Apple Cinema Display vs. Samsung vs. Dell?

[obelix]

Well I'm out looking for a new monitor as my current hideous 19" CRT is just not cutting it. I'd like a bit more desktop real estate and it of course has to be compatible with my powerbook.

So a few things popped into mind... the Apple Cinema Display. Yes yes it's very beautiful... but how good is it? Is it worth the extra cash? Is there a no dead pixel warranty? What do you guys think about it?

The other options are 21" screens from Samsung and Dell. Any recommendations on those or on anything else? I don't know too much about LCD's so some guidance here would be greatly appreciated

 

[T-Stex]

I can't really help you with the Samsung, but other than the black plastic look of the Dell, I've only heard good things about it. My school's labs for the computer science department use about fifty 19" Dell lcd's, and they look great, and from what i can tell, haven't had any problems yet. I'm looking into getting either the 20" or 24" widescreen from Dell in the future. They also come with at minimum a 3-year warranty, which makes me feel a lot better about the quality of the product. Also, check out their outlet store as well. Last time I checked, they had a few good deals on lcd monitors.

 

[brain21]

What are you going to do with it?

I have CRTs at home, and LCDs at work.

For graphics, video, etc. I would NOT use and LCD, EXCEPT for the Cinema displays. I would either go w/ a Cinema or a flat-screen CRT.

LCDs have lots of problems in this area...

The color controls are nowhere near what CRTs have in most cases. The color reproduction is nowhere near as good either. Most LCDs are created with a specific display resolution in mind. If you don't run it at that resolution, everything looks like garbage (letters can bleed on screen, or become *partially* unfocused, crap like that). My desktop was set up for 1280x960 which is the correct 4:3 aspect ratio. WHen I got my LCD at work, everything looked so horrible on it. Then I found out that the LCD wanted to be in 1280x1024. I set my resolution to that, and things are no longer out of focus, etc. But what if I want to change the resolution to something else? I'm SOL. CRTs can handle the different resolutions better than an LCD. They can reproduce colors better than an LCD.

I also experience slight luminance ghosting on my LCD. On a white background you can type black letters that are very thin. Witht eh LCD I can see almost a ghost of those letters slightly offset from the real letters. What it is is a birghtness ghost. The first pixels directly to the right of the black letters are brighter than the white background. You don't really notice it with thicker text, but with skinny text you can definitely notice it. Some people don't really care or even notice it, but it definitely bothers me.

For many people, LCDs often look TOO crisp. This is fine for web browsing & email, but not so good for graphics, etc.

I don't know about the resolution, but at least the Cinema displays can reproduce color accurately, and have far less problems with blacks & whites & viewing angles than your typical LCD monitor.

A lot of video production companies are using the HD Cinema displays for HD broadcast monitors because they actually CAN reproduce the colors correctly and accurately, and are about half the cost or less, of a CRT broadcast HD monitor.

Until I can afford a cinema display, all my monitors at home will be CRTs.

Brain21

 

[macnvrbck]

I just bought the Sceptre X20-G-NAGA III from Costco for $379 and it has been working great! I didn't think the 20.1' widescreen was big enough until I got home and put it on my desk, so far I've been very happy.

 

[mocman]

I have had the dell 20.1 widescreen on my powermac and all is GREAT.......