Ok i'm currently checking around Canadian shops for a good 22-23inch monitor.

I want it to be LED backlit, hopefully IPS panel, and also i would like a stand that would make be able to rotate the screen vertically (i like to play Shoot'em Ups on emulators, the way they should be played: vertically)

Of course DVI-D is a big plus, if i could use a dual-link DVI cable it would be even better! HDMI connector would be great also.

So far i've seen some models, and they all had 1 big flaw: the stand suck, or the % of return is higher than usual because of dead pixel or excessive backlight bleeding, or the plastic case look roughly-cut and doesn't look very appropriate near the panel.

I hate shopping online for monitors for this very reason, so if i buy it in a shop nearby, i can return it, at no cost, and ask for a replacement, so i still hesitate on buying one online.

Can someone tell me which monitor i should get? i have a limited budget (up to maybe 200$). Don't forget i live in Canada, so Newegg.com and all those US-only shops are out of question.

Everyone is (or should be) picky about monitors.

My only advice above any beyond what you have already said about build quality and reliability, and looking at it yourself is to stick to ONLY good monitor brands.

I have on my desk a 19" widescreen LG that is for my second PC, a Samsung 24" from my main PC and a 19" non-widescreen Dell that was given to me a couple of months ago that is also hooked up to my main PC. My only previous LCD monitor was a 19" LG that my parents are using, that monitor has got to be 8 odd years old and is still perfect.

My point is, only buy a good brand, Samsung, LG are my favourites in that order, and Dell seem to make (have made for them) very good quality monitors.

When I bought my 24" Samsung, there was a model above it that had a stand that would allow you to put the monitor into a vertical position, at the time it added £45 to the cost of the model I bought (identical but without that feature), it would have been nice to have but for me wasn't a requirement.

You might be able to buy after-market stands that do everything you want and have all of the mounting holes for all of the "vesa" mounting standards - it might even work out to be cheaper as well compared to buying the next model up with the swivel screen, and can be moved over to an other monitor at a later date as there is only one set of standards for mounting monitors and TV's.

Lastly, I would seriously suggest that you consider a 24" monitor that runs at 1920 x 1080 (because 1920 x 1200 cost a lot more money - TV resolution has taken over) they have quite a lot more surface area and are a much better size for a 1920 x 1080 resolution - much easier on the eyes (even if they are 20:20) as the pixels are not too small like they are on 22" and 20" monitors that run 1920 x 1080. To be comfortable a 22" monitor should run 1680 x 1050, and a 20" monitor should run 1440 x 900, and of course you want the highest resolution possible without breaking the bank, that and you can run "Full HD" movies in "Full HD" 1920 x 1080 glory.

That is the descision I made about 3-years ago when I bought my 24" Samsung 245B (1920 x 1200), and I have never looked back, it really was the right descision to make, my brother got one on the same order as mine, and a friend got the same one a couple of months later. They are all working perfectly - every pixel is perfect and they look fantastic still - although some LED monitors now look better and use much less power (mine sucks 100W).


Andy

though Samsung LED 23+Inches monitors are 250$+ and LG monitors of the same size tend to be less expensive.

My suggestion is to spend more than 200$, if you want a good IPS monitor.
The 23" Asus PA238Q may be (in his class) the newest IPS monitor to get, link to Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-PA238Q-23-In ... 605&sr=8-1
If you are willing to accept less than IPS quality, the Benq EW2430 (LED AMVA with 3,000:1 static contrast) is ~100$ cheaper.

what the...it's 277$US and on Amazon.ca it's 375$?!?

The BenQ monitor isn't available here, strange.

Can you check on Amazon.ca, NCIX, and other Canadian shops please? i know it suck, but i need help from those who have more knowledge than me in monitors (i have a lot of experience in computers, just not in monitors...).

There is a french price-compare website for computer parts, called "InfoPrix" (or "InfoPrice" in english):
http://www.infoprix.ca/


Though i found the Samsung S23A300B, the LG W2343T-PF and the cheaper, non-LED Samsung E2320X, or the little bit more expensive LG IPS231P

Well i bought the Asus VE228H on Amazon.ca (157$+taxes, free shipping), since they don't seem to have "deal pixel policy" on returns, so if i have a problem with it, i can just return it, and they also seem to pay for return to them. Hopefully nothing bad will happen, so less troubles for everybody.

I checked on Newegg.com for feedbacks before buying, and tons of peoples seem to like this monitor!

Yes it's probably TN panel, but hey...i had a TN panel for 5+ years now, and i don't really mind. This Asus monitor is LED backlit, it might not have screen rotation to it, but then...my other 20inch used monitor i got from a friend (and WILL NOT use for my personal PC use because the plastic casing have a weird dent at the bottom) could be used for that purpose!

Let's hope for the best. Though Asus seem to have a great warranty as well, 3-years + paying for both return to them and sending to customer!

In my country it's normal for PC hardware to be 30-50% more expensive than the Newegg list prices.
I suppose it's not much different for Canada, you'll just have to live with this.
The Benq EW2430 doesn't support rotate, and the viewing angles of AMVA won't be as good as an IPS,
even if the contrast is much better, so if you really need to rotate the screen you should stick to an IPS.
The Asus PA238Q does rotate, but it is indeed a bit expensive in Canada. There are similar LG IPS monitors
that support rotate, but they don't seem to be a lot cheaper than the Asus, good luck finding a cheap one.

you really have to be careful of prices between USA and Canada here. i will never encourage to buy at much higher price than in USA because they think we will just "conform" with the stores' own rules. There should be a law that forbid scamming us by more than 5% of USA's price when the exchange rate is about the same for US$ and CAN$.

As i typed this, 1.00$US = 1.01$CAN!

The biggest difference between prices in Sweden, Germany or UK and US is taxes.
If I take the lowest price of a product in Sweden, and remove the taxes (25 %), I get very close to the US prices, usually.

we have nearly 15% taxes here (we have 2) but when i order from NCIX, they only charge me the federal tax, which is 5% (plus shipping of course)

Usually is, but as a rule I look at a couple of prices of it in the US, then check the exchange rate, and do the same thing with a couple of other items to see if one item in particular is over-priced, taxes in all of the Nordic countries are higher than most places on the planet - but generally they are nicer places to live in, so you might get screwed on your IT kit but you are happy anyway

For me its 20% (was 17.5% 12-months ago, but thanks to my country being bankrupt that's had to change - and it will never change back), although maybe that's also why the US is bankrupt - the taxes are way to low - put them up, at least that will make ME happier



And as far as I know Canada isn't even bankrupt....... and you get yours toys with a huge discount


Andy

discount? well i'm not sure about that...but i tend to buy at the lowest price for something, normally i don't encourage physical stores around here as they are normally more expensive than big places like NCIX...i wish they could open a store in Montreal, those specialized stores would crap in their pants and re-adjust their prices quickly because NCIX have that policy Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Future Shop have: if you find the same item as lower price somewhere, they put it at the same price -10% of the difference.

Some physical stores still try to catch stupid fishes with higher prices in that "sea of consumers" here in Canada, until they realize they can find much cheaper for the same quality, online! Where there's competition, there will be lower prices. Right now competition suck badly for internet connections here in Canada and that's why we have high prices with a low speed and very limited downloads and some peoples are stupidly defending the fact they are limited...*facepalm*

If it's more expensive in physical stores, they buy at less expensive places then...try Ebay or places that ship worldwide. Strangely it should be cheaper on Ebay since the parts aren't sold by authorized sellers, so less chance to have the warranty honored if you're going to RMA your part(s) in the future. But now we're going out of topic...

My monitor has been sent and is planned for delivery on Oct.31

Yes we are happy, and we can afford 25 %, low income workers in the US can't, and maybe not even those who are better off. Hungary will take the lead soon tho.
With the 25 % included, I pay $30 or £19 more for a 2500K than I would in the US. I know they have some kind of tax but I didn't take that into account, so the difference is a bit less.

They say it's the land of the dreams, but that must be words coming from immigrants a hundred years ago because back then it was a dream come true.
A lot have happened since then.

And now I'm offtopic.

I'd really like to get a 1920 x 1200 monitor, and the latest Dell seems like a good choice, but I can't stop thinking about buying a 2560 x 1440. .
I'll wait for the prices to drop, can't go wrong with that.

I am still reasonably happy with my HP 2475, even if the contrast is not what I'd like to have.
For a 27" 2560x1440 with IPS and LED backlight, like the Apple Cinema, the current price is too high for me.
I'd like the 2,000+ contrast, but in my country would be ~1,200 euros. Maybe next year...

There are a number of "Hazro" monitors that keep on catching my eye..... mostly because of the high-res and the price..... although 10-bit colour cant be a bad thing - and the rest of the specs look good, these are obviously professional grade monitors - but a damned lot cheaper than the bum-raping that Apple will give you for the same spec sheet.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productli ... y=priceAsc

Never heard of Hazro before, but I imagine that they are a high-end manufacturer and that is why I haven't heard of them, the only thing that would make me think twice is the response time - 6 m/s isn't at all bad, although I don't know if the lies have got any worse over the last few years or whether it is more noticeable on a very high-resolution, large screen.?

On the other hand I have been considering a TV as my next monitor (upgrade/downgrade), there are positives and negatives to take, a TV has a much larger screen - I was thinking 32 or 37 inch, but the resolution is actually a little lower (vertically) than I already have, but it will already have good speakers built in and using HDMI means less clutter, my only real concern is that I have never played computer games on a TV (LCD that is, I haven't even owned a TV for 5-years, its PC or nothing in my world) and I am a little concerned about the response time (again) - surely if fast moving video looks fine then a game will..... or will it.?

Will a good TV be just as good as a good monitor playing games with the only difference being that the TV is much bigger, will I have to get a TV with a higher refresh rate than the standard 60Hz.? Would 100Hz be OK, 200.? 400.? I really don't know - does it make any difference at all if the game is only running at 50Hz.? Can the Graphics card and/or HDMI cable even run the screen at 100/200 or 400Hz (doubtful).? Is the colour reproduction per-pixel as good.? I don't know the answer to many of these questions or even if there are other things that I have not even considered.

Does anyone else here run their PC off of a 32/37 inch 1920x1080 TV.?


Andy

PS: Sorry for post hijacking, but as you have already ordered your screen its seems less of an issue, I will happily delete this post and create a new one if you wish asking about the use of TV's in place of monitors - there seems to be much less of an difference here than there used to be - CRT's are dead, 1920x1080 is now the "common" high-ish monitor resolution and many smaller TV's and monitors even share the same panels - HDMI is now a common PC interface and the de-facto TV interface - the lines are now so blurred I find it difficult to see the difference, pun intended

my LCD TV, native resolution is 1360x768, but for some reasons, it can go up to 1920x1080 when i use a PC on it (using a DVI-HDMI dual-link cable).

The stress will continue will Oct.31, i hate waiting for a monitor...because there's the wait for the physical thing, and then there's the actual "test" i have to do with it during the next days...hopefully i won't get any stuck/dead pixel. With the feedbacks i've seen, it seem to be a good, reliable monitor.

FYI you can as I did create your own dead pixel test, its really easy to do - these instruction are based on the use of W7 - other versions of Windows are similar, and those on other OS's can figure this out for themselves. NOTE: You will want your monitor to be set to the correct resolution - and please refrain from changing monitor setting before continuing - there is plenty of time for that later.

If you follow these steps you will in a few minutes be able to thoroughly test your monitor for dead pixels and dead sub-pixels.

1). Open MS Paint.

2). Go to "Properties" and set the size in "pixels" to the size of your screen resolution (e.g. 1920x1080).

3). Save the image in a new folder (call the folder something like "dead pixel test"), and save the file as "01 White" in 24-bit bitmap (for perfect clarity).

4). Create more images with the same resolution - how you do it is up to you, what you want to end up with is a file called "02 Black", use the "fill tool" in Paint to fill the entire image with "Black" then save it and carry on.

5). This is where you want to start customising colours rather than relying on the "default pallet colours", the next one wants to be called "03 Red", for this you want to click on the "Edit Colours" button, leave the "Hue" at 160, make sure everything else is set to zero, and put "255" in the box for "red" - now beware of eye-pain and click OK - now save it.

6). Follow the same steps to create "04 Green", and "05 Blue" - if you want you can also create "06 Cyan", "07 Magenta" and "08 Yellow", these three have the following colour settings (Cyan = green + blue @ 255, red = 0), (Magenta = red + blue @ 255, green = 0), (yellow = red + green @ 255, blue = 0).

7). You now have all of the colours that you need to identify dead or partly dead pixels, to do so simply go to the folder that they are all stored in - now you realise why there are numbers before the names, you only need to double-click on "01 white" - it should open up in "Windows Photo Viewer" (if it does not, try right clicking the file and choose "preview"), now you simply need to click on the "slideshow" button and look for dead pixels - eye pain coming up.

It barely takes any longer to create these files than it does to read my guide, and as you are looking at "white", and "black" for any "all-on" or "all-off" pixels, and the RGB colours for any faulty sub-pixels you should be able to pick out any and all of them, the CMY colours are just there to help identify dead sub-pixels as they can sometimes be easier to spot with different colours compared to the primary sub-pixel colours themselves - you might end up with eye-pain by the end of these tests - sorry in advance for that.

These tests should also help you set the monitor settings themselves, brightness, contrast and saturation levels because you would have got the impression of how bright each of the colours are - some will appear to be brighter than others, this might be the monitor (most likely), or it might be your eyes - either way this should help in some fashion. NOTE: When running full-screen with single sub-pixel colours your monitor will be much more prone to emitting a high-pitched noise than in normal use.

I hope that all of your pixels and sub-pixels work perfectly and that you are happy with your new monitor.


Andy

This is OT, but as long as the OP doesn't object to it, I can tell some of my PC to TV experience.
I have the backup computer (old Athlon X2 2.6 GHz) connected to a Panasonic 42GT20 plasma via HDMI.
Playing games is OK, the contrast is good, although not as good as a CRT, but better than any LCD I know,
text however is somehow lacking, in comparison with my LCD monitor (HP 2475).
But the main reason I don't use the plasma much as monitor is that it gets hotter when using the
PC connection than when using the digital receiver connection, both HDMI (the plasma is fanless).
And there's some image retention when used as a monitor, which is not permanent, but I'd rather not risk.

yes i heard Plasma TVs have picture retentions, along with taking more power AND getting hotter, and having a shorter lifespan than LCD-based panels. this is why i never recommend those!

As for the dead pixel test, i know about that already, but those dead/stuck pixels tend to appear during the first days of use. Hopefully i'll have none, i would hate to return that by mail as it's heavy and will probably cost me about 60$ for the return along...unless Asus is going to pay for it even if it's only 1 pixel. If not, i'll try with Amazon as they don't have a dead/stuck pixel policy, they are maybe more flexible on that point!

if you can wait until end of year, dell.ca has some pretty good boxing day deals.
i got a similar monitor (P2411HB) for around $190 with taxes and free shipping last year. obviously monitor prices have gone significantly lower since then:
http://accessories.dell.com/sna/product ... e_irrank=0
so hopefully this one might be even cheaper after christmas

i'm pretty happy with mine. it's a lower end model, but it does everything i need it to do. i'm not doing professional graphics work so it's good enough for playing civ and surfing the net. it has every sort of adjustment you would want, height, rotation, change tor vertical orientation. the height thing is huge for me... not many monitors have a stand that adjust for height.

i just noticed that considering my desk size, computer and speakers on both sides of the monitor...22" (or 21.5" whatever) is probably the max. i can have on this desk, otherwise, i would have to pull my speakers a bit more and this would get in conflict with my mouse pad and my wireless mouse receiver. Yes it's a bit cramped on my desk, but it's ok like that.