Monitor selecting criteria ?

[Patosan]

I've been searching for criteria on how to compare and select monitors, without luck.
It's a very basic question so I'm surprised there isn't a FAQ or sticky thread on it.

I've selected a "Cruce" 19" monitor mostly on price. Some helpful posters have suggested I should buy with low reffresh rates ... 8ms or lower. This is to prevent ghosting in games, etc. That started me checking the Cruce and others available, but now I'm not much wiser since I've hit upon differing terms and higher prices for some high refresh rates.

Thus I thought perhaps I should start from scratch in selecting a monitor, can someone give the key criteria ?
Perhaps even rating the criteria in imprtance.

 

[N3051M]

well what are you mainly going to use it for (games, movies etc)?
give us some links to monitors that you like (seeing that your in japan, can you get some english links if that page's in jap? )

Lower refresh rates are better if you are going to play a very fast moving game/animation/movie since the picture are going to be smoother.. the trick of it is to go to a shop that demos a few of them with similar specs/different specs with different rates and play the same movie for example. If you can't see any difference between two different rates then go for the cheaper one (cheaper price, not quality )

 

[Patosan]

Yeah I know that the lower refresh rate means clearer action scenes, this may not super critical now but then 5 years down the track when software, videos and games have moved even further, a screen which is just acceptable now will be rubbish then. Probably not too much between 8ms and 5ms, but probably should avoid a 15ms.

In my searches it seem that many of the widescreen 19" monitors have 5ms refresh rate, while most standard proportion screens have 8ms. Why is this ? It's interesting since Bull Will and LG have wide & fast models cheaper than most standards ?

In Japan there are some makes that I can't find much about on the net, in English. Such as : Cruce, Bull Will, Buffalo, Green House, IO-data, eMachies & Iiyama.

I assume that makes like Princeton, LG, Samsung, Mitsubishi, BENQ are basically reliable and are of good quality ... is this right ?

 

[N3051M]

I assume that makes like Princeton, LG, Samsung, Mitsubishi, BENQ are basically reliable and are of good quality ... is this right ?

i'm not sure about princeton, but the rest are worldwide brands.. i'm using a samsung right now and the shop i work at sells benqs and LGs.. so you get the drift. They are pretty OK. The other brands may be just local brands don't mean that they arnt any good, you just need to look for yourself if they're good enough qualtiy or not.

I'm not sure why the widescreens have the faster refresh rates and are cheaper but it could be because of the market since widescreens sell better and/or maybe because of the bigger screen size it needs to catch up? its a guess..

 

[Patosan]

.. the trick of it is to go to a shop that demos a few of them with similar specs/different specs

I have to say that the monitor I had selected was not as sharp as others in the shop, that had bothered me a bit ... but it was so cheap. In further searching here I found answers to some of my questions.

I went back today after doing all this checking and looked much closer at the various ones there. Mind you they only had the vista landscape on all of them, nothing moving. I found that an LG model was so much brighter and clearer.

make/model size bright contrast refresh Cost yen/US$
--------------------------------------------------------
LG L1952T-BF 19" 300 1,400 8 29,980 / 254-
Cruce KL-19N 19" 250 500 15 23,800 / 202-

The brightness and contrast alone have now made me spend a little extra for what is a substantially better picture. The faster refresh rate is an added bonus. Apart from cost is there any trade off for better contast and brightness ?

 

[N3051M]

better contrast + better brightness = nicer pictures. no trade off at all apart from the money..

I think you've already made up your mind about the LG one i see..

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