Your Monitor

alt="computer.jpg (11794 bytes)" align="left">When

selecting a monitor, people normally go by the size. That is, the decision is between a

14", 15", or a 17". But, there are a few other things that should be kept

in mind. And, I hope that no one is looking forward to buying a monochrome monitor. You

would have to look around really hard to find one these days. The standard monitor these

days is a color SVGA. There are the LCD panels too, but are too costly to enter our

discussion here.

The factors that you need to consider

when selecting your monitor are: actual display area, maximum resolution, dot-pitch and of

course, price.

When you talk of, say, a 15"

monitor, 15" is the length of the diagonal of the monitor. And not all 15"

monitors give you the same viewing area. The borders mask part of it. So, it might be a

good idea to check the actual viewing area with a ruler.

At the entry level, you have a choice

between 14" or 15". 15" monitors are marginally costlier than the 14"

ones. But you get a larger display area and digital controls. Besides, most vendors are

phasing out their 14" models.

Most monitors support a resolution of

1,024x768. Some go higher, while few may not go all that way. The higher the resolution

that is supported, the better. Note that the number of colors that are supported at

different resolutions depends on the video RAM available on the graphics card (refer page

69).

Dot-pitch is the diagonal distance

between two pixels of the same color (remember that a monitor displays color in RGB). The

smaller the dot-pitch (the nearer the dots), the sharper the image. Most 14" and

15" models offer a dot-pitch of .28.

Recommendation

Amkette NetView 70K

15"

.28

1,280x1,024

8,900

Amkette

Amkette NetView 5D

15"

.28

1,024x768

7,500

Amkette

Daewoo 518X

15"

.28

1,024x768

9,000

Kinetic Comms

LG Studioworks 520Si

15"

.28

1,024x768

9,300

LG Electronics

LG Studioworks 57M

15"

.28

1,280x1,024

11,000

LG Electronics

Microtek 1556U

15"

.28

1,280x1,024

7,800

Microtek

Samtron 5Ei

15"

.28

1,024x768

9,800

Samsung

Trinitron Multiscan 15sf II

15"

.25

1,280x1,024

16,900

Sony