I don't get the point of this thread at all. Why discuss 900p vs 1080p when it's nothing more than an evolutionary step at this point. How about mentioning that there is no real niche for 4:3 monitors and not being able to play old games without huge black bars or ugly stretching.

@m1so
Son, until fall 2008 I had a 17" CRT. Then I got a 15" LCD. Then, as I said, in early 2009 I got the 22" LCD. Last summer I managed to sell the 22 and bought the current 24" LED, which I wanted to buy since spring last year. I don't have a big paycheck, 2 years ago I was unemployed and barely supported myself with the help of my parents, but from time to time an upgrade is necessary. @work I have a 20" @1440x900, and I can assure you, having a 22 or 24 full HD is worth it.

I like 1600x900 because it enables me to play games at max details without buying a ridiculously expensive videocard. My desk is already cluttered as it is and I don't NEED a larger screen, I mean, what is so pretty about it?

As a matter of fact, 140 dollars IS expensive. And I DO know how expensive hardware was in the past, I know my father bought a 386DX/40 computer (our first) in 1991 for around 60 000 Kcs. By comparision the average mortals wage in Czechoslovakia (still 2 years before the split up) was around 3600 Kcs a month.

140 dollars IS expensive, that's around 100 Euro. I am a student on a disability's pension of 350 Euro a month. My only luck is that my parents own a private business and they have enough money, however I am not such a spoiled fucking leech to spend their money for unnecessary stupid trinkets.

fillosaurus wrote:

@m1so
Son, until fall 2008 I had a 17" CRT. Then I got a 15" LCD. Then, as I said, in early 2009 I got the 22" LCD. Last summer I managed to sell the 22 and bought the current 24" LED, which I wanted to buy since spring last year. I don't have a big paycheck, 2 years ago I was unemployed and barely supported myself with the help of my parents, but from time to time an upgrade is necessary. @work I have a 20" @1440x900, and I can assure you, having a 22 or 24 full HD is worth it.

As a matter of fact we have 2 big "HD" TVs. My mom has it connected to a PC through HDMI and the quality is crap. I would never use it for desktop use.

[quote="m1so"
140 dollars IS expensive, that's around 100 Euro. I am a student on a disability's pension of 350 Euro a month[/quote]

I can see your problem then as over here $140 is a typical days pay, even to earn double that is not a big deal or particulary hard to achieve.

jwt27 wrote:

F2bnp wrote:

19" 4:3 LCDs with a max res of 1280x1024.

That would be 5:4. Which I still think is the weirdest aspect ratio ever.

I've been using two of these for years, in a dual display setup, and really don't feel the need to upgrade at the moment.

dirkmirk wrote:

I dont know what your on about, a 23/24" widescreen 1080p widescreen monitor can be bought for like $140, I bought my first 17" lcd 1280x1024 in 2004 for $650, 1 year later it was half the price, now in 2013 you can be buy a far, far superior monitor for less than half the price again, the cost of a good monitor is so cheap why limit yourself to an old technology?

The technology of these cheap 1080p widescreen monitors is STILL the same old technology, they've just thrown more pixels at the problem and changed the aspect ratio to something that looks more favorable when measured diagonally.
They're still mostly crappy non-IPS panels with ugly flickery dithering, still horribly inflexible in terms of refresh rates, still suffering from contrast and view angle issues, still blow at scaling lower resolutions... etc. etc. And for my own uses, 16:9 sucks, period (16:10 would be much nicer).

Add the fact that in many places, those monitors are still more expensive while people earn less, and I totally see m1so's point...

Personally I can't wait for the next evolutionary step in display technology to kill off LCDs for good, and hopefully combine the flat form factor with the advantages of CRT.

My main display is a 23.5" 1920x1080 Samsung LCD panel. I also recently bought a secondary 21" 1920x1080 Acer LCD brand new for about $120, on sale for whatever reason, for my WinXP system. That's about as small as you can get while getting 1920x1080 resolution. Any smaller and you drop to 1600x900 or 1680x1050.

I also still have a 120 Hz 17" Flat Samsung CRT for my Win98 system, max res of 1280x1024, though only at 60 Hz. To get 120 Hz, you couldn't run it higher than 640x480. :P

I typically ran it at 1152x864 75 Hz. ;)

At the moment, with LED tech really gaining ground due to being generally better than both Plasma and LCD, Plasma and LCD monitors are now cheaper than LED, and should factor into any debates you guys are having about pricing. :P

@m1so
I live in Romania, and my salary is smaller than your pension. I earn less than 300 Euro a month, and trust me, I work. And I think hardware prices are about the same all over Europe. For my current 24" Full HD LED (Philips, by the way) I payed more than half of a month's salary.

VileRancour wrote:

I've been using two of these for years, in a dual display setup, and really don't feel the need to upgrade at the moment.

Why I think the 5:4 aspect is weird is because there is nothing specifically made for it. All games and programs more or less expect 16:9 or 4:3, although that has been changing lately.
The weirdest thing however is that many of the later 17 and 19" CRTs used 1280x1024, instead of 1280x960, as "recommended" resolution. Even though they were all 4:3!

VileRancour wrote:

Personally I can't wait for the next evolutionary step in display technology to kill off LCDs for good, and hopefully combine the flat form factor with the advantages of CRT.

I had high hopes for the "CRT in LCD form factor" tech. I believe it was called SED or FED or something like that. But it seems to be stuck in patent hell. Or manufacturers are trying to keep the pace slow and stick to LCD as long as possible to maximize profits.

jwt27 wrote:

The weirdest thing however is that many of the later 17 and 19" CRTs used 1280x1024, instead of 1280x960, as "recommended" resolution. Even though they were all 4:3!

No, they really were 5:4. I have a dead one and the visible surface is nearly square. :o

The highest resolution display I own is only 1680x1050, and that's on my desktop. My dad has a 1080p monitor on his desktop and a 1080p flatscreen TV that's a few years old, though honestly they really don't impress me all that much. I'm more impressed with decent color reproduction and response times than uber high resolutions. That's why I mainly stuck with CRT monitors until a few years ago. 🤣

Gemini000 wrote:

jwt27 wrote:

The weirdest thing however is that many of the later 17 and 19" CRTs used 1280x1024, instead of 1280x960, as "recommended" resolution. Even though they were all 4:3!

No, they really were 5:4. I have a dead one and the visible surface is nearly square. 😮

Are you sure about that? That must have been an oddity then. I have a few of those screens and all of them have an exactly 4:3 viewable area.

I look down on my friends with 1080 computer monitors. I personally can't stand them. I went out and bought a $700 30" 2560x1600 monitor out of Korea. I must say, it is GLORIOUS. When I'm doing research I can have 3 windows open and READABLE at once, its awesome.

I've had a 1920x1200 IPS for a few years now and I'm thinking it's about time to bump up the resolution myself. Hell, they are making 10" tablets with the same resolution as my 24" monitor.

I'm using two of them. For my PS3 and a Crossfired PC.

m1so wrote:

I like 1600x900 because it enables me to play games at max details without buying a ridiculously expensive videocard.

I know that feeling. I was gaming on a 1366 x 768 LCD for a long time. You get roughly double the frames compared to Full HD.

But now I play less and do more other projects like creating videos and for working the larger screens are more productive I find. Also my eyes aren't getting better and yes, I can afford it without too much dramas. Hardware is very cheap at the moment.

jwt27 wrote:

gulikoza wrote:

The problem with todays displays (as opposed to a couple of years back) is that most of the stuff is 6-bit FRC (even when it says 8-bit colors) and ofc the horrible 1920x1080 and 16:9 AR.

Not to mention the flickering as a result of that, high black levels, low overall contrast, low refresh rates, high response times, having only one native resolution, backlight bleeding... and I could go on for a while.

All true... but when I bought the 1080p monitor I have now I couldn't afford to spend what it would take for a screen lacking those issues. So I promised myself that my next screen will be a beautiful one... in about five years.

I have a Syncmaster 943 1280x1024 LCD here for "modern" gaming. I still keep a bunch of old CRT monitors (mostly SONY Trinitron 17's) for retro gaming plus the old Commodore and Atari CRT Monitors and a few CGAs.

Widescreen is ok for TV and movies (my 32" LCD is only 1080i/720P but that's the limit to over air broadcasts and DVD is lower rez anyway).

For laptops my daily use Thinkpad T43p is 15" 1600x1200 (backup T40p is 14" 1400 x 1050). Don't have a single widescreen laptop in the collection.

Ug, all you and your low resolutions. I updated to 2560x1600 a while ago, and look forward for 4k displays to come down in price. Definitely like that 2560x1600 is an even 8 multiplier of 320x200, which allows for nice filter/shader combos.

kolano wrote:

Ug, all you and your low resolutions. I updated to 2560x1600 a while ago, and look forward for 4k displays to come down in price. Definitely like that 2560x1600 is an even 8 multiplier of 320x200, while allows for nice filter/shader combos.

2560x1600 is 16:10 ratio, while 320x200 is 4:3 with non-square pixels. Do you really experience no problems with 320x200 on such a display?

Due to a 2012 Steam survey, top three resolutions used are:

25% - 1920x1080 (Full HD)
17% - 1366x768 (common laptop resolution)
10% - 1280x1024 (common 17"-19" display resolution)