Monitor advice?

M

mnshutterbug

New Member
I inherited a Gateway desktop awhile ago from my cousin. After she moved, she couldn't get it to even boot up. I reformatted and and reinstalled XP and some programs. Unfortunately, the monitor has to be struck occasionally to get the picture to straighten out. It also needs more memory, which is cheap these days.

However, I've been looking at monitors online and see the majority are now widescreen. I've already decided on flat panel of course, but what's everybody's take on wide screen? I understand the whole idea is for watching movies, but I don't need the PC for that. Also, what do you consider a good minimum resolution? The one that's attached right now is just 1024 X 768. Even that looks good to me. Actually, that's what my laptop has, too. I've also seen contrast ratios from 500:1 to 2000:1. I don't think size is that important. A 17" would probably be fine. I measured the current one and surprisingly, it measures 16" from corner to corner. That seems a bit strange. I'm going to try and keep my investment to not much more than $200 to $225 or so. Also, I would assume response time shouldn't be that big of a deal either, as long as I'm not watching movies on it.

Anyway, what is more important, resolution or contrast ratio?

This is to be mainly used for photography, no games.
 
If your not using it for movies or games, a 17" or 19" 5-8ms square flatpanel will be fine, but widescreens are always nicer, if you can get one for the same price (unlikely).
 
Resolution: amount of pixels on the screen. Meaning more pixels sharper screen. Sharper screen also depends on the screen size. Bigger screen with more pixels can stil be less pixel per square inch or so. So it isn't sharper.

Contrast: This is a hard one. English isn't my native language but i'll try to explain. It's about colors. The higher the contrast the better colors look. Higher contrast means black looks more black and red looks more red.

response time isn't important to you. Don't even bother looking at it. It's the amount of time it takes the monitor to get to picture on the screen. You won't even notice a difference between 2ms and 15ms.
I would try and get a 20inch if your budget allows it.
 
I have the Acer AL2016W and love it.. I use Photoshop CS3, among other applications, on a daily basis and this monitor displays even the tiniest details flawlessly. I run mine at 1440x900, rather than the native resolution.. but only because my LCD sits too far from me to have it on 1680x1050 :)

An alternative to that is this monitor; link .. it's essentially the same thing, with free shipping.. totalling $189.99 shipped :)
 
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