External HP LCD's - which?

Hi, I'm looking to buy a very affordable external LCD monitor. (Maybe HP? maybe other..

I want CFL. Definitely not LED.
Prefer Matte, though manufacturers seem to be "glossy" fanatics.

Emphasis:
It's for the purpose of viewing the monitor at a minimum distance of FOUR feet away from where I sit.
It would be both for browsing the web as well as occasionally viewing video's.
NO GAMING.

Question:
Which is the most optimal resolution for viewing at that distance?

NOTE:
I'm currently finding that with my 17" Dell Inspiron laptop set at its highest [native] resolution of 1440x900, text is way too small, so that I need to drag slider down to 800x600,
causing text to be "stubbier" (i.e. only width increases, not height)
....and text is also somewhat fainter, but at least more visible than if it were at 1440x900.

For those wondering why text is too small at 1440x900:

Because my laptop is 40" away from me, due to neuropathical issues that's beyond the usual scope of interest of a tech forum.

Are any of the below suitable quality & resolution?

HP Compaq S2022A 20" LCD Monitor
HP 2031S 20" LCD Monitor
ASUS VH198T 19" LCD Monitor

Hoping someone can correctly advise me, taking into account my above experience with my 17" laptop.

 

20" and 19" are a bit small. Try to get a 24" screen, maybe even a 32" LCD TV?

 

uh.. why?

Maybe it's more helpful for me to rephrase my Q a bit as follows:

I'd appreciate if someone with 20/20 vision can place their 20" LCD monitor 4 feet away from where they're sitting, to see if they can view the text on it at xxx resolution (please state the resolution.

BTW, why do online stores often omit whether the LCD they're selling is an LED LCD or a CFL LCD? It gets me so f*%$# frustrated! Shopping is hard enough without all their omissions.

I might just have to go ahead & waste my time once again buying a %#$%# monitor from Walmart merely to test out, then wind up having to return it, like I recently did with a Toshiba Satellite that had been touted online & turned out to be endless frustration from their outsourced non-support.

 

what are you viewing

web pages

word documents

or ???

Most applications have zoom settings.

Instead of flailing at the world randomly and insisting on a preconceived 'solution', try describing what you are trying to do. Perhaps someone here can come up with a solution for your 'problem'.

 

I'm sure you're not going to find an external led monitor in your price range. That's why they don't list the type. 99% monitors(not TV) in today's market are CCFL.

 

I think that your best bet is to get a reasonable quality LCD TV that has an HDMI input (which almost all of them have). I'm looking at my Dell 24" (1920x1200) monitor, and at 4 feet, things are a "little small". I usually sit about 1.5 feet away from the screen, so it doesn't bother me.

I'd go with something like a 32" screen that does 720p for reasonable results. Those can be had for less than 400 dollars.

My 55" TV is very hard to read across the room (about 10 feet) at it's native 1080p resolution without bumping up the DPI on fonts (which Windows 7 does a pretty good job of).

In the TV range, having an LED is a major marketing "win", and will state that they are LED TV's on the packaging (generally all over, in big bold italic flashing letters).

I doubt that any 20" monitor is going to meet your requirements, unless you find a 720p monitor, and depending on how much "way too small" your 17" laptop screen is to you.

 

Definitely, if you can live with 1366x768 resolution, choose a 32" or bigger TV instead of 24"-27" monitor with higher price tag.

Those LCD TV's aren't TN but IPS/PVA/similar and you'll get much better image quality and viewing angles. Since FullHD is the hottest thing of the day, those HD-ready TV's are pretty cheap.

 

Y'know, by now I'm fed up & scrapped the entire idea of trying out the "zillionth" dissatisfactory monitor amid a long string I've tried (no matter CRT or LCD, no matter the frequency rate, the vast majority of them are cranked out by sadistic CEO's who never truly gave a %$%@ to research how monitors affect human health..

As for LED's I hear they're the worst insofar as TOO bright..

So as a way of opting out of being a human guinea pig, I may opt for a projector, though not sure which is a better bet for me, the HS-201 by LG, or Radio Shack's Pico for 1/2 the price of the LG's.

 

4 feet is quite far to sit from a monitor. I'd say most people are no more than 2 feet from their computer, especially on a laptop where your arm has to reach the keyboard. In that respect, 1440x900 on a 17 inch monitor is considered quite a low resolution. Most 17 inch laptops are going to be 1080 or higher.

As far as brightness is concerned, every single monitor I've ever seen has an option to increase or decrease brightness. People perceive brightness with picture quality, and that's why the default brightness setting on monitors tend to be quite high.

 

i have 20/20 and i usually sit about 2 feet away from my 24" (1920x1080) but 4 ft would be way to far. ideally you want to be able to view the monitor at its native resolution. You can turn the DPI settings up to make the fonts a bit bigger.

And as was stated before most monitors are CCFL. What is wrong with LED though? I have 2 dell 24" monitors 1 is CCFL and the other is LED, the LED one is nice. lower power consumption and much more even lighting.

 

Please understand, I need to reserve my endurance to respond only to some posts from here on.

Because my right arm has basically become a live wire from electrocution by the 17" Inspiron monitor and/or its mouse.

I know most people will be skeptical, but for those who are not, there's more info available by actual experiencers on electrosensitivity sites, groups, and on the PDF book Black On White by Granlund-Lind.

For example, there's the posting by someone re: an Electrodes experiment conducted by Dave Stetzer, where electrodes buzzed merely by stretching one's arm nearby NOT EVEN TOUCHING fluresence. She also cites that frequencies must NOT be EITHER too high AS WELL as the more-cited "low", at risk of depleting one's energy. I know that seems moot with the advent of LCDs & LEDs but not necessarily. Long story.

For the benefit of anyone here who's endured "torture by tech" like myself, I advise referring to those sources, rather than to most computer or electrical techies. Why? Because whoever has not been zapped, will usually post theoretical jargon which doesn't translate to real life experience such as we experience. It takes being "on the other side" to understand the implications. AND the excruciating pain. AND why many of us are forced to be at times incoherent & irregular.

 

I honestly have no clue what you're talking about. I think you just played mad-libs with technical jargon.

Either way, if you're being electrocuted by your monitor, you might want to switch to a new one. Or stop sticking the fork into the electrical outlet.

 

IMAG0077 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Comparison between one of my laptops and telly in the living room. Can't beat the inches. Resolution is same, 1366x768 in both screens. Crappy image quality is contributed by my phone, can't help with that

Next best thing is a projector.

 

Well, none of the LCD's that I've ever used have ever affected me, nor anyone that I know of. That being said, I don't doubt that you have a personal sensitivity to EM waves that the fluorescent bulbs behind an LCD can put out. While I've never heard of such a thing, I also don't know all that much about lots of things that can affect people. I do know that I get a headache from sitting in my cube farm all day if I don't go to lunch outside the building every day.

That being said, if you do have a sensitivity to the fluorescent lights that are in most LCD screens, there are some LED screens available. I don't know that you're going to find too many external monitors that use them, particularly in any monitor that costs south of 500 dollars. Which is why I suggested getting an LED TV. A more expensive alternative is to get a "premium" laptop that comes with LED backlighting. Don't be turned off by what someone may or may not have said about them being too bright - all laptops that I've ever used have adjustable intensity. So if they're too bright, you can always dim them substantially (my HP Envy 15 does).

The only problem with the projector (that I see) is that they aren't particularly efficient - the bulbs in them have to put out a lot of brightness, which means that they use a lot of power, which means they get very warm, which means they have fans in them that run constantly (and might be on the loud side). If that's not an issue for you, then I wouldn't worry about it. You can get relatively inexpensive LED TV's from, for example, Best Buy. I just looked on their site and found a bunch of their LED TV's priced from 200 on up. Perhaps one of those might be useful to you?