I have joined the darkside: widescreen LCDs
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 2:55 pm
Yeah, I've been a hold out. I never liked widescreen LCDs. I have 2 expensive almost 4 year old NEC Multisync LC1765 displays (the pretty ones that look like they came off the bridge of the USS Enterprise) in dual monitor mode. These displays still look stunning, and the backlight still has a stable color temperature (I've never had to re-adjust them since I first calibrated them when I bought them and I was more of a power Photoshop user back then). They had a low response time of 16ms for their time (back then everything was over 32ms) and I paid a small fortune for them (around $600 a piece at Best Buy). I never needed the screen real estate of a wide monitor, because dual monitors give you even more real estate.
BUT I just got a deal the other day on a Dell 19" E198WFP widescreen with DVI for $100 from a client who got it bundled with his PC but didn't need it. I was going to give it to the wife but I had to try it on my system first just to see what it looked like connected to DVI.
Well frankly the desktop doesn't look too different - you have to realize my old NEC displays were studio grade and they still look very sharp compared to modern displays, even using SVGA. Sure DVI does make the small text look sharper and that's nice (I can compare them side by side because I still have one of the old NEC displays connected as my right-hand display for dual monitors).
The big difference, however, is in games - at least modern games that support widescreen resolutions (sadly SWAT4 doesn't). COD4 looks awesome in widescreen. You definitely get much more peripheral vision. Surprisingly, though, the game that benefited the most was Team Fortress 2. In TF2 you are often fighting close quarters and boy does it help to have a wider field of view! I can honestly say it's improving my TF2 game. No longer am I surprised by a scout who comes up beside me to bash my brains in with his club (he may still bash my brains in, but I am no longer surprised
).
It's unfortunate there isn't a way to play older games like SWAT4 in a full-screen mode that doesn't stretch the image out horizontally, and this it the main reason I have put off buying a widescreen until now. However SWAT4 is the only game I play anymore that doesn't seem to have a widescreen mode the the issue is no longer valid.
BUT I just got a deal the other day on a Dell 19" E198WFP widescreen with DVI for $100 from a client who got it bundled with his PC but didn't need it. I was going to give it to the wife but I had to try it on my system first just to see what it looked like connected to DVI.
Well frankly the desktop doesn't look too different - you have to realize my old NEC displays were studio grade and they still look very sharp compared to modern displays, even using SVGA. Sure DVI does make the small text look sharper and that's nice (I can compare them side by side because I still have one of the old NEC displays connected as my right-hand display for dual monitors).
The big difference, however, is in games - at least modern games that support widescreen resolutions (sadly SWAT4 doesn't). COD4 looks awesome in widescreen. You definitely get much more peripheral vision. Surprisingly, though, the game that benefited the most was Team Fortress 2. In TF2 you are often fighting close quarters and boy does it help to have a wider field of view! I can honestly say it's improving my TF2 game. No longer am I surprised by a scout who comes up beside me to bash my brains in with his club (he may still bash my brains in, but I am no longer surprised
).It's unfortunate there isn't a way to play older games like SWAT4 in a full-screen mode that doesn't stretch the image out horizontally, and this it the main reason I have put off buying a widescreen until now. However SWAT4 is the only game I play anymore that doesn't seem to have a widescreen mode the the issue is no longer valid.
