I would like to get the opinions of some of the users on this thread who have used either 21" or 19" monitors: If I plan to work at a pretty high resolution, like 1600 x 1200, will I benefit greatly from choosing a 21 or 22 inch monitor over a 19" one? I like the fact that the 19" monitors are more compact, take up less room, and are a bit less expensive... but if the extra 2 inches really make that big of a difference, I would seriously consider going that route. If anyone has any feedback, it would be greatly appreciated.
I have (4) 19" Viewsonic monitors that I use at 1600X1200 and am VERY satisfied with. The extra 2" for a 21" wasn't worth the price difference to me.
In my dual montior system I started out with one 21" and one 19" at 1024x768. I ended up getting a second 21" monitor because I found the 21" indispensible. As far as price goes, they've been dropping so that there isn't as much of a price difference as there once was between the two. I bought mine from a guy on ebay who has a huge inventory of 21" Hitachi Rasterops monitors for $320.00. I bought two of them from him, and they are workhorses that are amazing. Here's a link to one of his auctions: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=478319709
MM - somewhat depends on your particular eyesight profile. If you're sitting a long way from your monitors you'll need the 21" ones - in fact you may have to sit a long way from them just because they're so big. I have four 19" Hitachi Superscan Supreme 752s each running at 1600x1200 and sitting about 30" from me at the edge of my desk. If they were much further away I'd have opted for 20-21" monitors or I'd have had to drop the resolution back to something like 1280x1024. Also, the larger monitors had much larger footprints than the 19" Superscans so I didn't have to sacrifice as much of my desktop by using the 19" monitors. It really depends on the resolution you plan to run them, how far away they are going to be from you, how good your eyesight is, how much desktop (both Windows desktop and physical top of your desk) you have or want, and (the biggest factor) your own personal preferences. Eventually I'll get around to replacing them all with a couple large format flat panels like the SGIs and just clamp them to the back edge of my desk and mount a smaller touch panel near my right hand. But that's a project for another day
should the refresh rates of a monitor also be considered? i read somewhere that you should have at least 85hz. any comments?
are there any important pros/cons of Flat Panels vs standard monitors? [other than cost] I like the Flat Panels, but I also like large screens, which can be expensive in a flat panel Mark
i use 19" monitors - and i have used them at 1600x1200 when i wanted to make a charting window which had a minimum allowable size - smaller on the screen now i dont need that - i set my monitors to 1152x864 - since the default type face in the new charting software i am trying seemed a reasonable size why have people mentioned on here that they want to use 1600X1200 - what difference does it make in what u see and how you see it ? the only difference i can see is that it changes the size of whatever you have on the screen - so 1600x1200 makes things smaller as opposed to 1024x768 once you are over 800x600, there does not seem to be any degradation of quality - so what is the point of 1600x1200 - unless you were doing some complex 3D work?
The higher your screen resolution, the more bars you can fit on the screen with the same bar spacing. Of course the bars will be thinner.
isn't that only of use - if your software would not let you change the width or the bars and the gap?