You must admit the hardware questions probably rate as getting the most reliable answers out of any other topic in this forum. Compare that with asking "what does backtesting have to do with making money in the future?" around these parts . . .
Duh, I just thought of this...I have some 15" monitors (nearly the same pixel size as 19"), and I can definitely tell the diff. between them and the 17.4". I use the 15" for Xtrader, but I sit pretty close to them. For anyone in a similar situation, here's a pixel size summary: 15" .297 17" .264 17.4" .27 19" .294 20.1" .258 Dell's 2005FPW, wide screen.
Your strategy should dictate what screen setup you should have. More doesn't mean better in this business. For the second last account I traded, I had a setup of 2x19", 2x14" and one TV-Out. For the current account, I basically use a 14,5" Laptop screen. Guess with what monitor setup/strategy I halved my account, and with which one I became consistently profitable...
Response time for Dell 2001fp is 16ms. I think regular screen is more suitable for charting than those wide screen. IMO, I'll go for 19" for money wise or 20" or larger(regular screen) if price is not the concern.
wohc: Thanks for the response. I'm going for the 20" regular screen. Regular screens work better for my layout style. Is 16 ms response time suitable for daytrading or should one wait for the 8ms LCD's to hit the mkt?
Again IMO, 20ms or under is perfect or for real time charting. I think 8ms LCD is on the market already. I found one from NEC (19" NEC MultiSync LCD1970GX) for around $420 after rebate from PCMALL.