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is 27" too big?

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aznkc730

Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Location
los angeles, ca
im debating between getting a 24'' or a 27'' lcd. I'm still going to school, so the monitor will be doubling as a TV (watch movies, console games, etc). I also do a lot of multimedia work, photoshop, premiere, etc, and the occasional pc gaming.

i have a 21'' right now, and it's a little bit too small for my design work, and for use as a tv (esp since most channels are still 4:3). I think a 24'' would suffice, but of course, bigger is better when it comes to this type of thing.

However, most of my time using the lcd will be as a pc monitor, doing regular things like web browsing, email and the such. I would hate to spend a lot of effort to save up for a 27", only to have most of my desktop space empty and unused.

so I guess this question goes out to those with 24" monitors. What do you use your lcd primarily for, and are you happy with your size?
 
well my 24" is in my bedroom, wich I primarily use it for gaming/browsing and at nights I use my tv tuner to watch tv in bed from it and the odd movie in bed. From 5 feet away on the bed the image is plenty big enough for my needs and since I'm half blind from years of painting cars the larger text on websites and such makes it a heck of alot easier to read than my old 4:3 21". I did however suffer serious headaches and eye strain the first few days I got it while gaming on it upclose seeing as when gaming/browsing it fills up my entire field of vision, and I could only imagine sitting 3 feet or less from a 27" would have only made the problem worse, but my eyes did adjust to the new size after about 3 days use.

I guess just think about it like this.. if your gonna spend more time within 2-5 feet of the monitor go for the 24 it will be more than enough for your needs.. however if the majority of your time will be spent at distances of 5+ feet I'd say go for the 27".

Edit: I'm more than happy with the 24" plenty enough for what I use it for.. and when I wanna go bigger I just watch my 42" plasma in the living room.

Hope that helps.
 
I guess just think about it like this.. if your gonna spend more time within 2-5 feet of the monitor go for the 24 it will be more than enough for your needs.. however if the majority of your time will be spent at distances of 5+ feet I'd say go for the 27".

Edit: I'm more than happy with the 24" plenty enough for what I use it for.. and when I wanna go bigger I just watch my 42" plasma in the living room.

Hope that helps.

that does help. the way i use my 21 inch now, its a 70/30 split in favor of pc usage, so I guess I'll be in the market for a 24 incher. thanks!
 
Too big?????????..............................................too big?

I bought a 24 incher a few months ago and it seemed big for about a week, but now that I’m used to it I wish I’d bought a bigger monitor.
 
Too big?????????..............................................too big?

I bought a 24 incher a few months ago and it seemed big for about a week, but now that I’m used to it I wish I’d bought a bigger monitor.

Same thing happened to me. I went from 17" to 22" and it seemed almost too big for the first few days. Now I am thinking about going up to 24+..
 
well based on what your using your monitor for man.. I'd highly reccomend picking up a 24" and saving the extra money for something else you would want.. realistically 24" is plenty for gaming/browsing and the odd movie. Remember the monitors will always look smaller on the shelf than when your sitting a foot or two away from it on your desk.

Edit: since you are into gaming.. lets not forget that you need to match your monitors native resolution against what your pc can dish out.. a 24" monitor's native resolution is 1920x1200 so your want your pc to be able to push out decent framrates at that resolution, otherwise your gonna end up with sub par image quality as your monitor tries to scale to smaller resolutions.. and we all know how lcd's start to degrade in image quality as you move further and further away from thier native resolution.
 
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Same thing happened to me. I went from 17" to 22" and it seemed almost too big for the first few days. Now I am thinking about going up to 24+..

I feel your pain.

It seems like buying a monitor is a lot like getting married.

Like they say…….If you want to be extremely happy for two weeks get married, but……………… if you want to be happy for another two weeks you have divorce your first bride and find a bigger and better bride, with faster response times and better picture quality. 
 
I feel your pain.

It seems like buying a monitor is a lot like getting married.

Like they say…….If you want to be extremely happy for two weeks get married, but……………… if you want to be happy for another two weeks you have divorce your first bride and find a bigger and better bride, with faster response times and better picture quality. 

If I had a bigger place I'd be happily married to one of those Sony 24" CRTs :drool:
 
I got a 24" and I think it is the perfect size. I use it solely for PC stuff and PC gaming, but I believe I am going to get a BluRay player for my computer and start watching movies on it. Depending on the seriousness of the multimedia work you do, I would get a high quality 24" over a lower-mid range 27" so that you can trust the colors to be correct.

I've had my 24" for about 3 weeks; I don't think it is too small now but now every time I use another computer, that monitor feels tiny. I do get eye-strain from reading a lot of webpages, I think at 1920x1200 text is a lot smaller, or I am just not used to it yet. Like an above poster said, make sure you have a graphics card with sufficient power to make things smooth at its native resolution.
 
Oh, ignore the people who are all "27 IS SMALL!" they are just compensating for other things if you know what im sayin mate ;)

Get a decent quality 24", 24 is fine

I recently made the choice not to buy a 32" LCD TV for my room, now i plan on buying a nice quality 22" LG LCD, [thread soon ^^]
 
id say 24" max for using it as a monitor. I used my 23" TV as my monitor while at uni(since I lived in 1 room lol) and that was plenty big enough. I sat around 3 feet away from it, while in comparison I now sit around 1-2feet away from my 19" monitor.

Also I find that you would just get used to the extra size and all it would do then is ruin your eyes.

Personally I think I will upgrade my monitor to a 24" wide screen in the next few years and my TV to a 37". My current TV can then go in my bedroom( as it is the perfect size for that, just feels a little small in a lounge) and my current monitor used as a 2nd screen (I get 2 screens at work and now miss it when I go home lol)
 
well i ended up compromising and got a samsung t260hd. it's literally in between a 24'' and a 27" as it's a 25.5". Decided to get the t260hd because of its built-in tuner. That way I can use it as a TV without always having a computer hooked up to it. It works great and image quality is superb. It even unscrambled some channels like NFL League Pass and other movie channels. And it's the only 26" LCD TV that can do 1080p. Only downside is that it's a TN panel, and moving from a S-PVA panel, the viewing angle difference is noticeable:(. The horizontal angle difference isn't that noticeable, but the vertical viewing angle really gives it away. Colors slightly shift darker from me sitting in a chair to me laying in bed. Other than that, i'm pretty damn satisfied with my purchase.

thanks for all the advice guys. I really like the marriage analogy, 'cause it's damn true lol. These LCD monitors don't tend to break, and if you're not happy with your purchase, you're gonna be stuck with "her" for a long time, lol
 
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If I had a bigger place I'd be happily married to one of those Sony 24" CRTs :drool:

Word.

I have 2 of them :) Had to build a desk for it though and that was just to hold one of them (and a 22" LCD... man you should see the differnce with them side to side, my 22" LCD got denegrated to a 750MHz duron system with a geforcemx2, because thats about the image quality its equal too :p Oh that is my new bedroom HTPC too.. no stuttering at 1440x900 res :).

Nothing beats it for gaming. Wouldnt mind the 28" LCD they had a tthe egg for my main HTPC though.
 
I felt the same way when I bought my 28", but I love it now and at work I have a crappy 17" CRT!!! Can you believe that crap, We don't even have LCDs here. lol

Going from that 17" crt to the 28" HD LCD is like replacing a yugo with a Hummer.
 
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