Monitor ideas

I am curious, have a brand new M11x Alienware ultra portable gaming laptop and I am wondering which monitor to go with when I want use it with a bigger screen like a 25 or 27 inch. I see some good deals on Viewsonic brand monitors but I don't know if that brand is any good. Which one do you suggest for best quality viewing hooked up to the M11x, which I think has an awesome clarity in it's 11.6' screen by the way :wub: Thanks in advance for any advice anyone does give me.

 

I prefer Samsung monitors. I got a 22" bx2231 off newegg or buy.com for really cheap a few months ago. I have my m11x connected to it through a displayport to hdmi cable as well as my xbox360 through hdmi and it looks great. The response time, dual hdmi ports, and full 1080p hd were what I really liked about it.

I've not had a viewsonic for years (before widescreen monitors were even around) but it seemed alright back then. Not sure how they are now though.

 

At my work we purchased a Viewsonic 27" (model VA2702W) it is amazing. Colors, evenness, and you can really move up/down/left/right off center and it still looks nearly as it does straight on (no color shifts). I have an Acer monitor next to it, it pales in comparison the Viewsonic blows it away in all regards. My 3rd monitor at work is a Samsung, and I would say the Viewsonic is at par with it but much cheaper. I can't tell you how long the Viewsonic will last (Samsung has an excellent reputation) but Viewsonic is really high on the bang for buck.

What exactly do you plan on using it for? It will be fine for photo editing, movie editing, movies, browsing, but playing games the m11x may struggle on the newer titles in particular trying to compute a 1920 x 1080 screen instead of the 1366x768 built-in depending what you play or use of course (that's 2x the pixels to calculate each frame). You may have to lower the quality on some games using it vs. the built-in. A 1920 x 1080 for gaming is best done with a high end graphic card (with a 256 bit bus, the 540M i medium level graphics card with a 128 bit bus). But, if you're getting great frame rates now on the games you enjoy playing you will likely be fine on the 1920 x 1080. It's games that are just making the cut on your 11.6 that you will need to lower the settings to play on that big a screen.

 

whats your price range?

you could get an IPS monitor

dells u2311 runs around $300.

otherwise the samsung px2370 is one of the sexier looking "gaming" monitors. theres also the sammy 550 line of monitors that are pretty good

or if you check out newegg.com, asus has like a bunch of highly reviewed monitors all for $200 or less

 

It's not a super massive screen, but at 23" the Alienware Optx is a very nice screen. Although, I would have to say if you're starting off, get yourself a Dell IPS screen, those things sound awesome!

 

Happy with my S24A350H (Samsung) but depending on location you can get better features.

 

I'd find the cheapest monitor with an IPS Panel. Dell, LG and I'm sure there are more out there. I use a 26" LG TV for my monitor. Once you go IPS you won't go to anything else, color reproduction and viewing angles are phenomenal.

 

I have to be honest here, I went with a cheap-o Viewsonic 24'' that was on sale at Fry's and it crapped out within about 6 months. Here's the vid: Alienware M11x R2 external display problem. - YouTube

I called up Viewsonic and they were very friendly though. They told me they would repair it and ship it back to me. I had to cough up about 20 bucks to ship this giant monitor back to them (which annoyed me) but I guess it was cheaper than buying a new monitor.

I don't wanna say Viewsonic is bad... because their customer service was good to me, but I'm hoping that I just got a dud and that it'll be smooth sailing when they repair my monitor.

 

ViewSonic (IMO) is riding on the good name they built "back in the day". They had good graphics series monitors that were somewhat affordable and good enough you didnt cry about not having Sony.

If on a budget or if choice is slim be sure to do some calibration as it can really make a difference - even if just the built in tools from the GPU, Win, or Panel.