I'm trying to pluck up the courage to actually part with some of my hard earned cash and buy a TFT monitor. Has anyone on here had any good/bad experiences with them?

Ideally I want a 17" but don't want to pay much more than £300. I see Dixons (Boo... Hiss...) has a "Proview" one for under £300 with built in speakers. Now, I'd say that since it's so cheap it's bound to be crap... but does anyone know any different?

What's a good but reasonably priced brand for TFT monitors?

Has anyone who's got / used one had any problems with dead pixels? This worries me a little as most warranties don't cover them.

Thanks Sheffield Forum-ers! :D

I had a nice one at work. It was a Dell badged 17" TFT, with an optimum resolution of 1280 x 1024. Any resolution lower than that would be scaled up to fill the screen, so would look chunky.

The display was very sharp, but looked duller than a CRT, even when turned up to full brightness.

It was a status symbol, but not much else for me I'm afraid.

Because I have several apps open at once, I recently swapped it for a pair of 17" Trinitron CRTs which work best at 1024 x 768 - makes drag and drop much easier.

If you'll only require a single monitor, and will use it at home, then I'd recommend a TFT monitor. Then use a fraction of the desk space, and can save £££s off your electricity bill (I was told they can save upto £90 a year).

Hunt round a get a better deal than Dixons tho'. Reputable online sellers (Inmac and Insight) can do them for about £50 cheaper. I'm sure Dabs can do even better than that, but get one with onsite warranty of 3yrs if possible. RTB warranties suck

Insight defo - www.insight.com/uk

Originally posted by Lindseyw
Insight defo - www.insight.com/uk

So that's who you work for :!:

Say hi to Nick Sollitt when he returns from his hols :D

Sorry honey - not me :)

Have a look on ebuyer.com - they're a bunch of incompetent monkeys, who don't give a toss once they have your money, but they're cheap, and have a huge range of good quality PC components.

Thanks for the advice on where to buy ... I'm pretty clued up on that anyway. What I really wanted to know was whether anyone could recommend certain brands, etc... as all these mail order / internet companies don't have showrooms where you can view their goods. (And PCWorld doesn't have such a big selection.)

If you fancy a drive to Manchester, try:

www.scan.co.uk
www.spoton.net
www.microdirect.co.uk

Much better than giving your money to Dixons, PC World, Currys and Time and paying someones commission.

LOL... as I just said: "Thanks for the advice on where to buy ... I'm pretty clued up on that anyway."

I used to work at Scan (http://www.scan.co.uk) so I know where to go to get things at a good price... I was merely using the Dixons monitor as an example.

:D

Acer are cool - good quality and decent prices

Don't buy CTX. We have some here and the display quality is very poor, despite trying different drivers, resolutions, colour depths and refresh rates.

Originally posted by Tony Ruscoe
LOL... as I just said: "Thanks for the advice on where to buy ... I'm pretty clued up on that anyway."

I used to work at Scan (http://www.scan.co.uk) so I know where to go to get things at a good price... I was merely using the Dixons monitor as an example.

:D


Ummm I cld have seen u a couple of times ;-)
I go there quite often. Have big cues but things are well priced in comparison to its neighbour dabs.

Originally posted by Tony Ruscoe
I used to work at ScaM (http://www.scan.co.uk)


i feel for you tony ;)

Originally posted by rickmiles85
Ummm I cld have seen u a couple of times ;-)
I go there quite often. Have big cues but things are well priced in comparison to its neighbour dabs.

Since Dabs closed their public counter, the Scan queues have got worse. I usually go into Manchester on a Sunday morning to Spot on or Microdirect, both are pretty quiet at around 11am.

I did a load of research on TFT monitors before recently parting with some hard earned. In the end I went for a Hitachi CML174. This is a 17" screen that runs 1280x1024 resolution.

The review that tipped it for me is here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/display/20030109/index.html

Fast response time means you can happily watch DVD's or fast action games without the screen blurring.

The colours are sharp and bright which makes it good be my use editting digital images and designing websites.

Even better, the body is 'carbon black' so it looks cool too!

Perhaps slightly over your budget but well worth the few quid more - I got mine from http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Hitachi_TFT_135.html - cheapest at the time (£340) but a web search might save you a few quid.

Highly recommended for all round home use.

My monitor went blank on Saturday and nothing could revive it. Was going to do some research on Tuesday but coming down Bleaklow at 3.30 today (Bank Hol Monday) my partner remembered that she had a French translation due next w/e. Dashed into Currys and bought the only one they had in stock, a Phillips 170B4MG for £370. Been using it for 40 minutes now and it seems OK.

Update: Found the same monitor for £340 in PC World so went back to Currys and they gave me £33 refund (110% of the difference).

Still happy with the monitor.

I asked dabs.com about their policy re: returning displays with dead pixels ... and got this response:


Hi

Thank you for your enquiry regarding TFT pixel tolerance.

The screen on TFT/LCD displays is made up of thousands of tiny pixels. A 15" flat-screen with a resolution of 1024x768 for example, has 786,423 pixels. Each pixel comprises three sub-pixels (red, green and blue) so on the 15" above, there are almost 2.4 million dots in total. Behind each pixel is a transistor. When a transistor fails it manifests itself as a bright, dark or coloured dot on the screen that stands out from the rest.

Today's production techniques unfortunately cannot guarantee an absolutely fault-free screen display and buyers should be aware of the possibility of imperfections (in the form of a few isolated constantly lit or unlit pixels) before choosing to purchase a TFT/LCD display.

Due to this, there is indeed a commonly accepted 'tolerance level' by which TFTs may display such imperfections (or stuck pixels) without being classified as faulty. Therefore please note that dabs.com will only take back displays as faulty for refund/repair if the number of stuck pixels exceeds the manufacturer's guidelines.

The number required for the monitor to be classed as faulty does vary depending on the manufacturer in question, so we strongly advise customers to research their chosen model with the relevant manufacturer prior placing their order via dabs.com.

Thank you and regards,

customer services team
www.dabs.com

this month's computer shopper has a group test of 17" TFTs, may be of interest. It may well be up on their website.