Screen Death

[artela]

My TFT died yesterday (the "pre dying flicker" is probably what caused me to get a headache Sunday evening). So, new monitor needed. I have a choice (for the same price) and am wondering what the pros and cons are of 17" "standard 4:3 ratio" vs 17" widescreen. I need to know which one of the two to buy by lunchtime today. So, friendslist, if it

Comments

[bellinghman]

Assuming the 17" is the actual diagonal for both, for the same diagonal you'll get more area the squarer the rectangle is. (The extreme widescreen would be 17" wide, 0.0001" tall, and have no area worth talking about for a 17" diagonal.) So the widescreen gives you less actual area.

I'd concur with random and go for the highest native pixel count. If the widescreen is 1440 x 900 (which my laptop is), then that's 1.29 megapixels. The 17" square aspect one probably does 1280 x 1024 - 1.31 megapixels.

(Checks pages - as yes, my guesses were correct.)

The temptation is always to push the boat out and go for something like this 22" 1680 x 1050 one. It's taller than the 4:3, wider than the widescreen one, and as long as you don't mind that it doesn't quite reach "Full HD" TV resolutions, not a bad price.

(I've just noted the current price for the 24" - considerably less than I paid 30 months ago for the Dell model.)

Oh yes, it's worth checking that your graphics card can actually cope with the resolution required. Almost everything can output 1280 x 1024, but if you have a card that can't actually do 1440 x 900, then the widescreen monitor would be wasted.

[artela]

Still out of my price range... I can only just afford one of the two I put up for discussion :-/

[bellinghman]

Ah, the budget thing. Yes, I sympathise.