21" Lcd Flat Screen

[x-pat]

I need to buy a new monitor.

Whilst in the lovely city of Chiang Mai earlier this month I visited three different IT malls, but did not see any 20" or 21" TFT displays, only the standard sizes.

Should I buy one in Bangkok and bring it to CNX, or did anyone see 21" TFT flat screens in Chiang Mai?

Cheers, X-Pat

[ode]

The only ones I've seen have been from Apple... here in Chiang Mai.

I'm a bit surprised how hard it's to find larger TFT sizes here in Thailand. And when they can be found, they seem to be quite overpriced. For example I've seen Viewsonic VP201b 20" 1600x1200 TFT in thailand for 57,000 THB, when in US it can be found for under 30,000 THB.

Have to have a look when I visit Singapore soon...

Meh, also... why can't I see any HP or Dell laptops with WUXGA display anywhere, that's 1900x1200 resolution.

/ode

I need to buy a new monitor.

Whilst in the lovely city of Chiang Mai earlier this month I visited three different IT malls, but did not see any 20" or 21" TFT displays, only the standard sizes.

Should I buy one in Bangkok and bring it to CNX, or did anyone see 21" TFT flat screens in Chiang Mai?

Cheers, X-Pat

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Mr.StickyRice]

If you are in a pinch just go for a smaller Sony LCD HDTV, it can be used for a monitor also if you dont mind tweaking around your PC to display on it.

(power-strip, HDTV card, etc...)

[Fraktalkid]

I personally reckon that unless you want a 21" flat panel for movies, it's far more sensible and economic to buy 2 17" flat panels and run them with a dual head graphics card -

14k baht * 2 + say 3-10k baht for the graphics card (depending on what you want) = 31-38k baht

VS

I dunno... 75-80k baht for a 21" LCD (price quote on a conversion from UK pounds to Thai Baht done on a lookup from froogle.google.co.uk)

Also, 21" LCD screens normally have an effective resolution of 1600x1200 pixels - with 2 17" LCD panels, you get 1280x1024 x 2 - effectively 2560x1024 - a LOT of screen space to play with for a fraction of the cost!

:-)

At any rate, if you ARE hellbent on a 21" LCD, it's a high value item, so you'd probably save money by flying down to Bangkok and doing a spot of bargaining work at Pantip Plaza..

At least, all of the big IT purchases I make from Pantip in Bangkok as there's more choice and greater ability to bargain.

Hope that helps,

Rich

[x-pat]

Fraktalkid:I personally reckon that unless you want a 21" flat panel for movies, it's far more sensible and economic to buy 2 17" flat panels and run them with a dual head graphics card -

Hm, that's an interesting suggestion. I suppose this would work great with applications that maintain floating windows, such as Adobe Photoshop or Dreamweaver. Not so great with classical MDI applications or games.

I'm also not sure whether the video card would be compatible with OpenGL and DirectX. I definitely need OpenGL for Google Earth.

Thanks and Cheers, X-Pat

Edited September 2, 2005 by x-pat

[Fraktalkid]

Hm, that's an interesting suggestion. I suppose this would work great with applications that maintain floating windows, such as Adobe Photoshop or Dreamweaver. Not so great with classical MDI applications or games.

I'm also not sure whether the video card would be compatible with OpenGL and DirectX. I definitely need OpenGL for Google Earth. 

Thanks and Cheers, X-Pat

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

True, dual panel setups tend to work better for people who are designers and developers (and also stock market traders who, back in their native office environment would have about 4-5 screens on their desks).. At least, with this setup it works well because you could have a game playing on one screen, your emails coming in on the other

Essentially, if you're a multitasker on a PC, this gives you the most bang for your baht.

So even with MDI and gaming applications it works well when you've got one showing on one screen, the other using the other.. Personally, I like this setup for web development work in particular - browser in one window, text editor or db editor in another. I still haven't got round to implementing it on my desktop as I could do with another screen, but my laptop supports dual head so I occasionally plug my desktop monitor into my laptop for more demanding tasks across applications.

AFAIK, most of the video cards are compatible wtih both OpenGL and DirectX - if you were to go for a setup like this, sounds like you'd probably want a dedicated 3D card (but it also sounds like you know what you're talking about so I won't patronise).. But briefly, the great part is that most of the cards out there feature some level of 3d support these days - if they're missing a particular feature, the library e.g. OpenGL or DirectX does some sort of emulation trick, at the expense of processing power.. Of course, that's not the case for every single feature, but the reviews out there will tell you what's best at the time.

Even the card I've got at the moment (a lowly Radeon 7000) handles Google Earth just fine and also does the dual head thing.. (by adapting the video out port to another d-sub connector). I paid about 3500 baht for the card about 3 months ago so it wasn't what I call expensive (I didn't want an expensive cards as I don't do a lot of 3d stuff, and instead invested more money in an extra half a gig of RAM, which really does get used).

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear about what you go with in the end, I think you can see that I have a preference for the two-screen option, but I can also see the merits in one big screen (toyed with the idea at one stage of getting a 22" Apple Cinema display working on the PC )

Cheers,

Rich

PS if you do happen to choose two screens, best practical advice I can offer is to go for panels with the thinnest outer bezel possible so that you haven't got too much gap between the two panels.

[Thomas_Merton]

I need to buy a new monitor.

Whilst in the lovely city of Chiang Mai earlier this month I visited three different IT malls, but did not see any 20" or 21" TFT displays, only the standard sizes.

Should I buy one in Bangkok and bring it to CNX, or did anyone see 21" TFT flat screens in Chiang Mai?

Cheers, X-Pat

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You can get an inexpensive one in the Big Easy.

[Thomas_Merton]

I need to buy a new monitor.

Whilst in the lovely city of Chiang Mai earlier this month I visited three different IT malls, but did not see any 20" or 21" TFT displays, only the standard sizes.

Should I buy one in Bangkok and bring it to CNX, or did anyone see 21" TFT flat screens in Chiang Mai?

Cheers, X-Pat

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You can get an inexpensive one in the Big Easy.

[x-pat]

Rich: Essentially, if you're a multitasker on a PC, this gives you the most bang for your baht.

Rich, what you say makes a lot of sense to me. A little "Berlin wall" of LCD displays on my desk would certainly look good, although I will probably feel a bit walled in.

Good to know that OpenGL works with this kind of equipment. I spend much of my time developing, so multiple screens seem to make sense. Of course it's not the same with every application. For example, Eclipse may look a bit funny spread over two or more screens.

Then again, one could run the IDE in one screen, a browser in another, skype and instant messaging in a third.... I suppose there's no limit to this idea, except that one goes crazy at some point.

Are there any triple head video cards?

Thanks for the input & Cheers,

X-Pat

BTW, last week a sales lady gave us a demo of high-powered digital projectors. 2 x 1.5 meter image crystal clear in daylight conditions, larger if the room is shaded. I would say, this definitely beats plasma TV (and it carries a price tag of 100k - less than a plasma screen). The only drawback is that the projector gets extremely hot and that it has a lamp that costs 20k to replace.

[Fraktalkid]

Rich: Essentially, if you're a multitasker on a PC, this gives you the most bang for your baht.

Rich, what you say makes a lot of sense to me. A little "Berlin wall" of LCD displays on my desk would certainly look good, although I will probably feel a bit walled in.

Good to know that OpenGL works with this kind of equipment. I spend much of my time developing, so multiple screens seem to make sense. Of course it's not the same with every application. For example, Eclipse may look a bit funny spread over two or more screens.

Then again, one could run the IDE in one screen, a browser in another, skype and instant messaging in a third.... I suppose there's no limit to this idea, except that one goes crazy at some point. 

Are there any triple head video cards? 

Thanks for the input & Cheers,

X-Pat

BTW, last week a sales lady gave us a demo of high-powered digital projectors. 2 x 1.5 meter image crystal clear in daylight conditions, larger if the room is shaded. I would say, this definitely beats plasma TV (and it carries a price tag of 100k - less than a plasma screen). The only drawback is that the projector gets extremely hot and that it has a lamp that costs 20k to replace.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey X-Pat :-)

Yes, the last time I worked in this environment on a daily basis (at a job in London before moved to Thailand) it took me about a week to get used to the sensation of 2 screens, and so from my experience working with this setup it's important to get your desk setup correctly so that you've got the two panels in your field of vision, otherwise you'll have a tendency to dominate things in one panel and not make full use of the setup.

Yeah, in fact I found most applications to look kinda funny spread across the two screens - even Photoshop I would move th toolbars to the left screen and work on the right but never the whole app maxed out. I tell ya what though, I do remember a day when I was given a rather wide Excel spreadsheet to extract some data from... which I then stretched across the two panes... speeded up the task in hand by about 300%

Triple head cards do exist, the most respected one being the Matrox Parhelia.. not sure if you'd be able to buy that in Chiang Mai though

Matrox Parhelia

The projector is also another great idea - the only caveat being that the resolutions tend to be pretty standard (800x600 or 1024x768). Probably safer to have a monitor at least stored away somewhere - it's not like you can nip down to the local 7-11 and get a replacement bulb if you're doing a massive coding session at 3 in the morning

Rich