24″ inch monitor and the other will hold my macbook so its screen is lined up nicely with the 24″ for multiple displays. It would also be nice for cooling my macbook and freeing up deskspace. http://www.ergotron.com/Products/DeskMounts/tabid/71/ctl/Product/mid/396/PRDID/134/language/en-US/default.aspx

It was around $188 from provantage I believe.

By: Michael Selvidge

Michael Selvidge — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:55:02 +0000

My boss just bought the whole office a second screen thanks vijay!) We all rock macs over here, but Apple Cinema displays, while pretty, are not worth the premium.

My boss picked up some Samsung widescreens at Costco, they get the job done. Costco isn’t much for selection, but if they have the monitor you want, you’ll be hard-pressed to beat Costco on price. check out the selection at Costco.com: http://www.costco.com/Common/Category.aspx?cat=1680&eCat=BC|84|1680&lang=en-US&whse=BC&topnav=

@Stacey -
working on a big screen is great, but working on your existing 13″ screen and using the big screen as a second desktop is sublime.