Computer question from a non-computer guy

mnblade

mnblade

Joined
Feb 7, 2000
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I have a Gateway 550 circa 2000. It has a 550MHZ PIII processor, 64M of memory and a 10GB IDE 5400 RPM hard drive. My wife and I are moving to a very small apartment and we'd like to save some workstation space with a smaller monitor. Is it possible to just buy a new flatscreen monitor and plug it into this computer, or is the computer too out-dated? I don't need super-high-end clarity or resolution. It's just a basic home computer to run Word, a web browser, Quicken, Excel, etc.
 
As long as you get an LCD flatscreen with an analog (not digital) connection, you should be fine. You can just unplug the old monitor and plug in the new. Make sure the new monitor handles the resolution and colours you are used to, or you'll have to lower the settings before you unplug the older monitor.

Though, if you've got a newer graphics card with a digital connection, that would be the way to go.
 
Having recently worked with a Samsung factory repsentative, I can whole heartedly recommend the Samsung "N" and "T" series of flat screens. Their 5 generations screens should be on the market in June or early July. I should also note, that Samsung is one of two flat screen manufacturers.

If you are going to replace the "Monitor", buy the best you can afford. As I type this, I am using a monitor I purchase about 12 years ago. At the time, my friends thought I was crazy paying $1,000 for a monitor alone for home use. I have had the joy of using a professional quality monitor for all this time and, while they have purchased and replace about 4 monitors in that time, I'm still using this one. Over the long haul, it's not that expensive and I have the joy of using a superior monitor for all that time versus lower end consumer products.

When shopping for LCD panels, if your budget allows, avoid the lower end consumer grade products. You get what you pay for.

A Samsung 19inch 191N is $675 to $700 delivered on the 'net. The 17inch 171N is ~$450. Both of these models have a lifespan that far exceeds the PC itself.

If you get an Analog/Digital model, you have all the support you need. Just pay attention to the "NATIVE" resolution of the flat panel itself and how it handles the "non-native" resolutions (does it have the jaggies?). Finally, don't waste your money on a 15 inch flat panel (unless you are truly a very basic user).
 
Sid,

A few months ago I purchased a Samsung 191T for home and it's the most amazing monitor I've ever seen. I'm using the digital connection (it has both) to my ATI 9500Pro and both pictures and text look great. In comparison, I'm using an analog Eizo 18" panel at work and it's simply awful compared to the Samsung. The price of the 191T has been dropping and it's $650 now.

What are the 5 generations screens though? Do you have more info?
 
Many consumer grade LCD/Flat panels are simply awful. People would be much better served with an equivelent price traditional monitor. If you really don't care about picture quality or desktop space is an issue, then these sub-standard Flat Panels may be acceptable.

The thing I remember from my conversation with the factory rep. was the lower cost increased viewing angles possible, not that the current generation business units are bad. Brightness and contrast is improved as well. How much? I just don't remember the numbers quoted. I've been meaning to give the rep. a call as I am on the edge of getting a 191T or waiting for the next generation to come out.
 
The critical detail is identifying the video card specifications of your Gateway 550. You probably have a 8mb video-memory video card.

If the video card does not support a good flat panel monitor, you can always buy a new video card that does. For what you are doing, any 16mb or 32mb video card will do the job. If you buy one with a 3D accelerator technology, you will be able to play some pretty cool games as well.

The caveat is that the new video card must also be compatible with the motherboard chipset and bios of your Gateway system. It is quite probable that you are using Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP. If that is the case, most video cards are available to you.

Generally, flat panels are much friendlier to the eyes. Traditional tube monitors draw the screen many thousands of times each second. However, this constant redrawing causes eyestrain and eventually will degrade vision.

Flat panel monitors use a light bulb-like technology. The screen is composed of a few million individual lights that are on or off. Thus no constant redraw and significantly less eye strain.

Of course there are different technologies when it comes to flat panels. The older and less powerful technology is known as "plasma" technology. Plasma monitors should be avoided. They do not perform well, are generally dimmer and do not have a long service life.

The current high end flat panel screens are either color LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) or LED (Liquid Electronic Display).

In this era of post technology bubble economics, quality flat panel monitors in the 17" and 18" size can be had for under $500. For under $1000 you can get a refurbished Dell 20" Flat Panel. Because it is obtained from dell directly, a full warranty is included making it a very good deal.

I would try to snag a new Dell 17" flat panel on ebay that still has a warranty. I have seen auctions close as low as $300.
 
Same subject, sort of, so instead of starting a new thread I'll ask here.

I sit looking at a Sony 20" monitor that seems to periodically flicker purple or yellow. I believe it's a power supply problem as this monitor is several years old and has a lot of hours on it. It predates their flat glass monitors, but is only curved horitontally, not vertically. Before I had this I a Viewsonic PS 19 that was a little fishbowled, but had great dot pitch and fine detail. It's color saturation was great too. I think th eSony is easier to look at, but th eViewsonic was more involving.

The question is: Are today's larger flat panels up to gaming? How is the pixel response time and streaking. I only ask because I'm an old gamer at heart and early flat panels sucked for FPS gaming. Because the Sony is screwing up, I've been thinking about a new flat panel. It would have to be 19" as I don't want to pay for a 20" and I'm used to a large screen and don't think I could go back to a 17". I think my rig will run just about anything as the 128mb GeForce 4 TI4400 video card supports DVI and VGA, but I'd obviously want a monitor with a digital in.

Suggestions?

jmx
 
You got the last of Sony's Trinitron tubes. Vertically flat and horizontally curved. Chances are your Viewsonic PS19 has a finer dot pitch than the Sony Trini-tube. However, the Trinitron grill lets a lot more light through, therefore it was easier on the eyes. The fishbowling is something that plagues all glass tube monitors and TVs. Even the flat FD monitor tubes had some issues with pincushioning and barrel distortion, they also had controls to adjust them. But I have never been 100% successful at getting a perfectly flat corner to corner image.

Comparing dot pitch from glass tubes and flat panel technology is not possible. The flat panel has no invar shadow mask or trinitron grill to compare. You get straight resolution comparisons.

Flat panels have come a long way and have come way down in price. IMO the best flat panel monitor out there is the 23" Apple monitor, but I doubt anyone here is going to shell out $2500 for one.

That said, I know that Dell has a line of Flat panel monitors that are exceptionally bright and sharp. I am thinking about getting an 18" flat panel monitor. They have a higher end model that supposedly is clearer and brighter. I saw it at a friends house and it is so bright it lights up the room. Didn't play any games so I can't comment on that.
 
The Samsung 191T offers a response time of under 25ms. This is quite an improvement over previous generation panels. I haven't tried any high frame rate first-person shooters on mine, but I do a lot of video and real-time strategy games and it's been trouble free.

To really know if this response time is sufficient for your needs, you'll have to see it in person to be sure.

By the way, the Dell UltraSharp 1900FP is just a rebadged Samsung 191T. Same price too.

320-0249.jpg

191t_lg_1.gif
 
I'm a computer geek and work in the home theater biz so I have a pretty good grasp of the technologies involved in modern displays.

The dot pitch is certainly a bit better on the Viewsonic PS790 and the Sony 20SFII is certainly brighter, but the contrast of the Viewsonic is better. I'd attribute that to the difference between the Viewsonic's Invar shadow mask and Sony's trinitron Aperature Grille shadow mask.

From recent research (since this thread started) it looks like the Samsung 191T mentioned above is the hot deal right now at about $699.00, but seems to be clearance priced as I'm sure a new series of 19" LCDs are about to be released. The 191t has a .25ms response time whereas there are a few 17" LCDs on the market with 16ms pixel response times (less streaking in FPS games). There are rumours of Q2 releases of 19" LCD panels with the 16ms pixel response times.

I love getting a close out price, but I'd hate to bite now if the next generation is right around the corner and will probably cause a further price drop as they will most likely be better and cheaper than the current stuff.

jmx
 
mnblade and jmxcpter:

One thing that I didn't see mentioned was the native resolution of the flat panel monitor. LCD monitors have fixed resolutions. Each pixel on the screen is represented by one liquid crystal. What this means is that the monitor will look best at its native resolution. If you need to drop down in resolution, the picture will have to be interpolated, which could make the screen appear blurry.

This is an issue for mnblade, because his video card probably doesn't have enough memory to support the native resolution of the current crop of flat panels.

This may also be a problem for jmxcpter, as many FPS games will not run smoothly at an LCD's native resolution. I've heard that UT 2003 (I'm a Quakehead, myself) has run crappy with all the features turned on even on a 2.8 GHz PIV at a reasonable resolution (1280 X 1024). The native resolution on the big flat panels is likely even higher than that.
 
I run my current desktop at 1280 x 1024, but even with a GeForce 4 Ti 4400 and a P4 1.8ghz, I have to crank Black Hawk Down back to 1024 x 768 for smooth gaming. I've been looking to buy Unreal II as well which I'm sure will tax the system.

hmmm... Maybe I should just take the sony in to get it fixed and spend the money on another knife!

jmx
 
The Samsung 191T is also native at 1280x1024. On occasion I've run it at 1024x768 and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the interpolation. It was pretty good! The other panels I've seen have looked horrible.

If you can wait, wait a while and see what new panels are released. If the new panels aren't ridiculously expensive, you can get on the cutting edge. :)
 
The current gen Samsung LCD flat panels have the among the best pixel interpolation hardware around for non-native resolution models. I have run 1024x768 and 1280x1024 both with total satisfaction in a business evnironment using GUI driven tools.

The other thing I noticed, is that I run my 17 inch Samsung flat panels at a higher resolution then my 19 inch Sony Trinitron's.

The clarity of the Samsung LCDs for business oriented applications is stellar. I was hesitant at first about the 17 inch part but, I lot only 1/4 of an inch in real monitor space across the diagonal. Try next time you go to a superstore. Take you tape measure with you and measure the actual diagonal distance of the usuable monitor face. Now factor in the next high resolution without a loss of clarity or legibility.

That 19 inch model will probably yield a physical surface the size of a 21 inch CRT. Now up the resolution and you have the real estate of a 25 inch CRT.

I know this isn't intuitive from an intellectual perspective, but in actual use I was amazed at this unexpected benefit is the upgrade to LCD flat panels.
 
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