Good Monitor for Mac Mini?

[tears2040]

I am thinking about replacing my Imac in my sig with a Mac Mini server. I currently have a 24" monitor that I bought two years ago , but I would want something new.

Any suggestions for something in the $200 or less price range? Also how do those monitors compare to the Led of the iMac?

Thanks

 

[YsoSerious]

Got a Samsung 27" LED monitor. Pretty good for the price.

 

[powerbook911]

I recently purchased a HP ZR22w.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-ZR22w-21-5-inch-S-IPS-Monitor/dp/B003D1CFHY/

The quality isn't MUCH worse than my 6 year old 20-inch Apple Cinema Display, with the benefit of having about 15 percent more pixels. Tiniest couple more pixels in the height to make it HD as well a more significant width increase being 16x9. It gives me a bit more "room," on the desktop.

I hate having anything but Apple displays, but Apple makes so few now. One.

This display is pretty good. It is NOT LED backlit while cheaper models from HP were LED backlit. I often find problems with the LED backlights and actually wanted a more traditional display like my old Apple Cinema Display 20 inch. Some of the reviews on Amazon echo this, that they didn't want LED.

Now, for the 2011 update to this display that is hitting stores now, adds a 44 somewhere in the model name, it will have LED. Therefore, I'm skeptical it will take a step back, but who knows.

I sure wish Apple made a larger variety of displays, and I wish the displays in iMacs didn't have their issues (I blame LED in them for some of the problems).

 

[childoftheko4n]

I recently purchased a HP ZR22w.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-ZR22w-21-5-inch-S-IPS-Monitor/dp/B003D1CFHY/

The quality isn't MUCH worse than my 6 year old 20-inch Apple Cinema Display, with the benefit of having about 15 percent more pixels. Tiniest couple more pixels in the height to make it HD as well a more significant width increase being 16x9. It gives me a bit more "room," on the desktop.

I hate having anything but Apple displays, but Apple makes so few now. One.

This display is pretty good. It is NOT LED backlit while cheaper models from HP were LED backlit. I often find problems with the LED backlights and actually wanted a more traditional display like my old Apple Cinema Display 20 inch. Some of the reviews on Amazon echo this, that they didn't want LED.

Now, for the 2011 update to this display that is hitting stores now, adds a 44 somewhere in the model name, it will have LED. Therefore, I'm skeptical it will take a step back, but who knows.

I sure wish Apple made a larger variety of displays, and I wish the displays in iMacs didn't have their issues (I blame LED in them for some of the problems).

What are the issues with LED? Just ordered mini and looking at monitors so wasn't sure, assumed LED was fine?

 

[runghof]

Acer G245HQ

I picked up a 8GB Mac Mini last weekend. I also hooked up a 2 year old monitor 22", and was dissatisfied. I purchased a Acer G245HQ 24" Class Widescreen LCD Monitor at CompUSA for $150. It is hook up via HDMI cable to the Mini. Everything just worked. It's stunning.

 

[Sdevante]

I got an HP 2311x that has been fantastic. It's not IPS like the iMac, but with a coupon I think it came out to like $175 or something. Can also go larger for a bit more money.

 

[powerbook911]

What are the issues with LED? Just ordered mini and looking at monitors so wasn't sure, assumed LED was fine?

It is fine, but as you know all of apple's iMacs seem to suffer from yellow screens. Furthermore, iPads and some iMacs suffer from backlight bleed around the edges due to the LEDs. I returned a Samsung LED TV and got a Plasma for that reason too.

LEDs are also supposedly not completely flicker free, which can cause more headaches some designers claim. LEDs don't bother me in this way though.

Try a LED and see if you like it. I just find opinions of displays vary greatly between users, so I would just buy it where there is a good return policy in case you want something else.

LEDs make displays more affordable to make and are MUCH more environmentally friendly. Combine that with the fact that the word LED sounds cool, and you can see how they have taken over.

 

[Stan Mikulenka]

Hi powerbook and others,
while the production of LCD monitors is getting cheaper & cheaper, they adding more convenient 'improvements' to the screen...
And the LED backlight is one of them. Only the problem is that most (if not all) computer monitors are using 'edge LED'... that's why you'll see the bleeding thru (when monitor is set to black background).That's combined with the cheapest possible prod. costs produce this (mostly) crappy (and cheap) monitors.
The proper LED backlighting is the 'array' (or 'full array') LED backlight...
I'm not aware that any computer monitors are using this - only some more expensive large size TVs.

 

[Los]

I bought an Acer S242HL 24'' at Best Buy a few weeks before purchasing my Mac Mini. I originally bought it to play games on my PS3 in my room since I wasn't able to use the HDTV in the living whenever I wanted to since everyone wanted to use it. So I purchased this Monitor at the time because it was cheap and the colors looked mostly spot on.

It also helped that it was 1080p and came with an HDMI port and a separate DVI port to hook up two units. It also came with the HDMI and DVI cables to, so that saved me a bit of a hassle.

I never owned an iMac in my life, so I can't compare, but the colors on this Monitor look very nice. Not over saturated or anything, but they look like they should. Specially compared to my other monitor that I had on the old computer. I had to hook it up one day so I could set up my Airport Extreme, the the colors on that thing were horrible. Changing the settings didn't do it any justice.

 

[powerbook911]

One thing that annoys me about third party monitor is having to deal with those ugly on screen displays that pop up.

Otherwise, that performance HP series is pretty good.