will VGA to 22 inch monitor look good?

hey,

I am about to purchase a 14.1 toshiba laptop from bestbuy. the problem with most of these small toshibas is that they do not offer a hdmi or dvi port only a vga connection. I am planning to connect this laptop to a 22 inch monitor when its being used on my desk. i am just curious as to how this is going to look and if it will make text and everything look crappy... anyone have experience with this?

 

I have a 24" dell 1920x1200 monitor running over VGA, and it looks fine. It doesnt look any different than from my system which has a DVI connection
My screen, the Dell E248WFP has a VGA and a DVI port, and there isnt any difference in quality between the two

K-TRON

 

ok. that may work then.. the laptop I am planning on getting has the Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD in it. It isn't dedicated memory. Could this also affect how the output looks on the 22" monitor?

 

My system I am using with the VGA has an ATi X1400 in it. Its a dedicated card, so it can push 1920x1200 over external vga.

I do not know what the capabilities of the intel 4500MHD are

Hopefully someone could tell you what the 4500MHD can do.

K-TRON

 

I have once driven a 1920x1200 display on an older Intel X3100 graphics card. Aero was bit sluggish, but very much usable. So there shouldn’t be any problems running a 22” (which typically has 1680x1050) on a twice as quick 4500MHD. VGA quality will be fine.

P.S : However, I've had mixed experiences with VGA outputs, few times I've experienced noticeable quality differences between VGA and DVI (probably due to bad cables); but most of the time quality was almost the same.

 

what is the difference between aero and vista? i will be running vista on this.. and as far as the vga cables go did you have problems with the cables that came with the monitor or were some of those good? i really wanted a 14.1 laptop for portability but its hard to get the hdmi with that size.. id have to go up to 15.4 but dont want to if i dont have to

 

i have a 24" LCD connected via VGA because it didnt come with an HDMI cable. it came with a DVI cable but apparently that doesnt fit into my laptop or dock. anyway, the display seems fine. i ran some HD content and it looks great.

 

Aero is _Windows _Vista’s new graphical interface that has some extra eye candy XP didn’t have (i.e Transparent Windows and task bar, Flip 3D etc.). You can turn it off and run Vista in the basic mode if you are not in to all that fancy stuff; also it is advisable for less powerful gfx cards. But I'm sure 4500MHD can handle Aero quite comfortably.

Most new 14.1 notebooks come with a digital interface, either HDMI or a display port. _HP Pavilion Series, _DELL Latitude and IBM ThinkPad are to name a few. Perhaps not the low-end budget(sub $800) models.

But still VGA is going to be just fine.

 

I have a 4500M in mine (same as the 4500MHD, just a little slower clock speed and no integrated full HD decoding) and that handles AERO fine on W7 so you should be all set.

 

speaking of windows7.. how is that? i was thinking of downloading the beta and loading it onto my new laptop when i get it to try it out.. are there alot of bugs right now?.. also i was looking at the hp models that do have hdmi on them but i have had a lot of friends who had troubles with hp so i tried to stay away from them.. anyone have one?

 

As long as your VGA cable is decently shielded it will be fine. However ,if you put both side by side DVI does look crisper.

 

is this always true? i'm on a 24" WUXGA connected through VGA and it looks great, although i have nothing to compare it to. i need a DVI to HDMI converter, but they look fairly pricey. are you sure it will make a difference?

 

I can tell the difference with my S2409W (1920x1080) between the VGA cable and using a HDMI cable. However, I havent tried using a better VGA cable, and the VGA cable does run next to a lot of power cables etc so there could be some interference.

 

I have had a Dell 2007WFP (those pricey S-IPS panels) and a Samsung 19" TFT (TN panel) both with VGA and DVI.

My eyes couldn't see any differences at all between the quality of DVI and VGA. But i think it's all in the eyes of the beholder.

 

You mentioned that you were buying a notebook from Best Buy. Since you are going there, you may want to take a look at the notebook that I have, the Gateway MD2614u. This thing has both HDMI and VGA as well as four USB ports. Just one thing though, it has one of the new 16:9 LCD panels. Some things tend to look a bit too stretched out on this display.

 

yea this is the laptop at bestbuy i was looking at, its the m305-s4910.. i will take a look at the gateway next time i stop in

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9164101&st=m305-s4910&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1218040477834

 

well, i'm going to go get a Vizio 6' HDMI 1.3b cable tomorrow from walmart.. it's only $19. actually, dell.com has it right now for $14, which seems like an unbelievable deal. 24k gold plated and everything. only crappy thing is my docking station does not have HDMI...

 

Just double check it is 1.3b, if it isnt it may not support resolutions much higher than 1280x720.

 

According to specifications all HDMI versions starting from 1.0 upwards supports 1080p.

 

Yes, but you will find that most cables will say they are HDMI 1.3a or 1.3b compliant or nothing at all, hence why you should make sure it is 1.3b.

 

RE: Windows7, I have been using it and other than some crashes in games (and even those were pretty much limited to one game and the graphics settings test). Other than that my only issue has been with mapping a network drive, it never seems to reconnect at logon or save the password.

 

i am able to get a copy of windows 7 32bit through my school for free.. would you recommend the 32bit version or should I just hold on to the 64bit vista that comes with my laptop? i'm not entirely sure of the differences between the 2 bit versions

 

I am unsure of what you mean, "through my school for free" since it's being beta tested and is free to everyone available to sign up. I would suggest you keep both and dual boot since come summer 09 W7 should stop working if it's the beta. Plus it would allow you to compare side by side.

 

i guess you right.. im an idiot lol.. i thought you could only get the beta through torrents and stuff.. where could i find a link for the 64bit version of windows 7?

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx

 

I have done 1920 x 1200 with an ati radeon 9000igp lol

 

it says that downloads are no longer being offered for it.. will it go up again?

 

Back to the original question, I am running a full HD 22inch monitor via VGA, and looks great. It's just as good as my brother's DVI connection on a monitor that's almost the same as mine.

 

ok i went out and bought a 6' HDMI 1.3b cable today for $27 and guess what? i dont notice ANY difference than from the VGA connection. absolutely zero! i think i might take it back for a refund... ???

i'll also add that my monitor is 24" 1920x1080 and i have the reslution set as such...

 

colton, cam you get 720p resolution with vga? i wasnt sure if you could get any hd if you go through vga..

 

I hooked my laptop upto my 24" samsung a little bit ago through vga and it looked the same as it does with dvi through my desktop.

 

i decided to order a smaller 1.5' 1.3b HDMI cable from firefold.com for like $6 shipped and return the 6' one from walmart. this will save me about $25 and reduce the clutter. i am, by the way, fairly certain that my monitor looks exactly the same as with the VGA cable FWIW.

 

i got my laptop today with the integrated intel card and a 23" inch acer monitor (H233H). When I connect it to my laptop it seems like the background is kinda like floating and being wavy.. Especially if there are a lot of colors.. what does this mean? does anyone know what i mean

 

You can get 720p through VGA, but to my knowledge I think it will work best with a standard 4:3 screen ratio to get the full effect.

 

I had it at 1920x1200 on vga...it was fine. I really think it has to do with the quality and power driven through the vga port though. My vostro gave a really weak signal, but my studio was strong. It looked great.

 

Yeah, I agree. I also think it depends on the graphics card. My Macbook aluminum gives a strong output, and it has the NVIDIA 9400M.

 

I guess its pretty subjective. As said, I can see the difference with mine.