Mortis
10-02-2002, 11:13 AM
Greetings. I purchased and received a 19" Monitor. I thought I would write up what I got and how I think it performs.
I started my search a few weeks ago for a new monitor because my trusty (was trusty :)) 17" died- but now decides to work occassionally??? I had originally thought all Monitors with the exception of FlatScreen and Panel were the same- Plugs and Picture. After having my eyes opened a little (by Doc's and other's Mentions) I was on a quest to find a 19" Screen (leaned toward FlatScreen but was open because of Cost) Monitor and didnt care if it was ShadowMask or AperatureGrill- I just wanted clear and precise images. Overall Size and Appearrance was very important to me. My 17" was an early ev700 and it was huge consuming much of my DeskTop space.
I pinned down my Choices to a HP mx19, a ViewSonic E-790 and a Samsung SyncMaster 955df because of price and specs. Only going by specs, the mx90 and 955df were my first two choices... although the mx90 had better specs, it wasnt a flatscreen- whereas the 955df was. I hit the stores to compare the image qualities. Since no store had all 3 monitors, I wrote down my impressions when I looked at each.
Laymen's Observations, these are according to my thoughts and "eye" and I did take into account that each monitor would probably be driven by a different vidcard... but couldnt control that.
I liked the FlatScreen of the Samsung and found its colors to be dull and lacking. However, it had impressive on-screen controls and I could liven up some of the colors... but not to the "crispness" that I wanted. Its size was medium.
The ViewSonic offered not a FlatScreen but what appeared to be on Paper an overall good package. I thought its colors were more sharp than the Samsung but its text was a little blurry. Its overall size was similar to the Samsung but "felt" like it had a bigger screen- there was a slight viewable size difference, but I think it was an optical illusion because of the way the frames were layed out. So it felt large and had good image quality- more important to me than text, but had a steeper price tag then the others and it was "boring."
Right off the bat, the mx90's appearance struck me. Its colors and design were awesome. More importantly, its Overall size was incredible- it was much smaller than the others. I was immediately taken by the monitor but needed to "check out" the same things on this one that I did on the others. I had read a review that said the general image of this monitor had a grey hue- that was what I inspected first. It was true. It had clean and bold text, but was greyish. I sat down and started to play with the settings and there was an option for Game/Video Enhancement or TextEnhancement. It was set to Text, I changed it to /GameVideo and the Colors jumped at me as well as any grey hue disappearing. The text was not as crisp now and looked similar to the ViewSonic's text, but its Colors were great. I switched back and lost some of the Colors and gained the soft grey, but the Text burned out of the screen. I was told this feature was there for less eyestrain and fatigue. I moved on to the rest of the Controls and liked the amount of setting options and tweaking. The only thing I didnt like was in 1024x768 (which I run), there was an option for 100 refresh rate. With my 17, I had ran 85 and was excited by this option. But at this setting, running at 100 caused small little squares to be visible on the screen. I am not sure what this was due to, but it was/is annoying. At 85, they disappeared.
I left and went home to ponder my decision and then order online- cheaper.
Make a long story short, I decided to go with the mx90. Between its size, appearance and control options I felt I had the best of all worlds. I could enhance text for internet reading where colors arent the concentration and then enhance video/game for visuals. Unfortunately, in my price range- I could not find a Monitor that visually handled both at the same time (but did see some I wanted :)) and these two things really seemed to be dividing features in the monitors appearance (is this the norm?). I further delved into its onscreen settings options and found many more features that were missing in the others- it has built in zoom, line correction for every direction/angle, presets, etc... Out of the Box, it looked good and clean. I further set it to my liking using my Nvidia Options, color correction and digital vibrance- this enhanced it even more. I have regained SO much more of my desktop space (I cant stress how small it is for a 19- width is average at a little under 18.5, but it is 16.5" deep... my tape measurement) and enjoy its physical appearance. The only downside is that I notice with text (not color) that the center of the screen is clear and bold but as I look to the edges, some of the text clarity fades. It is almost not noticeable, but it is there.
I am very pleased with my choice and am amazed at the difference of going from a 17", 16 viewable to a true 19" viewable monitor.
In closing- one of the best things about a 19" is that in Online HalfLife (played last night) I did better because the targets are bigger... hehe.
Mortis
I started my search a few weeks ago for a new monitor because my trusty (was trusty :)) 17" died- but now decides to work occassionally??? I had originally thought all Monitors with the exception of FlatScreen and Panel were the same- Plugs and Picture. After having my eyes opened a little (by Doc's and other's Mentions) I was on a quest to find a 19" Screen (leaned toward FlatScreen but was open because of Cost) Monitor and didnt care if it was ShadowMask or AperatureGrill- I just wanted clear and precise images. Overall Size and Appearrance was very important to me. My 17" was an early ev700 and it was huge consuming much of my DeskTop space.
I pinned down my Choices to a HP mx19, a ViewSonic E-790 and a Samsung SyncMaster 955df because of price and specs. Only going by specs, the mx90 and 955df were my first two choices... although the mx90 had better specs, it wasnt a flatscreen- whereas the 955df was. I hit the stores to compare the image qualities. Since no store had all 3 monitors, I wrote down my impressions when I looked at each.
Laymen's Observations, these are according to my thoughts and "eye" and I did take into account that each monitor would probably be driven by a different vidcard... but couldnt control that.
I liked the FlatScreen of the Samsung and found its colors to be dull and lacking. However, it had impressive on-screen controls and I could liven up some of the colors... but not to the "crispness" that I wanted. Its size was medium.
The ViewSonic offered not a FlatScreen but what appeared to be on Paper an overall good package. I thought its colors were more sharp than the Samsung but its text was a little blurry. Its overall size was similar to the Samsung but "felt" like it had a bigger screen- there was a slight viewable size difference, but I think it was an optical illusion because of the way the frames were layed out. So it felt large and had good image quality- more important to me than text, but had a steeper price tag then the others and it was "boring."
Right off the bat, the mx90's appearance struck me. Its colors and design were awesome. More importantly, its Overall size was incredible- it was much smaller than the others. I was immediately taken by the monitor but needed to "check out" the same things on this one that I did on the others. I had read a review that said the general image of this monitor had a grey hue- that was what I inspected first. It was true. It had clean and bold text, but was greyish. I sat down and started to play with the settings and there was an option for Game/Video Enhancement or TextEnhancement. It was set to Text, I changed it to /GameVideo and the Colors jumped at me as well as any grey hue disappearing. The text was not as crisp now and looked similar to the ViewSonic's text, but its Colors were great. I switched back and lost some of the Colors and gained the soft grey, but the Text burned out of the screen. I was told this feature was there for less eyestrain and fatigue. I moved on to the rest of the Controls and liked the amount of setting options and tweaking. The only thing I didnt like was in 1024x768 (which I run), there was an option for 100 refresh rate. With my 17, I had ran 85 and was excited by this option. But at this setting, running at 100 caused small little squares to be visible on the screen. I am not sure what this was due to, but it was/is annoying. At 85, they disappeared.
I left and went home to ponder my decision and then order online- cheaper.
Make a long story short, I decided to go with the mx90. Between its size, appearance and control options I felt I had the best of all worlds. I could enhance text for internet reading where colors arent the concentration and then enhance video/game for visuals. Unfortunately, in my price range- I could not find a Monitor that visually handled both at the same time (but did see some I wanted :)) and these two things really seemed to be dividing features in the monitors appearance (is this the norm?). I further delved into its onscreen settings options and found many more features that were missing in the others- it has built in zoom, line correction for every direction/angle, presets, etc... Out of the Box, it looked good and clean. I further set it to my liking using my Nvidia Options, color correction and digital vibrance- this enhanced it even more. I have regained SO much more of my desktop space (I cant stress how small it is for a 19- width is average at a little under 18.5, but it is 16.5" deep... my tape measurement) and enjoy its physical appearance. The only downside is that I notice with text (not color) that the center of the screen is clear and bold but as I look to the edges, some of the text clarity fades. It is almost not noticeable, but it is there.
I am very pleased with my choice and am amazed at the difference of going from a 17", 16 viewable to a true 19" viewable monitor.
In closing- one of the best things about a 19" is that in Online HalfLife (played last night) I did better because the targets are bigger... hehe.
Mortis