Recommend a 17" LCD

[UtwigMU]

Still talking about friend's PC:
To stay within budget I priced him a used 22" CRT (100€, 15 day warranty) but he will sooner or latter, if not initially go with LCD. I haven't looked into LCDs in quite a while but the last time I looked, Samsung Panels were quite decent. I'm sure some of you have been buying/researching LCDs lately and will be able to come up with some suggestions.

So I want something that is:
- 17"
- colour, refresh requirements enough for watching movies, not neccessary to play games (mainly a websurfer, office rig)
- as innexpensive as possible
- DVI connector

[Admiral]

As inexpensive as possible is pretty much in contradiction with DVI.

To be honest, the only decent and relatively inexpensive monitor with DVI that I've seen is the Iiyama E435 (10ms).

[Nowhere]

Shouldn't DVI monitors be cheaper theroetically?

[UtwigMU]

I think they are classified as TVs or somesuch.

[Fluff]

That is correct.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13831

It can be as high as 14% Which is a shame.

[rylan]

Wow what a crock. I wonder how long it will take the US to decide thats a good idea and slap the TV tarrif on monitors coming in to the states also.

But yes, monitors that just have DVI input should be cheaper, but the majority of them have an analog input with that DVI so it costs a bit more (about 5 bucks in parts).

[Kurt]

AFAIK, the reality of it is much simpler: no tax.

The tax is applied on screens with TV tuners, but some manufacturers import them separately and don't have to pay it.

[Nowhere]

And in the meanwhile EVERYBODY here use D-sub because of this...
On top of that the salesman everywhere say "oh, it's pointless to pay 50€ more for that, you'll turn on cleartype and it'll be the same" (stupid, stupid...)
My institute recently aquired some new PCs...quite nice: P4 3GHz (unnecessary), 512MB, Radeon9250 (basically unnecessary) with...Nec LCD monitors without DVI (why they have Radeons with DVI when onboard (yep, they have onboard graphics) Dsub could be used...).
Oh well, at least G400 on my old Eizo CRT still looks better...

[UtwigMU]

Yep, basically it's 50€ for DVI. I'm sifting through price comparison and manufacturer sites and compiling results in Excel. It's extremely painful to research LCDs as specs are weird or incomparable and there are too manny manufacturers. Furthermore, there are little objective reviews of various cheapo panels such as Neovo, CTX, etc...

If I were buying for myself I'd pick a panel with decent response for playing games, 16.7M colours and good colour fidelity, uniformity, etc.. which would probably be close to 400€. If I couldn't have afforded it, I'd stick to CRT untill then.

[Nowhere]

...which requires becoming immune (I am...I don't give a shit about what others think would be better for me when it comes to PCs) to "uhhh, you still have this old thing, I have a flat monitor, it's much better than yours!"

[Admiral]

I like my Samsung 710N

Ah, crap, basically I just wanted a couple of 15" Samsung 510Ts, but nobody brings it here anymore. DVI and all, 1024x768 native resolution as I play most of my games in 1024 and text surely is more readable on 15 " 1024 than 17" 1280. Scaling in games is fine but 1024 on a 17" for text sucks.

[Mehen]

i got a Samsung 730B, very very sweet
only downside is the stand isnt very versitile, can only adjust the angle