Just bought a new 17" TFT

Its lovely, its a 17" BENQ FP667 V2 with 16ms response time. The picture quality is great and the image is so much sharper (this one thing I loved about using my ancient p233 laptop the fact it had a TFT screen)

It cost me £220 from Microdirect so it wasn't cheap but then this is not the cheapest of 17" TFTs. It also has built in speakers which I am not even going to bother to connect

The only thing that bothers me is I could have bought a pair of Senhieser HD650's with this kind of money! Oh well at least it will do my eyes some good.

 

Sounds nice, and not a bad price either. I must admit it makes quite a difference when you switch up from a 14"-15" monitor to something like a 17", 19" or 21". I've not switched to a TFT as I'm more than happy with the performance of my old 17" mitsubishi naturally flat CRT. But should it ever decide to die on me I reckon I'll consider a TFT/LCD.

 

Definitely a good price for a 17 inch TFT, I paid £400 for my samsung 172X (17 inch, 12ms response time) about 3 months ago now, and whilst its a nice screen, I've also seen those BenQs in the plastic, and whilst the samsung is IMHO better, I'm not convinced the samsung is worth almost twice as much!

A TFT was a must for me, since I'm going to uni in september and lugging a CRT there and back 3 times a year would be a bit of a pain, and my old 17 inch CRT was on its way out - not sure what was wrong with it but was getting darker and darker until in darker games (UT etc) it was unusuble.

Colour definition on TFTs might be out a bit compared to TFTs (so if you like to do a lot of photo manipulation its not ideal), but the colours themselves are perfectly vibrant and don't appear washed out like on older TFTs. And for text, I haven't used a CRT that compares for how clear and sharp it is on my TFT! I'd never go back now

 

Sounds like you got a good deal there, Will. Amazing how prices have dropped - I paid £200 back in Jan. 2003 for my 15" Mitac TFT. Still going strong though - and it gets a lot of use!

 

I'll hold off buying a TFT at this time. My 22" CRT is still leagues ahead of most TFT monitors, especially for resolution support and games. And dont worry AT about not getting the HD650, they're well overrated IMHO.

 

I just hope I have bought at the right time, I would imagine prices will rise before Christmas and the next big drop won't be until Summer 2005.

I just hope Benq don't go bust otherwise I have no warranty in a years time. I don't know much about them though they claim my monitor will last 40,000 hours which is about 10 years for my usage.

 

Every flat screen I have seen below the £400 mark has horrendous quality especially noticeable on text

 

AT, BENQ are the peripheral - i.e. monitors, projectors, DVD writers etc. division of Acer, who are a pretty big Taiwanese company supplying notebook and desktop computers, so I wouldn't worry too much about them going under. Their products are sold worldwide, plus they've been around a good few years - I had a 14" monitor of theirs back in 1992 with my first 486. It's only been in the last year or two that the peripheral division renamed itself to BENQ for some reason. No idea as to why though.

 

This is crystal clear much better than any CRTs I have used other than the top notch Sony's we use for video editing at university.

Things have moved on a lot in the TFT in the last year or so, response times are getting

 

Thanks, I wondered how this big company (Benq) have sprung up from no where. I know ACER quite well, I have had plenty of their motherboards (ASUS) in the past and have heared good things of Acer laptops.

 

does it have DVI, AT

 

No just a standard VGA input, its not really a problem for me though as I am only using it for computer stuff, I have a 21" Philips TV which produces a brillaint picture for AV stuff (I believe B&O have used the same tubes),

I can't find any dead pixels on it either, which is another major benefit.

 

I use, and set up loads of TFT monitors, and I have to admit for day to day Windows use they are probably a wiser choice for many - less space took up, good ones have very sharp text and windows display, bright, no glare.

However, even the best ones cannot hold a candle to a good CRT with games, movies and graphics IMO, they just respond quicker and look far more natural. TFT's will have to come down a lot in price and improve significantly before I will consider one.

 

The main reason I got one was space and my old 17" LG screen was so circled it distorted graphics. As I do a lot of report writing and programming text was important. I don't play games so thats not a problem. The only thing I do is graphics editing but not too much photo edititing. If I had room and the means of getting it back I probably would have bought a 19" pure flat CRT but I simply don't have the space.

I think certainly for homes TFTs are becoming more common than CRTs however I am not sure they are practical for schools or business as they are more fragile.

I have just realised that this monitor is also the most expensive single item I have ever purchased in my life

 

AT, ASUS are a different company to Acer. I'd agree ASUS make some of the best motherboards around - the nForce/AMD combination offers pretty good bang for buck, being fast, reliable and decently priced.

 

Computer screens didn't concern me much until a month or two ago my 23" CRT was starting to be unreliable.
Since my wife uses the computer the most I talked to her about a replacement.
At the end I got from the USA the 23" Apple TRT cinema display (the previous model).
Got it for 1600$ inclusive shippment and swiss taxes. Great screen and a lot of place to lay your documents (1920 x 1200 ? pixels).

 

Just about to invest in a pair of 17" TFTs running of a dualhead graphics card - 2560x1024 pixel desktop should be good for video editing

AT, prices are likely to remain stable in the run-up to Christmas or even fall slightly, but you got a good price on the monitor so I wouldn't worry about it. Enjoy

Regards

Hex

 

Hex Spurt - lucky bugger - that sounds like a nice rig for video editing and also MS Flight Simulator :;

 

What you want is one of these 30 inch, 8 million pixels!

http://www.apple.com/displays/

 

garyi, Hmm lovely. Just one problem - it's $3200 - or approx £1800 before shipping and VAT. Very nice though.