MythicaL

Alright, I need a new monitor (apparently). Here's what I want:

HAS TO HAVE/BE:

- No more than 250 US dollars
- CRT
- 19" or bigger
- black
- 1600x1200 with AT LEAST 75 hertz
- easy on eyes (I can only tolerate 75hz or higher)
- perfectly flat screen

NOT SO IMPORTANT, BUT WOULD BE GOOD IF:

- ultra-fine dot pitch
- screen autosizes itself (so I can't see the black gaps around the sides)

I was thinking about this monitor: ViewSonic G90fb

I'm sure there are other/better monitors, so I'm asking all you DH members what you think would be a good one to get

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Always knew I didn't belong in this world. I wasn't made for this. But I'll never forget those who betrayed me, and those who never failed my trust.

Judas

if you want what your looking for... it's gonna not going to be very good.. and you'll be dispointed... trust me... i've sold some monitors to people.. and i've stated that they aren't going to be happy buy a 19" for only the specific dollar..... And some of them have the tendency to yell at me

i can't recommend anything other the a Samsung 900IFT if you can find one ... if you can't... Samsung 955+ series is still really good.. but not my flavor....

KDS makes some DAMN cheap monitors... anything that cheap that'll do 1600x1200@75hz..... erm, the picture quality is gonna be a little sad...

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swimtech

$250.00 being your limit, that cuts down on some choices - not necessarily a bad thing...

The Viewsonic you're looking at is a good monitor, but look too at the Samsung line - it offers better video bandwidth (Viewsonic - 200Mhz vs. Samsung - 250Mhz) and slightly better dot pitch (Viewsonic - .21 horizontal vs. Samsung .20 horizontal). I'd pick the Samsung 997MB.

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Judas

that'd be probably my pick if i absalutely needed a monitor ASAP and there was absalultely no way of waiting to get anything al ittle better...

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PandaZ3

I have two Samsung 955DF's one is 4 years old the other 2. That model has evolved some.... I like both, the newer a bit better as it has a feature or two more, but mostly due to better shielding. The Warden has NEC DiamondPro 920's, and likes them. I can't tell the difference myself. I would buy another Samsung

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Video cards in house, 5770, 4650, HD 3870, X1950 XTX, X1900 XTX, X1900 XT and X1900 Crossfire, 2 X1800 XT's, X850 Pro, X800 Pro, AIW 9600XT, 9600 Pro, 9550 SE, 9200, 7000. XFX 6800 GS

MythicaL

Well, I'm most likely buying this: ViewSonic P95f+B

Found it for the cheapest price: Pagecomputers.com

The Samsungs looked pretty cool. Although I heard that one of them had extremely bad moire so... Dunno, this ViewSonic one looks pretty nice

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Always knew I didn't belong in this world. I wasn't made for this. But I'll never forget those who betrayed me, and those who never failed my trust.

pr0digal jenius

IBM p260

Judas

had to be a dud.. i've yet to come across one that is even slightly below my taste of HQ

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Paladine

Samsung 997NF hands down. The only monitor I have seen and use that is brighter/crisper/richer/more vibrant is my Samsung 753MB (17 inch)!

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wolfran

I would say NEC/Mitsubishi monitors are also very good, like the 2070SB (probably out of your range) but you can look for its 19" counterpart.

Vampyromaniac

If you haven't made the purchase yet, see if you can take a look at the Philips 109B

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Captain EBD

i always liked those black perfect flat screen NEC monitors for some reason, maybe look into it? Dunno whats the best.

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mike2h

kds uses the samsung dynaflat crt in their newer monitors. would definetley check them out given your price limitation. if you have a costco/sams go take a look there they have good monitors in that $$ range. ours is carrying viewsonic right now. & if you do not like it, take it back. love costco for that.

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MythicaL

I'm still pretty confident about that ViewSonic though... It's at a CompUSA that's about half a mile from my house, and therefore I don't gotta pay the 40 or so dollars for shipping. I need a new USB Flash Drive anyway

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Always knew I didn't belong in this world. I wasn't made for this. But I'll never forget those who betrayed me, and those who never failed my trust.

The_Neon_Cowboy

if you wanna go cheap like me
http://www.envisiondisplay.com/produ...s&SMenu=en985e

I'm useing this puppy & I likes it especally @ $150-$179

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technonerd

I just got NEC MultiSync FEE991SB a 19" inch monitor from Newegg.com for $258, man I love it.

Go with Veiwsonic, it sound pretty good. If you're confident, then what's the heck just get.

Also my friend got Samsung SyncMaster 997DF-Ivory 19" DynaFlat CRT Monitor from newegg.com too for $202. I love it too. Both NEC and Samsung are excellent.

MythicaL

Hmm, sounds good for games with all those modes. Have any problems with it Neon?

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Always knew I didn't belong in this world. I wasn't made for this. But I'll never forget those who betrayed me, and those who never failed my trust.

swimtech

Nice specs for that unit considering the price - matches the Viewsonic. They have been in business for a decent amount of time now too (5+ years here in US) so they should be around in case you have a problem.

One of the other techs here in the shop has been using his heavily for 3 years now and likes it...

The Samsung will look better and have a more stable image overall for reasons that are not in the specs, but for the money, and if your not a connoisseur, the Envision looks like a good option.

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Judas

I've a question swimtech, recently bought my samsung 1100DF..... now i got my open box.. meaning even cheaper considering the already over 200 dollar discount....

anyways...

got it home hooked it up.. and the screen is somewhat washed out.... not i know this isn't normal.. figured it was my lacking 9000 pro AIW and the DVI connection (DVI to VGA) which.. imo, shouldn't make a difference.. but i didn't concern myself with it...

anyways... since then i've moved the monitor onto different vga cards with zero results..

this has been the past 2 weeks that i've been fooling around..

On with more specifics.... i went back to the store i bought it from and i got them to pull a brand new one out of a box and hook it up to a few machines... test the image quality..see if it would reproduce.... apparently something is wrong with mine as the image on the new 1100df's they had was perfect... nothing washed out, no banding...

Now i haven't really a worry in the world.. just going to take the monitor back... but my assumption is that something is overvolting the signal... causing the screen to get a brighter look.... making blacks a little grey..... and everything else a little light and discolored.. and this isn't a windows thing.. all my samsung monitors that are of good quality, i've set the brightness always to 0 with perfect results... this one i've at 0.. and i've attempted to fool around with all the other options.. no effect...

What do you think it is?

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swimtech

Judas,

Your assumption of an overvoltage condition is dead on - it's misadjustment or defect in the control is the most likely cause of the overall "overbrightness" of the screen. Also, certain high value resistors that are part of that circuit could have changed value somehow...

There is a master control in all TV's and monitors called a G2 or screen control - generally located on the high voltage flyback transformer along with the focus control. Adjusting that control is generally the first step in performing a white balance procedure. Customer brightness is set at a point (varies by manufacturer) and customer contrast is set to minimum, then standardized gray bars of varied brightness are fed to the monitor. The screen is then adjusted with the G2 control so that the darkest bar in the bar display is not seen at all and the second bar is just barely seen. From there, adjustments are made to the screen controls for each individual color - then the contrast control is set to a level (varies by manufacturer) and the drive controls for each color are set. Setting the G2 control then, is the foundation for adjustment of the color controls.

I wonder though too, why the Samsungs look best overall with their customer brightness control set to 0 - my 753DF does too - and that's where I've set mine. Seems they would have designed the unit to look best with the brightness control set to somewhere in the middle of the adjustable range, but I've not bothered looking into that situation - oh well, it's been fine for years now...

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Zardon

As a monitor expert Swimtech how do you rate TFTs?

swimtech

They're getting better every week it seems and the best of them perform as well as the best CRT based monitors.

The main performance advantage they have is that they can cram many more discrete dots in less space - already much better than CRTs can provide. That's why they look so sharp and crisp at when displaying at their native resolution - outperforming any (!) CRT based unit on text and still graphics. The only thing that LCD manufacturers have to work on is the speed of change of state of the individual LCDs and color saturation - and those things have a lot to do with the way humans perceive light, color, and motion.

In a way, its the old analog versus digital thing. CRTs are analog devices, LCDs are digital devices. Digital devices have to work faster than analog in order to emulate analog - which is how our senses percieve for the most part. On a graph, there is a theoretically infinite number of values between any two points on a sine wave (analog), but only a maximum of two values between any two points on a square wave (digital). You gotta cram an awful lot of square waves (value changes) into a very small amount of time in order for those changes to blur together enough to be perceived as "real".

Getting a little ethereal here, and have thoroughly hijacked this thread - eh?

Buy the Viewsonic if they don't have the Samsung at the local store - for performance. Buy the Envision to save some money! You'll likely be pleased though with any of them, and will only see the differences in side by side comparison at higher (greater than 1280x1024) resolutions.

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It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Zardon

Im sure he wont mind, excellent read.

Judas

More information that is provided about monitors in general, can help people with the buying situation...

Thanks for the info swimtech. I was going to just get this monitor replaced anyways... just wanted a little insight, i like to take back a product and get it replace whilst telling them what exactly COULD be wrong (makes me look smart , and it helps them get it fixed and up on a shelf with open boxed marked on them quicker)

I'm just not looking forward to figureing OUT HOW to get this hefty 22inch into my car.. the box itself is nearly 6 inches to wide at the narrowest.... i had to remove the box just to get only the monitor inside

anyways, hows that 9600XT holding you up?

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shattered

I understand that this thread is very old, but I figured I might try and revive it.

After almost a year has passed since the last post, is the Samsung997MB still holding up as one of the best CRT monitors under 200 dollars????

Also, what is the difference between the 997DynaFlat and the 997MagicBright?

I am now looking for a monitor for gaming, and the CPL uses the Samsung 997MB, so I assume it must be decent right?

Thank you.

Judas

Samsung doesn't have anything listed other then a 997DF-TT and 997DF-Ivory (which are the same monitor, just different colors)..

I don't see any mention of any 997MagicBright monitor.. (they are all synchmasters). A feature in both monitors is MagicTune... but i see no MagicBright.

Commenting on it though, it looks decent for a low budget 19".... i myself i don't think would get it though.

imo, out of the CRT list, 997 or 1100DF are the only monitors i would even look at (i myself would mostly only look at the 1100DF, which is an excellent monitor)

Sadly, CRTs appear to be starting to be phased out, dropped..

However, SED hopefully will show it's availability soon... (SED to wipe crt/lcds floor)

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shattered

I have this link from newegg, which says Samsung 997MB-TT. Any ideas as to what the MB is? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824001068

Second, if there are no amazing CRTs out for under $200, could I find a good LCD for under $200? I really need a 19inch monitor.

I am using whatever new monitor I get almost exclusively for gaming. This is why I am hesitant to use an LCD for games, because, from what I understand, they work best in their natural resolution which usually has a max hertz of 75 for the mediocre LCDs right? This means that my FPS could not go over 75 which is definitely not acceptable. Plus, almost all FPS games I play in 800x600 which wouldn't be most LCDs natural resolution right? I could be totally wrong, but I am pretty sure about the hertz part, as hertz limits FPS on my current video games (the monitor I have now has maximum of 85 at 800X600).

Right now I have the Samsung 753DF which is a friends. After I graduate, I will be returning it to him as he still has a semester left. Therefore, I need a new monitor if I want to continue playing my lovely counter-strike source .

I don't know what to do. My budget is no more than $200, but I don't want to buy a monitor that will be obsolete in the next couple of years . I might be able to ask for some money to help buy a better monitor for xmas, but I doubt it would reach over $300 total. Plus I really hate to spend that much, when I only have $300 total in my bank account and no job lined up yet.

Help meeeeeeeeee please.

Oh, and what is SED??? I assume they will be quite expensive if they are new.

PandaZ3

MB is for MagicBright, which I "Think" is a software program for improved brightness control, but that is a guess. I think it would be hard to beat for the money.

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Judas

SED is kinda a combination of a LCD style/slimness and idea.... but with CRT Quality. I'll have to go dig a link up from another thread... but, it's not availble yet, and as far as the news tidbit on it, it's not going to be for awhile.

IMO, your 997DF monitor will be better of the 2 (from what i can tell spec wise)... and should do you well pumping out 85hz @ 1280x1024 easily. (plus it's got nice dot pitch)... it's probably the best your gonna get... the MB is not a DF... MB uses a different style of Shadow mask i believe (swimtech can easily correct me)... it doesn't have a flat screen. THE DF however does have as flat a screen as you can get without loss of quality.

You are right about LCDs and gamers, you'd have to spend a waud on a good one.. however the 75hz issue isn't really any issue. When a monitor has a frequency, reguardless of it's number, the FPS rate can exceed it, however, it doesn't really matter as the monitor itself CANNOT display anything beyond it's own "FPS" AKA refreshrate. The benifit of LCDs is the that it's method of displaying something is fleud in terms of not just hard cutting to another color/or brightness.. it is fast, but still gradual. This gives a much smoother looking appearance.. but is also cause of "ghosting". You'd have to get one hall of a fast responce time monitor (12ms and lower) to even remotely come close getting rid of some of the ghosting.

the reason people want 85hz+ on a CRT is to save there eyeballs from the stuff that LCDs don't have to worry about.

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Dyre Straits

Interesting thread revival after I just got my NEC MultiSync E1100+ this past Sunday. I'm loving this 21 inch CRT monitor that I got for $30. It'll pump 1280x1024x32 @ 85 Hz all day long. (But, 1600x1200 looks even better. )

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