Need help in picking monitor

[nocturnal YL]

a.k.a. I'm too lazy to do online searches

Well, actually I DID search online. I just didn't do that throughly.


This is my situation:
I want to buy a new monitor because a screen of 1024 by 768 is not good for multimedia authoring. So to save the number of clicks needed, I want to change to a monitor with a higher resolution.

What I want:
- Resolution of 1600*1200, OR resolution of 1920*1200 with a hardware option to force 4:3 screen ratio (stupid ATi there), effectively accepting 1600*1200
- Refresh rate of 100 Hz; minimum acceptable 75 Hz
- DVI or HDMI
- Contrast is not too important; 2000 or above is good
- Small in physical size

...See, I want to get around and work with an aspect ratio of 4:3 because of all those full-screen app (mostly stupid Mario fangames though) and other full-screen things (like command line interfaces), but the society is so very twisted and believe the non-human-eye-friendly ratio of 16:9 is good. To me, 16:9 is not wider. It's just shorter in height.

I searched in eBay. No satisfactory results found. And I don't know where else to ask (the previous computer-related forum I was in was closed) so.... yeah.

[flamedude]

If you want a machine for multimedia authoring you NEED 2 monitors. 1 monitor just doesn't work with multimedia software.

A good setup is a large 1600x1200 monitor (24"+) with a smaller 1280x1024 monitor (19"+), for those on a budget. That way you can have your stage on your big monitor and your panels/timeline on your smaller monitor (Flash, AE, Premier etc). For a decent image you need DVI in and a refresh rate of less than 5ms (although they all have that now) and yes the higher the Hz the better although you can still get away with 60Hz.

Dell flat screens are good for those on a budget, and LG are good for those on an even tighter budget.

[nocturnal YL]

....I'm actually thing of reusing my 1024*768 monitor as my secondary monitor.

And my local retailers don't seem to sell 4:3 monitors at all. But I kind of need it because on full screen, 4:3 is better for the human eye to focus on.


EDIT - I did some online searches.
Actual 1600*1200 monitors either have a low refresh rate (60), low contrast (800 but it's not that important to me) and somewhat unbearable respond speed (8ms to 20ms).

Buying any 1920*1200 monitor and force 4:3 would be waste of physical monitor space for me.

[nocturnal YL]

I finally got a Samsung 2343 BWXPlus. I'm using it along with my original now.