Small, High-Resolution LCD Monitors? 370
An anonymous reader writes "I'm a veteran user of an old 17" Dell Trinitron CRT monitor. I run it at 1400x1050 with an 80Hz refresh rate — about as high as it goes before it'll go out of the monitor's scan range. More recently I've been looking to finally upgrade to an LCD monitor but found that, for the most part, every 17" monitor on the market runs natively at 1280x1024, as does every 19" monitor — I have to go for a 20" to go higher. Now yes, I know I'm complaining about just 120 pixels horizontal and 26 pixels vertical, but my laptop's 15" display runs natively at 1400x1050. Is there any standalone monitor on the market that'll natively do higher than 1280x1024 without killing my desk space?"
Re:HD Capable (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not get a TV? Tesco in the UK do 1920x1080 TVs around 20.1 inches.
The panels are in laptops, but not desktops. (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple's 17" MacBook Pro can be had with a 1920x1200 17" LED backlit panel, so clearly the technology is out there, and being mass produced.
Still, no one has a desktop display of the same specs, at least that I can find. I suspect a large part of the reason is you're generally expected to be sitting further from the display at your desktop, and the further you are from the display likely the larger the pixels you want.
I wold like higher DPI displays in all resolutions though. IBM used to make 200DPI displays, but I think they stopped.
Re:HD Capable (Score:1, Interesting)
This is where CRTs still win out. I used to have an old 17 in CRT that did up to 2560x1600, made it really painful to read stuff on websites that specify font size, even from up close. Anyone know why LCDs don't do that? Even my 26" here only goes up to 1080i, which is a heck of a lot smaller than that.
Come to think of it, I may have just answered my own question. Stupid low resolution HD junk.
Maybe a Projector? (Score:2, Interesting)
You can forgo the monitor and set up a projector instead. Just use your wall as the monitor and mount the projector to your ceiling. Then you should be able to have all your desk space and a ginormous screen that can double as a movie projector as well.
Buy a replacement laptop screen and mod it. (Score:3, Interesting)
I read the "answers", now I feel for you.. (Score:4, Interesting)
The technology is definitely out there, my handhald with 9" has 800x480 which could be easily scaled up to 1400 + in your desired form factor (4:3).
There were even monitors with this kind of attributes a few years back. About 4 years ago I bought my which has the minimal DPI resolution you mentioned. I'm a bit astonished that time stood still in this sector for this amount of time. Not "Moor-ish" at all.
Guess the answer is, that mainstream did not want it, and niche markets are not asked any-more. Also there is a specific OS that can't handle scaling of wigdets very well, that mostly catalysed this non-development.
Your answer is: no, there is probably no such thing you are looking for.. Sadly.
Re:Killing desk space? (Score:5, Interesting)
The other option of course is to get an LCD and a wall bracket or a desk bracket that allows you to have the monitor off the desk alltogether. You can also get brackets that allow two or three monitors to be mounted to it, but still have just the one upright pole that comes off your desk ( or bolts onto a wall.
http://www.megamounts.com.au/shop/lcd-desk-mounts.htm?gclid=COGlvZK5x5sCFcEtpAod-U9fLg [megamounts.com.au]
There are many many similar products out there - this is just the first I came across with a quick google search.
I used to think I needed nothing more than a 17" LCD, but after going to 2x24" monitors @1920x1280 theres no way im ever going back. Virtual desktop space is a lot more valuable to me than real desktop space. if I ever go to 3 monitors though, Im getting myself one of these brackets.
ThinkPad X61T (and other fantastic ThinkPads) (Score:3, Interesting)
ThinkPads have great pixel density. I upgraded from a 14" 1400x1050 screen (ThinkPad T43) to... ...a 12" 1400x1050 screen! The X61 Tablet is a fantastic little computer; I can't recommend it highly enough. When I bought mine (about nine months ago), those things could be purchased for about $1050.
IBM/Lenovo stopped making screens that high-resolution, but I bought mine used on eBay with nearly the full three years of warranty.
IBM/Lenovo calls this SXGA+, and you can find ThinkPad T40, T41, T42, or T43 computers on your local Craigslist. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=t43+sxga [craigslist.org] shows you a few for a few hundred dollars in the San Francisco Bay area.
(Also, for what it's worth, the OpenMoko FreeRunner and GTA01 both had 2.8" screens at 640x480. Mega drool factor.)
Re:Sadly... (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the problems with LCDs is that even if you find one that has truly good parameters and shines in reviews, you have no guarantee that the monitor you buy will perform at any similar level, due to manufacturers selling different revisions with different panels under the same name. Like the infamous Samsung 226BW [behardware.com].
Re:HD Capable (Score:2, Interesting)
My opinion is that there is no reason for any flatscreen LCD to "kill your desk space" given (a) their small footprint and (b) the range of mounting options available.
Re:HD Capable (Score:3, Interesting)
I buy the majority of my computer equipment from either Newegg or Tigerdirect. When it comes to monitors I would suggest purchasing from Tiger. Newegg's policy is that they will not accept an exchange for a monitor unless there are at least 8 dead pixels where Tiger will do so for one dead pixel.
Mod Parent Up! (Score:5, Interesting)
Aah, if I only had mod points.
I set up some labs with bench space a while back and used exclusively 19" monitors with VESA arms. The space under the monitor becomes usable (since there's no stand in the way) and the adjustability (and ability to just shove the monitor to the side when not in use) is invaluable. This gets even better with 2x stands.
Oh, and with many brackets, you can mount them from above instead of below, too.
Re:Syncmaster (Score:3, Interesting)
I had a VX1940w. Nice display (not counting its stuck-on green pixel in the lower right corner), until the backlight died ~3 weeks ago. It's under warranty and getting repaired/replaced and will be a birthday gift for my Dad in 2 weeks, but I had to spend almost 1/4 of its present value just to ship it back to Viewsonic. In the meantime, I bought an Acer H233H from CompUSA (a.k.a. Tiger Direct in Drag) for $179 on sale to replace it. For a 23" display that does 1920x1080, I'm pretty happy with it. I could have gotten the 24" for $229, but decided it wasn't worth an extra $50 for one additional inch and the same resolution.
As far as resolution goes, I'd have loved something like 2560x1440, but there are two factors that make it nearly impossible to buy a display with resolution higher than 1920x1080:
* TVs use 1920x1080 panels. Way more TVs get sold than PC monitors. All things equal, a panel that can be used to make EITHER a TV or a computer monitor will probably be cheaper than one that's only suitable for PC use. When it was a difference of $600 vs $750, the extra $150 was fairly easy to rationalize. When it's a difference like $199 vs $499, well... that's a big difference, and roughly the point where it becomes worthwhile to say "fuck it", buy two, and use them side by side in portrait mode.
* Single-data-rate DVI maxes out somewhere in the neighborhood of 1920x1080. I'm not sure whether 1920x1080 is slightly below its max, or pushing it slightly beyond its official max, but I know it's pretty close to the limit one way or another. Going higher means you need double data rate... which also probably means an ungodly expensive cable, and quite possibly a more expensive video card (unless you normally buy top of the line video cards).
Either way, it does kind of suck. I've always owned high-end monitors and ran resolutions that were significantly higher than the mainstream norm (1024x768@15", 1152x868 and 1280x1024 at 19"), and really do hate being stuck in the "1080 jail" like everyone else.
IMHO, half the problem lies with Windows, OS/X, and the mainstream Linux window managers... none of them have ever really come up with a good, low-drama low-ceremony way of actively managing dozens of small windows. Windows is more dysfunctional in that regard than the other two mainstream platforms... but not much. And recent incarnations of all three seem to actually be WORSE than their ugly predecessors, because they're NOW a lot pickier about precise mouse alignment for things like dragging and resizing. The visual cues keep getting smaller, and the sweet spots where you can click and have the Right Thing(tm) happen seem to be shrinking every year, too. In more than a few ways, a system with 3 portrait-mode displays side by side and a thirdparty app like MultiMon is MORE usable than a system with a single huge display of equal total resolution.
Re:Killing desk space? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have two setups like that.
At home two 24" monitors on one computer, along with a second computer with a 20" monitor. They are connected with synergy and a ps/2 kvm. The kvm is good for when the main one is down. I can just hotkey over and use the second computer. I use it mainly for IM, but also sometimes for a second browser. Both computers are running Fedora I find having two computers comes in handy regularly. I also use the second computer as a iscsi server for the first. The first computer already has six drives in it. So the second computer allows me to expand to ten.
The office setup is two 20" monitors on one computer, along with a second computer with a 20" monitor. They are connected with synergy. In this case I actually have two keyboards and nice. The main computer has no ps/2, and I have no usb kvms. I use a two port ps/2 kvm to share one keyboard between the second computer and a third computer. Then I toggle the monitor between dvi and vga. I do it this way since 99% of the time I don't need console access on the third computer. I access it via ssh for CUDA programs. The first computer runs Fedora, the second runs Vista, and the third runs Fedora. Vista is good in the office. It lets me do things like VMware Infrastructure client(currently Windows only), Internet Explorer(just today I was told to use IE on the HR site, since it works better), and other little things.
Re:Killing desk space? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a fantastic idea and having used monitors in portrait mode (vertically oriented) instead of landscape mode, I can never go back. Better yet, there are many monitors that have a built in pivot. You can fit twice as many lines of code and still take very little desk space.
This monitor is a good example.
http://accessories.dell.com/sna/products/Monitors/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&s=bsd&cs=cabsdt1&sku=320-6272 [dell.com]
It is 24" but if you scroll down, you will see how it probably doesn't take any more room than a 17" in landscape mode.
Seriously, as a developer, designer, writer, etc. this is one of the best upgrades you can make.
Re:Syncmaster (Score:3, Interesting)
You can buy Sun and SGI CRT monitors very cheaply these days, and they go up to 24" in size... They tended to be very good screens because they were intended for high end workstations. I used a 21" Sun for years, it took several years before i had a machine powerful enough to drive it at it's maximum resolution.
Re:Syncmaster (Score:4, Interesting)
I would say windows is far more disfunctional when it comes to high resolution screen management with lots of small windows... The fonts don't scale according to screen DPI, and windows is very much geared towards having one app running full screen at a time - and many of those apps (and many poorly designed websites etc) just look stupid when used at a high resolution.
The mainstream Linux window managers suffer from trying to be too much like windows and having many of the same flaws... You really need a completely different WM for a small low resolution netbook than for multiple large high resolution screens, one size does not fit all.
Re:Syncmaster (Score:1, Interesting)
The numbers on that page do not compute. At 0.291mm dot pitch, the physical width and height quoted come out to 1280 x 720 pixels. Note that it says it's capable of DISPLAYING 1400x1050, not what the actual number of pixels is.
Basically, a 0.25mm dot pitch gives you about 100dpi. To get to about 120dpi (typical of those high density laptop displays) you need to get down to about 0.21mm dot pitch.