Well, Monte, I'm almost embarassed to admit it, but I'm using a Proview 19" monitor I bought at Circuit City for about $350 over two years ago. Is it perfect? No, but it is very good, calibrates very well, and my print colors match what's on the screen. Someday, if I ever start making serious money from photography, I'd like to get a LaCie or NEC top of the line monitor. But for now, this one suffices.....

Bill nothing to be embarassed by. If it works and calibrates then it is good. I have not bought mine yet so it can all change for me before I get there.

At the moment I have a pair of top-of-the-line Samsung 19" CRT monitors in front of me. At the time they were purchased, calibrating LCD monitors was chancy and those that could be calibrated were extremely expensive. These were chosen as among the best CRTs at the time for photography and graphics, and have given years of highly satisfactory service. Having only a single graphics card in my machine, only the left monitor is calibrated. The right monitor is used for palettes that keep the work area on the left monitor clear, as well as support programs where absolutely accurate colour is not needed - like the e-mail I am writing on it at this very moment.

The next monitor I will buy - within the next month - is the Gateway XHD3000, a 30" LCD monitor with a resolution of 2560 x 1600. It will replace the current monitor on a computer specifically built for video and audio capture and editing, equipped with a high-end sound card, graphics card and video-tuner/processor card. It will not be used for image editing, but rather for movie, animation and sound editing. Image processing will continue to be done on the machine above, and frames will be transferred to it via Ethernet. The monitor has six different inputs from composite to HDMI so it will also be used as a monitor to watch content from a variety of video sources.

Its main appeal is that it has a high-end video chip that does a great job up-scaling lower resolution video sources to its native resolution. As a computer monitor, it requires a dual DVI card that supports its high resolution. It is the largest HDTV monitor that would fit in my small apartment, so will serve as my TV as well.

My music-production computer, has no specific visual requirements, so gets whatever monitor gets upgraded. When the above 30" monitor arrives, its 17" ViewSonic will be retired and the it will get the 19" currently in use with the A/V computer. It drives a stack of synthesizers which feed sound to the A/V computer. My NAS has no monitor, and is administered remotely.
Graphics workstation and music-production workstation.

Larry, checked out your site found your application quite interesting. Much different then I would nned but thanks for sharing this with us.

Monte,

My 8 year old 21" Sony Trinitron CRT is still working fine, althought its brightness is gradually decreasing and when it falls below 90 nits, I'll replace it. Right now there is only one model on my short list, the 26" NEC LCD2690WUXi, but the just announced 30" NEC LCD3090 may work as well. One concern I have is pixel pitch; I have a hard time reading submenus if the pixel pitch is below 0.29".

Frans, Both of them are nice monitors. I would like the 26" but I am sure the 20 is what I will end up with. I cannot even imagine the 30". Nec monitors seem to be well recieved by the ones who use them. Monte