How to Buy a Monitor
You know, when we’re looking at new computer hardware and equivalent, we’re looking at that purchase, so often we get so hang up on things like the processors and memory and hard drives space and, yeah, that’s all really important, but what about the one part of our system that we use all the time? This, our display. So what is thought I’d do is put together a short video for you about how to choose and how to buy a good monitor. And so there’s some things that you need to consider before you go out and buy one, the first thing is determine what the primary use of that display’s gonna be. Are you gonna be using primarily for videos, photography, maybe work in the Photoshop, you’re gonna be using business apps, it’s important to know this and write this down as part of your decision making. The next, do I need a regular format display or one of the new wide screen models. Now the widescreens now are in a ratio of 16 to 9, which is true high definition, and it’s gonna be outstanding for watching DVDs, movies, it’s also a great productivity tool. You can put, maybe two different windows on the same screen. Maybe have your web processor open in one window, and your web browser in another. The next thing, do I need multiple monitors? Again, a big productivity enhancers, something that I’m gonna be doing in the very near future, is I’ll be running two 22 inch displays. That way I can have more windows open, more applications open on the same desktop. Need to understand if your current graphics card can support this higher resolution monitors, just because the monitor supports a higher resolution doesn’t mean the graphics card in your computer may support, that actually, you may wanna look into that. You also need to understand the specs, or the key features of the monitor, which I’m gonna cover in just a few minutes. Also have to determine what connectors am in gonna need, am I gonna need a VGA connector, or let’s call a DVI connector. Finally, I’m gonna look at, well not finally, but I’m gonna look at the price, how much is this thing cost and of course, how do I dispose of my old monitor. So let’s talk about some of the key features, well the first thing is called native resolution, this is the number of pixels that your monitor can display on the LCD panel. Now typically in 17 to 19 inch monitors, those use a resolutions of a 1280 by 1024 pixels. The 23 to 24 inch wide screen monitors use 1920 by 1200 pixels and your big 30 inch monitors is 2560 by 1600 pixels, so that packs a lot of detail on that display, more icons, more windows, sharper looking display. The next specification you don’t hear a lot is called the aspect ratio, used to be the widescreen monitors were at 16 to 10 aspect ratio, but now it’s 16 to 9. As I said earlier, it gives you more of a high, it’s true high definition quality as well as a real productivity enhancer. Now remember and LCD size is measured diagonally, just like the old cathode ray tube monitors are measured. The next thing is the viewing angle measurement, now this is, this is basically done by looking at the center of the monitor, looking left to right, up and down and if, and at what point the, the image quality deteriorates towards not usable. Anything, it is measured in degrees, anything less than a hundred and fifty degrees is really should not be considered and a hundred and eighty is typically the maximum. The next is to look at what’s called the contrast ratio, now that’s the difference between the brightest white on the display and the darkest black. Now ratios of 401 or greater is considered to be of good quality, so the higher the better. The next is brightness, now this is measured in candelas per square meter, just to get technical, but the bottom line is, it is how much light, brightest light is this thing putting out. And typically a ratio, it’s 250 candelas per meter or greater is considered to be good. Now, remember, a lot of vendors ship this monitors with the brightness crank up way high and that may made the video look really stunning for a while, but what’s gonna happen is it’s gonna cause a lot of eye strain, you probably wanna back the brightness down. The next is, do I have a digital or do I wanna analog connection, digitals amost always gonna win, there’s two types of digital connection DVID, for digital and DVI-I, which is an analog, but you need a converter from the output of your VGA port in your computer to the DVI-I connector. You also wanna look at special ports on the monitor, special inputs such as S video, memory cards, you may want composite or component video, if you maybe wanna plug DVD player video games into the system as well. The next thing is called response time, now it’s measured in two different ways. Rise and fall response time and gray to gray response time, now rise and fall is basically how long it takes a white, or a black pixel to go totally white and the faster response time the better picture quality you’re gonna have. Now the other response time is called gray to gray, how long does it take a pixel turn from one shade of gray to another. Now there’s a very definite and industry standard on the rise and fall, but there is not on gray to gray, so keep that in mind. Finally, the physical size of the monitor, make sure you look at your desktop, that’s why I’m thinking maybe two smaller monitors might be a better way for people to go, say two 17 inchers than one 24 inch. Because just the sheer size of, it’s one of the problems I have with this iMac 24 inch, it’s got a really big bezel, it’s 24 inches, it doesn’t go up or down, it will tilt, so take a look at the, you know, does the display tilt side to side, up and down, maybe it can pivot into portrait mode, see how important all that sort of thing is to you. Will it fit comfortably on my desktop, will I have to crane my neck to see this thing, also very important. Remember, try them out there before you buy, look, if you’re gonna buy on the web, you’re gonna go online, make sure, dog gone sure that the seller has a unconditional refund policy. You’re gonna have to live with this thing for a long time, you stare at it, maybe for hours on end. Invest the money to get a good quality monitor. And finally when it’s time to get rid of your old monitor, just don’t throw it in the trash, make sure that you recycle that monitor properly. I’m Bruce Daly, your Frugal Tech, we always welcome your comment and your input and joy here from you. Email me at support@frugalbrothers.com, you could also catch these videos on the Frugal Tech Show at frugalbrothers.com, also the FTA radio show. Leave your comments on Youtube, we always love to hear from you, I’m Bruce Daly, your Frugal Tech and I’ll talk to you later.