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Best time to buy LCD's?

J

jtalerico

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 23, 2005
358
0
As some of you know I am in the market for a larger LCD. I have now decided on the 20" LCD for many reasons...

I am a College Student (currently doing a coop in Raleigh,NC).
I am engaged and need to save money for the future.
I currently have a 17" so anything bigger is a upgrade.

Is right now the right time to buy the Dell 2005fpw? or should I wait for a bit to see if the price drops? Because it seems recently that the price has gone up.. Just last week the 2405fpw was $824 now it is $878...

So my question is, are the prices going back up? Or should they come down again?
 
Dell LCD prices are always doing the little up/down dance. You should just buy when ever you feel it is the right time. Dell is a good place to get one from. I would also use a discount code if you can find one. You should also think about other brands than Dell. Dell is great but if you are on a budget then possibly some of these:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=1648338&sku=H94-1900

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1699703&CatId=0

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3861443

or try http://www.newegg.com and search there.
 
AJBMatrix said:
Dell LCD prices are always doing the little up/down dance. You should just buy when ever you feel it is the right time. Dell is a good place to get one from. I would also use a discount code if you can find one. You should also think about other brands than Dell. Dell is great but if you are on a budget then possibly some of these:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=1648338&sku=H94-1900

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1699703&CatId=0

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3861443

or try http://www.newegg.com and search there.
Click to expand...

:)

It is in the 600 - 650 Range.. Which includes the Dell :)
 
Yeah, I just know what it is like to be in college and engaged and want all this new computer stuff. Just throwing out some alternatives.
 
AJBMatrix said:
Dell is great but if you are on a budget then possibly some of these:
Click to expand...

For other budget ideas, see this thread.

Also, you might want to consider using a price tracker site. Personally, I use froogle but there are others that will even email you when a product meets your target price.
 
jtalerico said:
As some of you know I am in the market for a larger LCD. I have now decided on the 20" LCD for many reasons...

I am a College Student (currently doing a coop in Raleigh,NC).
I am engaged and need to save money for the future.
I currently have a 17" so anything bigger is a upgrade.

Is right now the right time to buy the Dell 2005fpw? or should I wait for a bit to see if the price drops? Because it seems recently that the price has gone up.. Just last week the 2405fpw was $824 now it is $878...

So my question is, are the prices going back up? Or should they come down again?
Click to expand...

well if you upgraud go to at least the 20in sizes or more. I personlly dong like 19in LCDs. I think the 17in look better. Both 19 and 17 in both run at the same resulotion. I personally like the cleaner sharper look of the 17in monitors. (and yes I would like a 20.1in monitor. I still would rather have standard shape over wide screen but that because I like vertical space more over hoziontal space plus the work I do the sqaure shape is just better.
 
Timepass said:
I like vertical space more over hoziontal space plus the work I do the sqaure shape is just better.
Click to expand...

I am the exact opposite. I find that I feel like I have more room on wide screen. I like it for my Photoshop, FinalCut, and stuff like that. I also love the Widescreen Gaming! It is awesome. Gives me more of an atmospheric effect. Feels like I am right there. Doom 3 really gets good on a High Res 21" WideScreen. Now I just need to find a friend that likes to trip and place them in front of the game while they are high.
 
Okay, i could use some info on some of the following monitors....
Such as if anyone has one? Or see one.. Or what you guys just think....


SAMSUNG 214T-Silver 21.3" 8 (G to G) LCD Monitor

ViewSonic VP2030b Black 20.1" 8ms gray-to-gray (avg); 16ms black-white-black (typ) LCD Monitor - Retail
 
AJBMatrix said:
I am the exact opposite. I find that I feel like I have more room on wide screen. I like it for my Photoshop, FinalCut, and stuff like that. I also love the Widescreen Gaming! It is awesome. Gives me more of an atmospheric effect. Feels like I am right there. Doom 3 really gets good on a High Res 21" WideScreen. Now I just need to find a friend that likes to trip and place them in front of the game while they are high.
Click to expand...


yeah. but for the work you do that the wide screen is helpful. For me a lot of the work I do is on excal sheets with long rows of numbers, word doruments, Web browsing among other things. (a lot of coding work. autocad work as well. all of which loosing vertical space hurts me)
But bettween wide screen and standard there is no right or wrong it all what you like personally. Use ablility I think is about the same both ways on average. Neither one is better or worse.

Now the apple 30in I want. Mind you I think I would rather have 2 21 inch monitors over that. Man I really miss my 2nd monitor... it was was nice to have 2 completely different things stored in each on..
 
Dell Home currently has the 2005FPW for $439.20. While you can sometimes get them $20-40 cheaper if you hit a particularly good sale, this is a great deal on a great monitor. If I were in the market for one today, I would say it's a great time to buy one.
 
I like the price of the dell.. But isnt the ones that i listed a little bit better in Quality?
 
I don't know that there is a conclusively better widescreen 20" monitor on the market than the 2005FPW. There may be some with marginally faster response times, but the response time on the 2005FPW is already so good that improving that doesn't get you much of anything.

The other thing to keep in mind is dead pixels and return policies. NewEgg is great about customer service, but their policy requires 8 or more malfunctioning pixels to return or exchange. Dell, on the other hand, has a 21 day return policy for ANY REASON. You can exchange 2005FPWs as many times as it takes to get one that you're happy with. I've seen people who have used this before and it's a huge benefit.

Personally, I've purchased an 1800FP, a 2001FP, and a 2405FPW from Dell and have been extremely pleased with all of them. I don't see you being disappointed with the Dell, particularly at their prices.
 
If you can fit the price of the 24 into your budget, you bet I recommend it. It looks like the best current deal that I can find on it is $879.20, which is a pretty good deal. I've seen them go as low as around $820 or so, but that's fairly rare. If you can afford the price difference, you will absolutely not be disappointed in the 2405FPW. It's far and away the best monitor I've ever had and would have been worth it at the list price of $1100.
 
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