Buying a PC monitor - 16:10 or 16:9?

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 6:10 am

I am thinking of buying a new monitor soon. Either a 22" or 24", and I want to have the 1920 horizontal resolution for sure.

I am seeing these 16:10 monitors at 1920x1200, and 16:9 monitors at 1920x1080.

I estimate my usage to be as follows, from most frequent to least frequent:
Work - word processing, programming etc.
PC gaming
Console gaming (eventually - if I get a PS3 or X360)
Blu-ray movies

To be fair though, my current 17" 1280x1024 is just fine for work, I really only want the monitor for entertainment. So, as I understand, 16:9 is better for console gaming and movies, but 16:10 is better for PC gaming. Do console games and movies get screwed up by 16:10? But do most PC games support 16:9? How useful are those extra 120 lines of resolution?

Also, 16:9 monitors are a Hell of a lot cheaper than 16:10, I am leaning towards 16:9 (this one in particular)but I kind of want to hear about your experiences before I go one way or the other.

SFKhoa · Post by **SFKhoa** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 6:49 am

For some movies that display in 16:9 ratio, you'll be seeing borders on the top and bottom on a 16:10 monitor. But if those extra lines of resolution have a huge difference in price, then it's probably best you get 16:9.

trivial · Post by **trivial** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 10:50 am

An entire subforum at AVS is reserved for best practices when viewing movies that exceed 16:9.

But they're using projectors with anamorphic lenses for the most part. Stick with 16:10 until the normal viewing distance prohibits seeing the entire image well. Then, 16:9 and up start to look good on their own merits.

Or, you know, cheap out. Or, you know, shop around. Dead pixels aren't the problem they once were though your mileage may vary.

SAM · Post by **SAM** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 12:41 pm

I think may be the reaction time is more important.

You don't want to see tails of bullets on screen when you playing shmups.

Michaelm · Post by **Michaelm** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 1:56 pm

Get the 16:10 as those extra lines are very welcome in normal work with a pc. If you ever want to work in 'Tate' mode on your monitor then those lines make a huge difference.

zap · Post by **zap** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 2:22 pm

When I bought my 16:10 monitor the clerk claimed that my Xbox360 games would look like crap since they are 16:9.

(Of course they look perfectly fine.)

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 6:27 pm

SFKhoa wrote:For some movies that display in 16:9 ratio, you'll be seeing borders on the top and bottom on a 16:10 monitor. But if those extra lines of resolution have a huge difference in price, then it's probably best you get 16:10.

Fixed the last word.

16:10 adds 320 pixels of horizontal resolution over a 1600x1200 monitor, it doesn't sound like much but that extra can be a lifesaver.

16:10 is pretty common on laptops now, it's as wide as they can get without starting to seem bizarre. 16:9 I haven't used.

Erinu · Post by **Erinu** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:57 am

zap wrote:When I bought my 16:10 monitor the clerk claimed that my Xbox360 games would look like crap since they are 16:9.

(Of course they look perfectly fine.)

Mine looked like dogshit until the NXE update but then they added support for different resolutions including 1680x1050 which I use. The games look much better now.

HDTVs don't use that resolution and neither does 16:9, so 16:10 support comes together with anything that supports 1680x1050. It's a handy thing to remember but I don't think the resolution ever got popular.. most people are on 1920x now.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 11:01 am

1680x1050 is pretty popular for laptops, and a good part of that is the lousy performance of lappy GPUs. Having TVs with it only adds to its market share. I'd predict the number of people on 1680x1050 is going to grow in the coming year or so (of course a lot of laptop sales are going to be netbooks, so I could be wrong).

zap · Post by **zap** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 12:07 pm

Erinu wrote:
zap wrote:When I bought my 16:10 monitor the clerk claimed that my Xbox360 games would look like crap since they are 16:9.

(Of course they look perfectly fine.)
Mine looked like dogshit until the NXE update but then they added support for different resolutions including 1680x1050 which I use. The games look much better now.

Oh, that could explain it. When was the NXE update? I bought the monitor around Xmas 2007, and everything looked fine then.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 5:41 pm

Uh guys I wasn't really interested in 16xx resolutions, only 1920x1200 vs 1920x1080. But thanks for the insights, I am fine with letterboxing on a 16:10 when displaying 16:9 content, it's just non-uniform scaling that I cannot stand.

MichaelM: Good point about having the extra 120 pixels in tate mode. At 1200 pixels, it would be narrower than my current monitor, but none of the cheaper monitors I am considering feature rotating bases.

But the 16:9 BenQ E2200HD is on sale for CAD$200 for the next two days. That's cheap enough for me to go run out and buy tomorrow. Urghhh what to do...

zap · Post by **zap** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 6:08 pm

I would be cautios with BenQ. Like, you get what you pay for. Maybe just me though.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 6:29 pm

zap wrote:I would be cautios with BenQ. Like, you get what you pay for. Maybe just me though.

Well, you're not the first person who has said it, so there might be something there.

Really not sure if I want to nearly double the price for a Samsung 1920x1200 though. I mean, that's like one monitor for the price of two :p

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 6:51 pm

There is a site somewhere on the nets that lists all the various panels (the part that matters the most) and which monitor it's in. You could plug in your BenQ model number and see which other monitors use it, and how expensive or highly / poorly rated they are. Worth a shot.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:43 am

i suggest paying extra for the 16:10, at least if you're going for an NEC or samsung. also avoid glossy like the plague

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 1:31 am

Twiddle wrote:i suggest paying extra for the 16:10, at least if you're going for an NEC or samsung. also avoid glossy like the plague

Right-o, I might just wait a while to get a Sammy T240 or something like that. Maybe this summer.

I like matte screens, but unfortunately it seems that glossy screens are hard to avoid when they spread like a plague. I blame it on the common peoples. They'll buy anything as long as it's shiny.