Moderately priced monitor options?

Discussion

8 replies

Posted by Roger Rouch on April 28, 2007 at 8:37 AM

I'm looking to replace my older 17" CRT monitor with a slightly larger 20" LCD. Seems like a few NPNer's have the Dell Ultrasharps and seem statisfied, though some of my web searches of other sites have some dissatisfied users of the Ultrasharps. Are there some other brands in the less than $500 price range, such as NEC or View Sonic that might be a better option? I'm using the Colorvision Spyder2 for calibration, if it should matter.

Posted by Guy Tal on April 28, 2007 at 9:03 AM

I have a ViewSonic and am not too happy with it. For some reason it's extremely hard to calibrate and has some firmware bugs. I have heard some good reviews of Samsung monitors so I would suggest researching those as well.

Guy

Posted by Dan Baumbach on April 28, 2007 at 11:18 AM

There are Samsung monitors in the 20" range that are pretty moderately priced and have a good rep.

- Dan.

Posted by Paul Wegemann on April 28, 2007 at 11:54 AM

I use a Dell 20" Ultrasharp (got a deal when I bought my pc) and it's OK, but not great. It's tricky to get calibrated (actually, I'm not sure it can be fully calibrated) but with my Spyder and custom printer profile I'm doing alright. I'm currently researching a new monitor and at the lower end I've read good things about the Samsungs. At the higher end, the Apple Cinema displays, LaCie, and Eizo are what I'm finding in my searches. Those are pricey though.
Paul

Posted by Prashant Khapane on April 28, 2007 at 6:16 PM

Mitsubishi, Diamondtron is the one I have and am extremely happy with it.

Posted by Don Kates on April 30, 2007 at 12:09 AM

I've had good results with the LaCie 321

Posted by Jim Zipp on April 30, 2007 at 6:35 AM

If you can spring $100 more you can have one of the highest rated monitors for photo work.. the Apple Cinema Display 20". They have recently dropped a bit in price and this one is now $599 with free shipping directly from the Apple store.
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=5C4F3312&nclm=AppleDisplays

Posted by Roger Rouch on May 3, 2007 at 6:30 PM

Thanks so much for the comments. I guess my read on things is that there really may not be a sure thing for a "quite good" monitor under $500. I think the Lacie and Diamondtron (CRT?) are probably well over $500? Coming from the CRT world, I'm not too sure what to expect from an LCD and presently am thinking the Apple might be a bit out of my price range, but better than being dissatisfied with a lower priced monitor. I'll have to do some arguing with my wallet. So thanks for the help..

Posted by Roger Rouch on May 13, 2007 at 2:12 PM

I doubt if anyone is still following this, but maybe some one will be searching for information and find this useful. There seems to be quite a lot of different opinions and monitors out there. I ended up getting a Dell 2007WFP. As I was due for a computer upgrade, the bundle price for the monitor was just too good to resist. I'm pretty pleased. The monitor seemed way off calibration and an once calbrated with my spyder2 (and windows vista) it seems very close to what seems right and what prints from my Canon printer. Not having seen an Apple or other more expensive monitors, I can't compare with them. But it's a huge improvement over my 17" CRT and I'm satisfied so far. I went back and forth and almost got the Dell 2407WFP. I may some day have regrets, but the 20" seems about the right size so far. My guess is that opinions and opinions will consolidate in the future and there will be some consensus on good moderately priced monitors.