indyjones

Hi all I was wondering if you could give me some advice. I have pretty much settled on getting myself one of the Dell ultrasharp 20” tft range. The only thing is I don’t know if I should go for the widescreen or the traditional square monitor. These days I use my computer for playing games, web, email and watching the occasional film, I don’t spend much time now in office apps although I do some photo manipulation.
What are your opinions on which screen I should go for (or even a different make / model)

Cheers

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LordOfLA

my boss has 2005FPw's on his desk and tey look awesome

If you have the budget go for 1 or more 2405's else the 2001FP is great (I have one on my desk and want 2 eventually )

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indyjones

Cheers I will look into those screens
Anybody else?

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champ2005

The 2001FP (the 1600x1200) is very marginally cheaper than the 2005FP (1680x1050, widescreen). The 2005 is also the newer model, with better specs than the 2001. And it goes without saying that widescreen monitors are better for movies, simply because you lose less to the horizontal black stripes at the top and bottom.

If you wait a bit longer, im sure NetRyder will pop by here, he is the expert on all things Dell

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LordOfLA

thing with the 2005 is that in 4:3 mode its only 17"....

2405 gives you 24" widescreen and 20" in 4:3 mode (which is my reason for suggesting it.)

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indyjones

You hit the nail on the head, my main worry is how "useful" widescreen really is as I expect it will now be fairly rare that I watch a movie on the PC, and how well does the aspect ratio work with everything else? The 2405 is way too expensive for my pocket

As for the specs bettween the two it thought they were the same ?

The screen I am going from is a 18.1" viewable CRT which is too big for my new apartment

Oh the widescreen is cheeper here in the UK at the moment @ £390 rather than over £500 for the square

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SPeedY_B

I couldn't live without widescreen now. It's so handy being able to have your normal browser open one side of the screen with a DVD playing and an IRC session on the other. In my eyes though, 4:3 has no purpose existing anymore.

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Xie

IMHO if you had a choice between the two you should go widescreen. You get more screen space and thus can do more.

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indyjones

What about gaming though can you convert directX games to run at widescreen res? As I dont know many games which support widescreen apart from hl2...........

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champ2005

all games worth playing these days support widescreen, and if not, they can be hacked (i had this good website with all widescreen hacks for every game, but ive lost the link). there is no reason to use 4:3 mode - everything works just fine in widescreen mode.

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indyjones

excellent thank champ2005

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SPeedY_B

Widescreen Game index (Scroll down a bit): http://www.tigerdave.com/wgl/
Widescreen Gaming Forums: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/

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indyjones

Cheers Speedy, Hmmm the "hacked" games seemes interesting I wonder if its as easy as just changing a few lines in and *.ini file.......

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Sazar

Speedy == hax to the max

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SPeedY_B

on the most part it's as easy as changing/amending a few lines in an .ini or .cfg, some may require more work though.

Most (if not all?) new games support widescreen resolutions though. Hopefully 4:3 and 5:4 will just be faded out over time.

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indyjones

Cheers
Does hacking a game to run it distort the image at all? Like streaching a 4:3 tv show on a widescreen telly ?

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LordOfLA

no computers is smart

I'd sooner go for 2x 4:3 than 1 x widescreen for a computer though unless its your main source of TV/Film viewing.

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indyjones

So would I but I can only afford the one!

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SPeedY_B

Rubbish. Just go 2x 16:10, that's what I'm doing.

I'm more happy with one widescreen monitor than I am using 2 "square" ones.

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sean.ferguson

That much i can agree with, but i dont think it will be for a long time yet. Widescreen are still relatively new and look at the floppy drive, in todays world they are near useless but they are still being sold and used.

My next monitor will be a 16:10, i would like LG to create a nice consumer 16:10 display though.

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