Lloyd--
Last year I bought two 21" monitors. These are bigger and more
expensive than a 19" but you may be interested in my experiences.
Monitor 1 was a Sony GDM-F500R for $1,800. This was supposedly one
of the best monitors on the market (once you rule out Barco). It
arrived out of convergence, fuzzy, and I couldn't remove the color
cast. I sent it in to Sony repair and after a looooong time they
sent me back a refurbished unit. The refurbished one was
cosmetically perfect (e.g. no scratches in the plastic case) and gave
much better performance but was still fuzzier than I'd like,
particularly on text, and especially in comparison with monitor 2:
Monitor 2 was a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2040u for $1,200 (I believe
the current model is the 2060u for about $900). This monitor worked
beautifully out of the box and has exceptionally crisp text: I run at
1600 x 1200 pixels and use 9-point text (on my Macintosh) for all the
system displays (filenames, directory listings, etc.) and text is
crisp all the way into the corners. After several months this
monitor developed a problem where the display was flashing in wierd
ways. Mitsubishi sent me a new one; I just popped the old one in the
box and returned it to Mitsubishi and was done. The replacement has
been working like a champ for months.
Both of these are flatscreen, AG monitors. The two horizontal wires
ARE distracting when I'm closely examining grain patterns in scans
but otherwise are not a problem. Both monitors calibrate nicely with
PhotoCal and the Color Spyder and do quite well with my Photoshop
work (mostly retouching scanned slides and negs), and I love having
lots of screen real estate.
In summary, the Sony's doing fine but I'm angry that it cost more and
is fuzzy enough that I notice it. The Mitsubishi is sharp as a tack,
a joy to use, and I'd buy another in a minute if I needed one.
HTH,
--Bill
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Lloyd O'Daniel" <lodaniel@bham.rr.com>
>
>
>
>> I'm thinking of buying a 19" monitor to go along with an aging 17"
>Panasonic..
--
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Bill Fernandez * User Interface Architect * Bill Fernandez Design
(505) 346-3080 * bill@billfernandez.com *
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