32" TV or Monitor NOT FOR GAMING

Hey everyone,
I know there are some threads similar to this, but most are aimed at people using the large screen to game, which I do not do.

I'm in college studying Chemical Engineering with a Sony Vaio SZ650N 13.3" laptop (standard VGA/RGB output only, no DVI or HDMI w/o docking station). I spend a lot of time on Excel (especially VB programming), engineering sim programs, Firefox, and Word. I need an dual screens to be more effective. Originally I was going to get a ~22" Samsung monitor for about $250, but am moving to a larger single room next year and want to upgrade my 20" CRT TV to an LCD. Can I kill both birds with one stone and save money? Currently looking at the 32" Vizio VO32LF for $550 which is full 1080p (though my computer doesn't fully support that).

Whats your experience with using a TV of that size for excel and other "text heavy" applications as opposed to gaming? I know that I would be better off with a 22" monitor, but thats just not really great for a TV watching--32" is pretty much ideal for where I'll be living (one room by myself in my fraternity house 13'x17'). Thanks!

 

A lot of the monitors and lcd's uses a resolution of 1920x1200. From my current situation I need either more resolution or buy another monitor for dual screen. Getting a "bigger" monitor doesn't help as it'll just make stuff look bigger, but the viewing area (screen resolution) will remain the same. I've used excel, done some programming, made music in DAW applications and I would recommend the latter.

If you want a single big screen, a bigger resolution, and budget is no concern: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001098

If you want to save a lot of money, and use dual monitors: buy two of these. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001309

 

A 22'' TV usually have a resolution of 1280x768 or 1366x766 (arround that, not EXACTLY sure for the latest one) while a 22-24'' monitor is 1920x1200 or 1920x1080

Your laptop can output the 2560x1600. The picture quality (mainly white and blacks, so for movies) will lower than hdmi or dvi but that's not big deal.

 

Thanks for the responses... But maybe a bit of clarification will help. I'm looking to output to just one unit to make it my second screen in addition to my laptop (I don't have the ability to output to two true external monitors with only one graphics out on the laptop). I understand that with the same resolution, a bigger screen will just make it bigger (icons will be larger with the same resolution settings on the 32" over the 22"), but will each pixel be so much larger that it excel etc will look distorted.

I've tried to look into what the max resolution that my graphics card can output would be (NVidia GeForce 8400M or Intel X3100), but can't find that information. JCMS how can you tell that I will be able to support that screen size? I know that a 22" monitor will look fine with whatever I can output, but will it be distorted on a 32" TV as I didn't think I'll be able to hit 1080p...

My first real need is to spend money on a 2nd monitor (in addition to the laptop) to do work on. It'd be great if it was a TV, but I'm not going to buy a TV if it can't handle my computer work.

 

Get a 24" monitor, it will be more crisp than a hdtv when outputting from your notebook.

Your VGA port can output up to 1920x1200 regardless of dedicated or integrated. DVI-D and HDMI can output higher but you dont have it.

 

It's the standards. A 22'' monitor will have a resolution of 1920x1200, which is higher than 1080p. Personally, if you're not planning on using it as a TV, I'd go with a 22 or 24'' monitor.

 

Well that's where the dilemma arises. I would really like to watch TV on what I get, do not want to have to use a TV tuner through my computer, but I'm not willing to sacrifice much "computer use" quality in order to get a TV as I'll probably spend more time in computer mode and won't be able to handle fuzzy text and the eye strain.