With the current generation of wide-screen LCDs 1024x768 is way down the list, most have native resolutions of 1900 or so by whatever. As these are becoming more and more popularly priced (22- to 24- inchers from about $250 to $500), they are making more inroads. Heck, even this 3-year old or so laptop I'm working on now runs at 1920x1200 native.

A halfway good 24-inch widescreen provides plenty of real estate for open docs and offers a wide range of resolutions for testing web pages. One of the things that as opened my eyes is the number of sites out there that break and become virtually unusable when using Firefox's font zoom or IE7's page zoom (many of them supposedly SEO/SEM related sites or blogs ;-) ). If nothing else, a widescreen will definitely help in overall design work.

Thanks Jim,

A widescreen would probably be too big for the desk space available, and I probably wouldn't get the best out of it.

I wasn't proposing to run the screen at 1024x768 normally, but would like it to have good definition at that resolution, so I was wondering if there is a best native resolution for resizing? Or is it more a question of the quality of the monitor? Most of the ones I have looked at have 1280 x 1024 for 17" and 19", or 1600 x 1200 for 20" or 21".

Also is it better to go for MVA-TFT instead of TN-TFT?

I have been in your position Harry and recently bought a dell 22". I wouldn't go back again, its really made webdesign and just general computing usage, so easy having such a big platform to load your pages.

They are often only set at 1/2 the size of the screen but its wonderful being able to show multiple programs at once on on the screen.

Having looked around I suspect that the LCD monitors of this size are all from the same factories. Regardless of the brand they all have the same stats, of 5ms and 800:1. The difference in price is often owing to extras like speakers and usb ports.

I would never go back to a smaller screen its a vast improvement over a 17"

I wasn't proposing to run the screen at 1024x768 normally, but would like it to have good definition at that resolution, so I was wondering if there is a best native resolution for resizing?

Not really. LCDs look horrible in anything but their native resolution. The problem is that LCDs use a fixed grid of dots equal to pixel size. And they don't put much effort (unlike TVs) into optimized scaling. It would be difficult to do, in any case, because the windowing system typically has already done a lot of scaling and optimizing magic (like sub-pixel hinting) that is hard to recognize and un-do.

Most OSs have good support these days for scaling your desktop. You don't have to have tiny letters and tiny icons because you have a high-resolution monitor. There's no good reason for running at a resolution lower than the native resolution. (Except, say, at boot or installation time when you have no choice.)

I just don't understand the whole concept of "optimizing" web pages for a particular sized screen anyway. It makes no sense to me. There's too much variability in screen resolutions AND how people size their browsers. The biggest mistake in this area is assuming that users size their browsers full-screen.

It's better to have a flexible design that will look good at a wide range of screen sizes and resolutions.

To a great extent, optimum size and resolution will depend on how good your eyesight is and how you plan to position it (and your budget).

If you were to select a monitor with 96 pixels per inch, text would be displayed at precisely the same size it is printed. More pixels per inch will result in smaller text and, unless you have better than average near-vision, should be avoided.

For comparision, a typical 15.4-inch widescreen laptop display (1280 * 800) is roughly 96 pixels per inch, so if you use this as a baseline, a 19-inch widescreen monitor should have no more than about 1600 * 1000 pixels. A typical widescreen 19-inch monitor is 1440 * 900 pixels - that makes the text about 10% larger.

If you get a super high-res monitor, you're just throwing money away. Graphics (including desktop icons) appear too small and you have to select large fonts which completely negates any possible advantage.

Do not rule out 4*3 aspect ratio monitors. For coding and development work, they are much better since you can display more lines at once. A 19-inch 1280 * 1024 is a good size monitor.

Kaled.

I've got a Samsung SyncMaster 204b 20.3 inch LCD that runs at 1600x1200. I've been very happy with it.

Graphics (including desktop icons) appear too small and you have to select large fonts which completely negates any possible advantage.

That's just not true.

Desktop icons have come in multiple sizes for years now. And both Windows and Linux have long supported setting screen DPI to any custom setting, so you really shouldn't have to fiddle with font sizes yourself - just change the DPI, and the OS will change the font and icon sizes appropriately.

Selecting larger fonts certainly doesn't negate the advantage of higher resolution. You get more fully-formed characters, which will be easier on the eyes.

There is a formula for maximum usable resolution, which is based on the eye's ability to resolve detail and distance.

But the maximum usable resolution for desktop display reading distances is much higher than any product commonly available today.

FWIW, I run 4 22" 1600x1200 monitors (SyncMaster 213T) side-by-side (hung on the wall in an arc). Two on a Windows system, two on a Linux system. I've never felt that either characters or icons are too small on either system. I'd gladly welcome more resolution.

Thanks everyone for all the help.

jtara, my pages are "optimized" only in the sense that they are designed to display OK at 1024x768, which is the most common user resolution recorded in my stats. The minimum width is about 930px so no need to scroll laterally, the font-sizes are set to be readable (but resizable), and I can determine what most users will see above the fold. I used to design for 800x600 but less than 10% of my users now use that - now they have to scroll laterally to see the whole page, but I suspect they must be used to that!

Any advice on screen technology? MVA-TFT or TN-TFT? Or whatever?

FWIW, I run 4 22" 1600x1200 monitors (SyncMaster 213T) side-by-side (hung on the wall in an arc). Two on a Windows system, two on a Linux system. I've never felt that either characters or icons are too small on either system. I'd gladly welcome more resolution.

This works out at 91 dpi - so the text and graphics would be about 5% larger than the minimum that I suggested, so it's hardly surprising that you've never felt either is too small!

Incidentally, changing the DPI setting is certainly easy, however, it will break the layouts of dialogs on many applications. I use Delphi (an old version) to write software, and it supposedly fixed this by scaling dialogs "correctly". Unfortunately, idiots find employment everywhere and whoever wrote this code was one. In order to make my dialogs display correctly at non-standard dpi settings I had to first work out how to disable the automatic scaling and then implement my own. Furthermore, the last time I checked, Internet Explorer did not scale fonts specified in pixels.

Finally, scaling icons in Windows produces an ugly mess. In Vista, of course, you have 48-pixel icons for your desktop but not all applications provide a full range of icons and image lists for use internally.

Kaled.

I wouldn't worry about font sizes... it may seem daunting at first (and believe me, I know, I'm legally BLIND), but you get used to it. Anyway, other than a few logistics issues like I like to play console games on my lcd, so I look for ones with analog ins whereas most people can care less (also that res thing isn't as bad as it sounds and only effects text mostly...), most lcds come with integrated speakers. Unless you buy an HDTV to use as a monitor (something I might suggest really) I can pretty much guarantee these speakers will suck. Big time. Oh! if your looking at an hdtv monitor, keep in mind that if it's a 720p monitor, your res choices will be pretty limited. That may be good, for games (as you don't need to raise the res much) or if your eyes are THAT terrible. But it can be annoying. And again, eyes are very adaptable. It might take a little while but within a couple weeks you'll NEVER want to go back. That should be my final thought right there, within a few weeks you'll NEVER want to go back.

Also don't fret about deskspace... even if you have to modify/ get a new desk, your TOTALLY changing technologies from a crt to an lcd. It's a big change, plan accordingly. Beleive me, it's a BIG change and one you won't look back on. You may, however, rather get a dlp (tv or projector) or plasma (hdtv) though... if your ready for a BIG $500+ investment. Trust me, there's nothing like computing on an 8-foot wall. Projectors, however, do require alot of maintenance and it's not cheap neither so... still it's awesome for a second monitor.

welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], pdraggy!

Keep in mind that you can install screen "magnifiers", and some programs (such as Firefox) have built-in support for using the scroll wheel to change the font size.

So, I don't see much need for actually running the display in other than it's native resolution. You can always use a bit of software to get a closer look.