Help me buy a 17inch LCD monitor.

[techs]

OK, its my sisters b-day. She wants a 17inch LCD due to space considerations. She runs a Duron900 with a Diamond s540 32mb agp video card on win98se.
She mostly just surfs and types letters. Almost never plays a game and will not be watching DVD's on the monitor.
So I need an analog input, decent dead pixel policy, decent image quality. Would prefer a "name" brand, something she could maybe get from a retail chain where she lives (N.Y.,N.Y.).
Recommendations?

[Tacit_k]

An interesting question but lets sort out a few details.

If you want low price then you will most likely get a bad "dead pixel policy"

If you want a good policy and quick replacement then you will also get a better performing monitor.

either way 17 inches aint cheap.

What kind of budget do you have?

Does she have kids and are they prone to touching the screen?

I had one user who had a habit of pointing at his screen with the sharp end of a pen and he hit it regularly then would clean the ink off with windex and a paper towel. I also had a friend who had a 4 year old take a magic marker to the screen and trace a picture.

Sometimes the better answer to more real estate on the desk is a monitor arm.

they are not cheap for one that can hold a 17 or 19 inch monitor but they are less than a flat panel.

[Atodini]

Can thoroughly recommend Relisys. I've had this one for about a year now with no probs whatsoever! 12 months on the price must have gone down (this was over £600) but still not cheap though.

My other half has a Samsung, very good price (a whisker under £350) but too early to say if its reliable or not.

Both are 17" and, in the UK come with a 3-year on-site warranty.

As US prices tend to be far lower than UK you should be able to get quite a good deal!

Notwithstanding Tacit_k's observations, I would'nt go back to a crt again for all the tea in china!!!

John

[jitBob]

Check outTom's new review.

[silencio]

http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...605&pfp=SEARCH

Tom's mentions the 171N, I've got the 171V. Don't know the difference between the two but I've had mine over 6 months and it still looks great... The compusa service plan will allow you to bring back a monitor with only a couple dead pixels (sayeth the sales guy) but I didn't go for it..

[John Doe]

I personally have an NEC MultiSync LCD1760V. Very nice monitor. I got it for about 500 with a 50 dollar mail in rebate. It's not cheap, but I'm pretty impressed, it even does games pretty well (which doesn't sound much like a consideration). I purchased it and it had no dead lit/unlit pixels.

It's only 10 days in, so we'll see how it lasts. No problems with it so far though.

Aaron