Hello, Reciently I bought a Samsung 931c 19inch LCD monitor. I have only had a day to use it and a laptop to use it on (VGA not DVI, and with built in video) but I find that it hurts my eyes if i use it for more than an hour. Its only when in windows, browsing the internet or using a word processing applications. I tried a few games and the quality there was fantastic. Colors were good, the 2ms response time was execellent, image quality was spot on with what I remember with my old CRT. I'm wondering if I should return it and get another one(different model), maybe i'm just used to the CRT I had in the past but I have to wonder if all LCD's are the same when it comes to text. I've noticed when in stores that I dont really care for the way the internet looks, the letters always seam to look like they could really use some AA. I also noticed that when when in windows, if I am above the screen anything that was white will start to fade to a purple color and if I am below the screen white will start to fade to yellow. Which is kind of annoying because I dont like to sit in the exact same position when using my pc. I know that all lcd's will fade when not looking straight on but the laptop i am on now just gets darker the farther off the to the side or above/below the screen you are. Would the VGA output make a difference to the quality of simple text, compared to a DVI output? and would going to a 1950 pro, from the laptops built in graphics, make a difference as well? I'd hate to return it without trying it on my new desktop but by the time I get my cpu (waiting for the price drop) the 30 day return policy will be up. what would you do if you were in my position?
VGA output won't make much of a difference. In fact, DVI is the better option, mainly due to better interaction between the monitor and video card (being able to detect optimal/native resolution and such). If your eyes are hurting, it could be a number of reasons such as health issues including glare and not blinking often. Also, if the brightness and contrast is taken up too high, this will strain the eyes. Running the monitor with poor room lighting will also cause glare and strain the eyes. I suspect that browsing the internet and word processor usually means looking at a white background, which yet again strains the eyes, especially when stared at over a long period of time. In regards to viewing the screen above or below, it seems the Samsung monitor doesn't have a good viewing angle. This depends on how the screen was made (I can't really go into technical detail as I'm not an expert on screens ). If this annoys you a lot, you might want to consider a different screen. Some of the slightly more expensive screens won't have this problem (such as the Viewsonic VX series or the Dell Ultrasharp series).
The default brightness and contrast on LCD screens is often set much too high for comfortable use. Those settings are probably OK for watching DVDs - but too high for general use such as web browsing, try turning down the contrast/brightness by 50% and see if its any better
yeah it is a 3000:1 screen, on of the things I did to try and fix it was to turn the brightness down. that helped a bit. the main problem is that I have to concentrate on the letters just to read them, where as on this monitor I can just glance at the screen and be able to read anything with ease. I dont think its a health issue because I use this computer for about 8 hours a day without any problems. Are the Dell LCD's actually any good? I always try to stay away from Dell because I dont really trust the company for quality products and down right bad customer service. You should see the nuber of dell pc's sitting in our tech guys office waiting to be fixed...
ok, so dell monitors=good. any others out there that I should consider as a good brand name? I had my old CRT for so long that I have never really needed to pay attention to monitors at all. and now that I am out looking, for every good review on a particular model that find, I can find an equally bad one.
Dell monitors are indeed good; having used both their recent 20" 4:3 and 24" 16:10 I wouldn't buy anything else if I were in the market for such a monitor. However, before you go drop money on something like that, why don't you try turning on cleartype? Right-click on the desktop and go to properties. Go to the appearance tab, select Effects, and in the new window activate the second checkbox and switch the drop-down to cleartype. That might be just the change you're looking for - I've stumbled across one HP monitor that looked better with it turned off, but aside from that every LCD I've ever used has benefited from cleartype. And anyway, if I'm understanding your problem correctly, even the most expensive LCD in the world will have the same problem. If the text looks jagged and angry, cleartype, which is technically subpixel rendering, will create more or less the same effect as antialiasing. The jaggies are because text on a computer is normally very pixelated, but you don't notice on a CRT due to the inherent blurriness of the technology. On an LCD, which replicates pixels clearly and exactly, you can see the individual pixels and have to change the way things are rendered to smooth everything out, rather than depending on a blurry monitor to do the same.
Hey thanks a lot for that one. I just tried it on this laptop and even though it wasn't a huge difference I could tell when it was on and when it was off. I hope that its off on the laptop at home. I'm at work and I will be until thursday. Cant wait to try it though, I really dont want to have to send it back. thanks again, dont know why i've never been in that menu... edit: was talking to someone at home and had them check, it was turned off so I hope it does the trick when I get there on thursday.
Hey, no problem. I hope it works for you, but even if it doesn't, at least you tried. I hate to see people spending money to fix a problem that can be fixed for free.
