I'm in love

[Tannin]

I just bought the new Acer 19 inch LCD with the swivel: AL1922. It's awesomely good. The amount of crisp, clear little text you can get into a spreadsheet this way is phenomenal.

Also, on the same day, the best quality display I've ever seen on a laptop: a Fujitsu, which cost far more than I like to think about. (But I'll keep my current IBM, on the theory that you should never drop a laptop, but if you do, try to drop an IBM.)

But that big Acer LCD is fantastic.

(BTW, I just tried swapping from a good-quality on-board video display - well, good by on-board standards, a VIA chipset Gigabyte S-754 board) to DVI and back. No difference.)

I'm in love. Or, as a certain member here puts it,

Mummy, I tink I just had a buffer overflow.

 

[Mercutio]

I notice that the new ATI chipset boards have DVI connectors on-board! I think the bar for good video might be a little higher these days

 

[Santilli]

I think it was a 19" Princeton that caught my eye at costco for 349.
However, next to it was a waterproof digital camera, Pentax???, can't remember, for about 300. One day...

s

 

[Santilli]

Other costco was a VERY nice, huge screen, HP laptop for 1200 after rebates.
Still, the panasonic I just bought is a toughbook, and that means a bit to me.

Best laptops to drop are Panasonic, IBM second. :mrgrn:

s

 

[ddrueding]

Other costco was a VERY nice, huge screen, HP laptop for 1200 after rebates.
Still, the panasonic I just bought is a toughbook, and that means a bit to me.

Best laptops to drop are Panasonic, IBM second. :mrgrn:

s

The best laptops to park your Hummer on are certainly toughbooks. I saw a demo of that one, quite impressive.

 

[Santilli]

Other costco was a VERY nice, huge screen, HP laptop for 1200 after rebates.
Still, the panasonic I just bought is a toughbook, and that means a bit to me.

Best laptops to drop are Panasonic, IBM second. :mrgrn:

s

The best laptops to park your Hummer on are certainly toughbooks. I saw a demo of that one, quite impressive.

Mine isn't quite THAT tough. Still, the quality Panasonic puts into their books, is well, up to their reputation as the best Japanese tech company. That's their rep in Japan, anyway.

s

 

[Groltz]

The Samsung 193P+ is looking very tempting.

1000:1 CR

8ms G2G

PVA panel, not TN.

 

[Pradeep]

I just bought the new Acer 19 inch LCD with the swivel: AL1922. It's awesomely good. The amount of crisp, clear little text you can get into a spreadsheet this way is phenomenal.[/i]

Acer AL1912B 19" Flat Panel Display $234 at Buy.com

Perhaps last year's model?

 

[Pradeep]

Yuck, never mind, no DVI.

 

[Tannin]

I tried a 1912 the other week, Pradeep. It's the other model, quite a lot cheaper, and .... well that's probably the only nice thing to say about the 1912, it's a lot cheaper. Nowhere near as good, and in fact clearly inferior to the best of the 3 Acer 17 inch screens.

I still don't get this DVI caper though: doesnt make any difference to pictire quality on the 1922. Brilliant either way.

 

[Buck]

Maybe it's not the monitors or the DVI connector young Tannin . . . have you had those aging neurological wonders you use for stereo-binocular viewing checked lately?

 

[Tannin]

I'm a birdwatcher, Buck.

From 10,000 yards I can spot a blowfly on an Emu's arse. (If you want to know which particular species of blowfly, I need to be a little closer.)

I'm vague about colours (has that monitor got a green tint? yeah, probably, now that you mention it, but who cares?) , but when it comes to detail my eyes are still good. For close-up work, I can read the fine print on an Athlon XP without glasses.

Just.

AMD ain't making it any easier as the years roll by.

 

[Tannin]

Kristi (who, being 23 years young, can read the fine print on an Athlon XP in bad light - I need to stand near a window - can't see the difference with DVI either.

I'm not against DVI. In theory it ought to be the best thing since sliced bread - why have two DACs instead of pure all-the-way digital?

I just want to actually see DVI do something that plain old VGA doesn't do equally well. I'm bored with comparing DVI and VGA and never seeing any difference.

PS: so far as display quality goes, if it ain't a spreadsheet, it doesn't matter. Or a bird photograph, of course. But you can't use photographs to compare monitors: it's the fine print that sets the cheap crap aside from the real deal. Especially with CRTs but yes, even with TFT screens.

 

[ddrueding]

From what I can tell, there are 2 scenarios that should make DVI superior.

1) Long cable runs: To VGA's credit, on runs as long as 50' VGA still looks fine.

2) Higher res/refresh: This is only in theory, as VGA can support both higher res and refresh...wtf?

 

[Tannin]

You are emaking sense, David. I'll throw in a supporting tale.

We often used to use VGA extension cables for various odd jobs around the workshop. Still do, now and then. On a stock standard sort of 15 inch or 17 inch monitor at 800 or 1024, cheap little VGA extension cables worked just fine. You could barely tell a difference, mostly not see anything at all. But on one of our big office monitors — the Hitachi and Mitsubishi 19s, the beautiful big Mitsubishi 22 — we have crisper displays in the first place, and are running 1280 res at 85Hz. The cheapo cables just don't cut it: you have to use a top quality extension, and keep it as short as possible. With DVI, I assume, you could have a very long cable. The limiting factor, I assume, would be speed of light delays — same as with network cables.

 

[Pradeep]

DVI tends to max out at 5-10m IIRC, to get longer runs you need fiber-optic versions which are mucho deniro.

I can definitely see the difference between DVI and VGA at UXGA, and 1280*1024 rez (tho this is with Nvidia cards that probably don't have very good VGA output to begin with).

 

[time]

DVI tends to max out at 5-10m IIRC, to get longer runs you need fiber-optic versions which are mucho deniro.

Found these 20m passive cables, but haven't yet tried them. They're probably available for about $100 in the US.

I can definitely see the difference between DVI and VGA at UXGA, and 1280*1024 rez (tho this is with Nvidia cards that probably don't have very good VGA output to begin with).

The situation that opened my eyes to the potential difference was with ATI cards rather than nVidia. Increasingly, I suspect it's got more to do with the monitor than the graphics card.

 

[ddrueding]

Following my logical yet completely baseless and incorrect thoughts; wouldn't monitors that ONLY supported DVI be cheaper than monitors that ONLY supported VGA? Wouldn't it be the same with video cards?

 

[blakerwry]

no, royalties on DVI (for the connector) make VGA connector + DAC still cheaper.

Plus there's the whole thing about what people will pay for a product, so even if it is cheaper to produce (Tape vs CD, Tape vs DVD, etc) people will still be willing to pay more for the better of the two products, and manuf/retailers will be ready to markup as much as profitable.

 

[Buck]

I'm a birdwatcher, Buck.

Indeed, you are far-sighted, but what has that to do with things 24 inches from your bearded face?

PS: I know, I'm in the mood for sarcasm, and am willing to receive the consequences. :evil:

 

[CougTek]

The Samsung 193P+ is looking very tempting.

1000:1 CR

8ms G2G

PVA panel, not TN.

I'm also looking for it. I'm not sure I'll get it (I hate 5:4 format like 1280x1024), but it's certainly the most tempting 19" screen I've seen yet. I hope it doesn't have the same reddish color tendency as other PVA panels.