Best 17 inch LCDs?

Folks,

As part of an office move, I'm upgrading my computer to dual 17 inch LCD monitors because of a loss of desk space. (The best part is that my project only has to pay for one. Long story, but I'll take 2 monitors for $400)

Suggestions? Any manufacturers, specific models that you like and have personal experience with?

I'm looking at Viewsonic and Sony and they are surprisingly cheap- about $400 at newegg.com

I've always had the best luck w/ Viewsonic.

Brother has Viewsonic, and it looks and works great. I have an 18" MAG, and have not had trouble either.

I'm an idiot, so someone enlighten me: How does it work with dual monitors? Does your cursor just slide back and forth between the two or do you have to do a special keystroke/click/whatever to switch? Thanks.

---John Holmes...

Just slide back and forth, that's it. It's quite nice, my bro used to have dual 19's at work.

-b

Yup. You can have them "mirror": the same desktop on both monitors (useful for displays, like at tradeshows) or have one big virtual desktop where windows and the mouse just extend on the other one seamlessly.

Combine that with the multiple desktops provided by WindowMaker, and I have the equivalent of 8 (or more) virtual desktops of working space, because I usually use 4 workspaces.

so what dual monitor video card do you reccomend?

Looking for something with standard monitor outputs, and run on windows.

Does the type of output you use matter a lot? I see a lot of the newer monitors have DVI hookups instead of the normal connectors. Is this just a "new method" or does it actually make a difference? Anyone have any ideas?

---John Holmes...

Make sure to set it all up DVI. mmmmm, DVI.


Did a lil' searching for you. Might not be the best for gaming, but it's Dual-DVI. S-video too to hook it to yinz TV too!

http://store.yahoo.com/directron/v9180vs.html

yeah but I just got a new TFT with VGA standard 15pin connector and I will by another the same if the cost of a dual VGA graphics card it sweet.

Looking for general usage. not really any proper games. just mainly for coding and web dev, etc.

I use an older matrox G450. I have absolutely no reason to upgrade, as this thing has worked beautifully and looks fabulous. I'll not be using DVI: One reason is that a lot of monitors will handle DVI inputs, but still convert back to analog, leading one to wonder why they have DVI inputs in the first place. Until monitors catch up, DVI is hardly worth it (this was the case about a year ago, hopefully monitors have caught up by now).

This is just an office-only machine anyway, all it has to do is throw good xterms and Xemacs sessions up on the screens for me. No need for 3D anything.

Hero, I've just purchased 17" AOC LM721A two days ago. Yeah, I know, I was like that too - "auwho? what's that piece of ****?" but then I went to big *** shop down here in melbourne, set up 7 lcds side by side and started looking at them.

Didn't take long to kick out couple of them including acer (al707,al716), viewmaster (mc870) and mitsubishi (dv172). Then I started 3dmark and I was like 'wooooooaaa'. Colors were perfect and picture was very steady. Rest of them were a too light/dark/fuzzy/slow and left the comptetition stand. The only other monitor that came close, ironically, was another aoc lm914 - 19" big brother of this one. But it came with a higher price tag.

Features - 450 contrast, 16ms response (one can argue it's really 20 thou), dvi & crt jacks, built in speakers (and good too! not that usual 2w crap). When I got home and set it up, I gave it a go in UT2003 and Battlefield1942, results - outstanding. There weren't any problems with ghosting/shadowning or colors. Fast like crt, just better picture.

The only downside I could find, was the fact that it is a bit darker than other lcds, so you have to pump contract and brighteness in low 80s (as opposed to ~mid 60).

I've tried a few, and I like this one the best. You will probably have helleva time finding one in usa, but if you do I'd grad it. Oh and yeah - another problem is that this monitor virtually does not exist online as if no-name company wasn't good enough, there are hardly any reviews in english (european languages primarily). newegg has in stock 15" version (lm520), but not 17.

Two thumbs up.

We've used a number of AOC CRTs and they have been pretty good. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them, honestly.

Anyway: to bring this back from the dead, I settled on two Sony SDM-S73 17 inch LCDs. 1280x1024 native resolution, 45W power drain max. No DVI input (I have a Matrox g450, no DVI output anyway.) They were less than $400 at newegg.com.

They are gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. I couldn't be happier with them. Part of the reason I chose these models is they have a very thin "edge," allowing me to put the actual display part very close together- about an inch apart. It really does look like one very huge monitor.

I'll post a pic soon. Any coder that doesn't have dual monitors doesn't know what they're missing!

Amen to that, I go crazy working at home.

Go for View Sonic's 17" Digital Multimedia LCD Display, it rocks!