Would you use a 32" LCD as your monitor?

Paulmack

Paulmack

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Yes
And if so what would you go for?

I had to make an insurance claim recently and the company has given me vouchers rather than cash and they dont really have much that I need so was thinking of using the vouchers to go for a 32" LCD TV to connect to a Power Mac that I am looking to buy later this week.

Is this recommended and if so is there anything in particular I should look out for? There is a Samsung with a contrast ratio of 10,000:1 or a LG with 15,000:1 both the same price so would you go for the LG?

Cheers
 
I used a 37" LCD monitor as my second screen for movies, works very well but its at least 1.5 metres away from my desktop.

Basically the bigger the display the further it should be away from you as sitting too close to one isn't quite a good idea. I'd say the biggest one should get as a desktop monitor should be a 22 or 24. The 30" monitor, although it has been around for a while now, is a little too big and an overkill unless you work with 3D (like I do).

Just remember that there are monitors and LCD TVs, they are a little different and are suited to different applications. Monitors don't usually have tuners built in (mine did though) and aren't normally used for movies. They can definitely double up for them though but to my eyes LCD TVs do a better job of it. Hope that helps.

I'm looking for a 24" monitor at the moment for this very purpose.
 
if it was full hd then it'd be an option, half hd and it's a bit iffy

like above, it has to be further away from you :)
 
yeah maybe 32" is too big...wouldnt really have the desk space to position any further away from me than about 1m

Quality wise it seems that this would work though, for the likes of Aperture, Lightroom and CS4?
 
I use an Apple 30" cinema display and absolutely love it. If anything, it magnifies every little error - which is not necessarily a bad thing - as it means I look very critically at all that I do.
 
I have a 24" 1920x1200 display and will be getting a 30" 2560x1600 display later so I am a big fan of large monitors. My laptop for example has a 17" display but still has the 1920x1200 res again this is very useable. The problem with TVs is that they just do not have the resolution. If you can find a 32" xHD TV ie vertical res of 1080 then if would be usable but not really ideal. The actual pixels would just be too large
 
ah right, most of the TV's I can see have a resolution of 1366x768 so this would be useless then?
 
Paulmack said:
ah right, most of the TV's I can see have a resolution of 1366x768 so this would be useless then?
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Just try changing the resolution of your current display to be 1366x768 and see if it is any good ! You can get super HD or xHD TVs though for less and less so you might find a 37" super HD TV for about £500 in which case that might be useable! Again try changing your current resolution to 1720x1080 (ish) and see whether that is of any use to you!
 
AliB said:
Can you still calibrate an LCD? :shrug:
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Yes you can calibrate any monitor BUT the software can only make certain changes and it will never be perfect. Remember TV screens are designed with certain limitations. They will for example refresh at 60hz at best (other than some specialist ones) so the your large display may develope a slight flicker which a computer monitor would not have due to its usually higher refresh rate.

All in all they are useable BUT only in the same way that a Pentium 200MMX is usable for web browsing.
 
I think the issue would be the low resolution of a TV over a proper LCD Monitor, I would get a 24/26" LCD Monitor at 1920x1200
 
Right well I have just attached my HP 6530b laptop to my Sony 32v4000 TV with the following settings:

TV Res = 1366 x 768
Laptop Res = 1280 x 800

Now to be fair the screen looked fine, it was clear and from a working distance of about 1.5m it didnt seem to pixelated.

So I am thinking I will wait until I get the powermac and conenct this to the TV to see how it goes before making any decisions
 
ppp said:
I think the issue would be the low resolution of a TV over a proper LCD Monitor, I would get a 24/26" LCD Monitor at 1920x1200
Click to expand...

It is an LCD TV I am looking at, but due to fact that I am having to use gift vouchers for a certain retailer I am restricted to what I can get and they dont stock LCD monitors, only TV's so I am just trying to figure out if I can make the most of a bad situation or let the missus have them to buy stuff for the house...obviously dont really want to go down the route of the latter!
 
I was using a 26" HDTV as a monitor, ended up buying a 'proper' monitor as the resolution was just not high enough for photo editing
 
Paulmack said:
It is an LCD TV I am looking at, but due to fact that I am having to use gift vouchers for a certain retailer I am restricted to what I can get and they dont stock LCD monitors, only TV's so I am just trying to figure out if I can make the most of a bad situation or let the missus have them to buy stuff for the house...obviously dont really want to go down the route of the latter!
Click to expand...

Which retailer? If it is Currys or Comet then they are part of the same company as PC World.
 
cowasaki said:
Which retailer? If it is Currys or Comet then they are part of the same company as PC World.
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No its a homeshopping catalogue, Freemans!! Totally rubbish...

I bought a sony camcorder about 2 years ago off them and it was covered by a 3 year insurance. I was unfortunate enough to have to make a claim and the insurance have just told me to purchase a replacement from Freemans but dont want to go down the route of a camcorder again, would much prefer the cash to help purchase the PowerMac but there you go..insurers perogative!
 
I think they may look ok for normal stuff but for in detail pic editing I think you would find an issue
 
I use one of the dell 24" screens at 1920x 1200 and a samsung 21 widescreen at 1680 x 1050. Seems to work pretty well.
The one thing with large screens, if you play games then you need a decent system. Thankfully mine is just about up to the job :)

I think 32 would just be too big, let alone I dont think I have the space.
 
A very nice 24" should do you fine. Bigger "TV" panels don't have the same resolution, so although you have a bigger screen area, there are often less pixels on it. If you've got loads to spend then something from NEC or Eizo will not dissapoint! (how's this?)
 
cowasaki said:
Yes you can calibrate any monitor BUT the software can only make certain changes and it will never be perfect. Remember TV screens are designed with certain limitations. They will for example refresh at 60hz at best (other than some specialist ones) so the your large display may develope a slight flicker which a computer monitor would not have due to its usually higher refresh rate.

All in all they are useable BUT only in the same way that a Pentium 200MMX is usable for web browsing.
Click to expand...

I disagree about the refresh rate.......pretty much ALL lcd's refresh at 60Hz and it is far more usable than old crt's at that rate. (colour wise you might be right though)

Check out the Sharp 32D65E, 1080p for £499 in currys, nd we've just got a newer version in.
 
Paulmack said:
Right well I have just attached my HP 6530b laptop to my Sony 32v4000 TV with the following settings:

TV Res = 1366 x 768
Laptop Res = 1280 x 800

Now to be fair the screen looked fine, it was clear and from a working distance of about 1.5m it didnt seem to pixelated.

So I am thinking I will wait until I get the powermac and conenct this to the TV to see how it goes before making any decisions
Click to expand...

These are fairly standard resolution.
 
I use a 32" samsung as a screen at home and find the low res a bit annoying sometimes, for browsing and msning and tv watching ect (i dl it all) I can't comment on the suitability for editing as I use my lappy for all that as it's with me 7 days a week while I only have my desktop at weekends so it ends up more as a gaming/media/server machine instead
 
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