LCD Buying Guide: Part I: Chosing the right size/resolution

LCDs come in various shapes & sizes! Widescreen monitors are gaining ground these days. You must decide for what purpose you wanna use the LCD for & pick your size accordingly. For example, if you wanna watch movies, or work on excel worksheets or any purpose other than gaming - then widescreen should be your choice of monitor. It will give you more columns on the screen & will let you watch movies without the upper/lower black bands. Widescreen monitors give you a wider desktop to work with where standard sized monitors have less room sideways!


But if you are a serious gamer, I seriously(!) doubt whether widescreen is the right choice for you. Most of the games do NOT support various widescreen resolutions. So most of your games will get stretched & slightly awkward on a widescreen display.



Standard .......................................... Widescreen

Unlike CRT monitors, LCDs have a native resolution. This is the resolution that the LCD loves to work with! You can use different resolutions other than the native one, but that will result in image quality loss. Resolution also depends on the size of the LCD. For example, a typical 17 inch standard LCD will have a native resolution of 1280*1024 pixels. So, when you buy a 17 inch standard LCD, you have to use this resolution. The various sizes of LCDs available in Dhaka & their typical corresponding resolutions are listed below:

15" Standard = 1024*768
17" Standard = 1280*1024
17" Wide = 1440*900
19" Standard = 1280*1024
19" Wide = 1440*900
20" Standard = 1400*1050
20" Wide = 1680*1050
22" Wide = 1680*1050
...and so on!

As you may have noticed from the list above...15-inch LCDs have a pretty low resolution. The 17" & 19" models have a decent but IDENTICIAL resolutions. And so does the 20" & 22" versions. So remember this point, for example, if you buy a 22" wide LCD, you will get the same resolution as a 20" LCD. Same goes for the 19 & 17 inchers. So, if you really dont need the bigger size, go for a 17" or a 20" model. Because the 17" will give you the same resolution as the 19 inch. For the same reason, you may pick a 20" monitor over a 22". These are available in plenty in IDB market in Dhaka.

(to be continued)
Up Next: LCD Specifications: Brightness, Contrast, Connectors..etc
...stay tuned!