I'm going to copy and paste this post that I've been posting all over the internet today. I'd rather have some input from you guys than input from random ass people on the internet, but I wasn't sure how much people here would know about this, so yeah.

I'm pissed as hell because I need a fucking LAPTOP not a laptop that is stuck sitting on my desk at home, but Lenovo told me it'd be over 600 dollars to have them fix the screen, and I'm not sure I'm confident about buying a used off one on eBay and trying to do it myself. I'd try if I had a guide telling me how.

I need to figure out how to take this damn thing apart and make sure the screen cable or whatever isn't undone. Bah.

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Hey everyone,

To briefly sum up my situation... I have a 15.4" Thinkpad T61p that I love and cannot quite afford to upgrade yet, as it's components are still more than adequate for anything I want to use it for. However it is no longer under warranty and the screen has broken somehow. The rest of the computer works, just not the screen.

In a rush because I needed my computer RIGHT THEN I sped to Best Buy and purchased a nice looking monitor in the hopes that it would allow me to continue using my computer -- and it does.

However because of the rush I didn't get to spend any real time picking out a monitor. I just grabbed the best looking one they had in a 23" size, and now I am hoping to find out if I got a good deal or if I should return it and pick something up online.


Bonus: Tell me how I might be able to fix the screen on my Thinkpad T61p (15.4") then I can return this monitor. This is the ideal situation.


What I want in a Monitor, Ideally:

Resolution GREATER than 1920x1080 (Minimum is 1920x1080)

Size - at least 23"

LED (not LCD) - I was looking at the Best Buy monitors and LED just looks better. I'm also told that it is better for other reasons, such as lower power consumption. I don't know if that helps when it's running off a laptop or not. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the difference is that with LED each pixel (?) emits light whereas with LCD there is a big lamp behind a screen? If there is a good reason for getting LCD instead I am willing to listen.

Cost Effective - I'm not rich, but I'm willing to spend a little more than normal in order to get a monitor I'm truly happy with. Whatever I have will be used with the Desktop that I intend to purchase in the next year or two (right now my only computer is this laptop) and will be used after that until it breaks. Getting it right the first time is important to me. That said more than $350 (including tax) is more than I pay.

What I picked up at Best Buy:

23" LG 2350

Resolution 1920x1080 (But I can't get it to display that, it's still at the native 1680 res. of my laptop, anyone know if I can do anything about that?)

LED (not LCD)

$310 or so with taxes

Contrast ratio is 5,000,000:1 (I think) which was neither the best or the worst at Best Buy. I don't know if that means it's good or not. Anyone?

Response time was (I think) 5 ms. I don't know if that's good or not either. What should I look for in response time?

Is this pretty much the best I can do for my budget? Or is there a nice 23"+ monitor out there with higher resolution, better contrast and response time? I don't mind buying a used one even.

I don't know what ports I will want in the future. I don't know why I would want ports on a monitor other than one to connect it to a computer, but I know there are reasons. Likely reasons I will have need of in a year that I don't know about yet. This monitor uses a large irritating port to connect to my laptop instead of a USB, but I guess I was dumb for thinking everything used USBs these days. I was lucky my computer had a port for whatever this cable is, I don't think a lot of them do (laptops anyway).

Thanks in advance for your opinions and advice on this monitor situation. I need to return this one by Thursday if I choose to do so.

 

The monitor you linked is an LCD -- does anyone have any better info on whether LEDs are really that much better or not?

I swear that to me, the LED just blew the LCD out of the water in looks at Best Buy. But it's possible that they just had them set up differently or something. If LCD is going to look just as nice, then yeah, I should do something like this.

Edit: Someone suggested this on another site. It's cheaper, has better resolution and response time. The contrast ratio is worse by a lot, but it says dynamic, so I think there is some word play going on with that that I'm unaware of. It's an LCD not an LED, but otherwise looks damned nice. Opinions on that?

 

Well, I'm not sure that a 28" monitor will fit on my desk. It might, and I'd definately buy that one if it had the higher res., but it's 1920x1080 still. As it is it's on my short list of monitors, along with the one I actually bought, the Dell, and the one I'm about to link.

So I have the one I bought (only LED), the Dell/Acer (rest resolution), and the TigerDirect one (large size). Right now the latter three are tied in my head, while I lean towards taking the LED back, if only because it cost so much more than all the other options which are superior in at least one respect.

I'm not sure why I want >1920x1080 resolution, but I do. I don't have to have it, but it bothers me that I don't know why I want it. Maybe I should get over it and get the nice big monitor

Someone had this monitor, but if I was going to buy that one I'd have to buy it ASAP.

Someone in the comments is talking about color, and how you don't get, uh, IPS color from a TN monitor. WTF does that mean? Otherwise this one looks about as good as the Dell.

 

Who the fuck really needs a 28" monitor?

Oz grumbles about getting along fine with his 10.1" netbook screen -_-

 

Yeah, I don't really need a 28" monitor, it's more that I just want to get a good monitor for what I can afford to pay since whatever I buy I will be using for a very long time to come. More screen space is nice sometimes, excel is a good example. I'll update tomorrow with a summation thread and pick something. Lots of these damned things are deals that aren't going to be around for that much longer.

 

I play games, but not hardcore. I got into SC2 and will buy that when it comes out. I play WoW off and on. I tried Oblivion but didn't like it. Debating trying an FPS this summer if I have time, but nothing most people would consider serious competitive gaming.

I run some modelling software for chemistry every so often, but the screen size and whatnot isn't too important for that.

I do have rather large pictures that I work with sometimes, or models, and often have massive spreadsheets in excel and whatnot. It's also nice to be able to have two word/pdf documents (prefer 3 even) open on the screen at the same time and not have it feel cramped for when I'm doing some serious writing. I can do two docs on my current res. of 1680x1050 but it always feels like I don't quite have enough room to be comfortable.

I don't watch many movies at all. In fact I think I've watched maybe 6-8 movies so far this year. None of them were on my laptop. I do watch streaming stuff sometimes, such as Hulu, but the resolution on that usually sucks anyway.

I do want it to look nice though. That's one of the most obvious things about a monitor, how it looks. If the blacks appear to be black and colors aren't washed out, etc. I'd probably get frustrated easily if I didn't think my screen looked as good as other ones, because it'd be obvious and I'd be reminded every time I sat down.

In Best Buy the LEDs looked a lot better than the LCDs. I don't know if that was the settings or if it was a valid observation, but I could pick out LEDs from regular LCDs at a glance before I knew both were even available.

Edit: Super thanks to all of you who have been helping me out with this. It's sort of sudden for me because I wasn't expecting to need a monitor for several months at least.

 

Panel? Isn't that the screen? Or is that the bit around the screen? I thought that was a bezel. Geez I don't know terminology for this.