Yours truly is going along with the times, and I've decided to replace my trusty old (and slowly failing) CRT with one of them modern flat screens.
Trouble is I don't know shit about those things. Right now I have a 19" 16:9 CRT, and I want a 24" TFT. The monitor is going to be placed more to the back of my desk than my current one, about 50 cm from my face, so I want something rather big.
I mainly have two questions:
1. I have to choose between resolutions 1920x1080 and 1920x1200. Will I see a difference? Should I go for the biggest? There is more choice if I choose the former.
2. I don't have that big a budget, but these things are not that expensive anymore. There's plenty of choice under €220, especially if I stick to 1920x1080.
I originally wanted this , which is about €180 but there are a lot of horror stories on the net about it, and it seems to be discontinued by Samsung, which doesn't seem like a good sign.
Then there's Benq which looks very affordable, but is also made by Benq, a company I don't trust with anything more tech than a toaster, but I may be wrong with that.
Then there's and

Do you people have any experience with these brands? Are they any good. Does the brand even matter? What features should I look for?

I'm not big on these things, but I have a Samsung Monitor and I love it to bits. The colours are nice and deep and it's crystal clear.

I usually treck on in to a store and take a look at the screens in action to see which brand is the best, and usually when I see Samsung, both monitors and tv's, they are just much more pleasing to look at both in terms of performance and appearence.

However, this monitor did go faulty - and was over 1 year old. However, I quick call to Samsung and a decent bloke named Aaron had a company come collect it from me for an on the door step exchange - amazing.

They also sorted out my (Ex) Girlfriends T.V. - which was a repair job and it took them less than two weeks.

Absolutely pleased with Samsung. If that helps

Tips tips tips!

First, go with 1920x1200 (16:10). That's a more common PC resolution. In general it won't matter much for modern systems which one you pick, but take 1920x1200 to be on the safe side.

I have good experiences with LG monitors. Samsung is also a good pick, although I would be worried if they are discontuning the line (never know you need to bring it in). I wouldn't go with Asus or Benq, in any case.

On another note: keep in mind that, if you want to run games in your screen's native resolution, a 1920x1200 (or 1020) is gonna take its toll on your graphics card. Unless you rarely play modern games or have a decent & recent graphics card, you may be better off going with a small screen (or upgrading your gfx card, clearly).

Also: haha @ CRT! Hehe.

Well as you might have known (or at least guessed) my pc in ancient. So I don't play any modern games no, but I do play Medieval 2 Total War every now and then and now I'm playing Half Life 2 but I'm doing so on a GForce 4200 Ti.
Of course I have to buy a new pc some day, but that won't be for a year or so.
Do I have to play in my native resolution or can the monitor scale up the image (without taking a performance hit)?

You can scale it, but it'll look like shit. LCD screens are fussy about native resolution because they actually 'have' rows of pixels, (unlike CRT screens, which just show pixels) so your PC will have to figure out how to cope with it and which ones to light up or not. This can work without too much consequence, but you'll probably need to figure out what res will work best for you, especially if you're running on very low resolutions.

Hm ok, but since this monitor will have to last longer than this pc, I'd still go for bigger is better. I also figured webshops are not the way to go. They all want money to guarantee there are no dead pixels, often 30 Euro but one even 60 for a screen this size! In a physical shop I can just see for myself. Given the limited choice for 1920x1200 in my price range I think I'll stick with 1080.

I have an ASUS monitor that's running at 1920x1200. Like Ox, I would recommend the higher resolution... it works better for regular pc work. More vertical pixels = more space on your monitor for documents and stuff. However, as you may have guessed, that graphics card is not going to be happy pushing games onto the extended real-estate. you can just run it at a smaller resolution, but it'll look fuzzy and possibly distorted. Your choice, of course. Does your computer have PCIE slots or AGP? If you're sporting a Geforce 4200, I'm guessing it's AGP, but if you're lucky, it'll be PCIE and you could upgrade the graphics card too. You could get a MUCH better graphics card for less than $100.

Either way, at least you're upgrading. It's amazing how big a difference a new monitor can make.

BTW, I bought my monitor on http://www.newegg.com/. Even if you don't order from them, it's a good place to check out reviews from users. You have to take them with a grain of salt at times, but it's still helpful.

Well, it's an AGP slot, and I've already looked into upgrading it, but decided it wasn't worth the money. You basically pay double.
Instead of stretching the image, can't the monitor just show the original resolution, but with a black space padding it (like the black bars next to the picture when you watch widescreen on 4:3 or vice versa, just all around it)? That would solve a lot of compatibility problems, but it's so simple a solution that the nerds developing these things probably overlooked it (have you ever wondered why the heat-generating part of a video card is below the card itself, thus blocking the natural flow of the hot air away from it? /rant).

lolz.... yea, I don't think you can do the letterbox thing. I've never heard of it, at least. Too bad about the AGP thing... man, your box is ANCIENT. I could build you a new computer for $600 if you were in the area... and get you significantly better performance to boot. Ah well.

Yeah, the idea is to buy a new pc about a year from now. Unfortunately my monitor is going. before that. Plus, now that I've put some research into it, I do want something new.

Update:

Seems my only chance for 1920x1200 is the Samsung. I found a webstore which offers it for 190 Euro and allows me to return the thing within 14 calendar days without reason (that should take care of dead pixel trouble). The only thing for me to find out is if I can hook it up to my ancient graphics card. The monitor has a D-Sub (VGA) and DVI-D port. How do I find out whether it'll hook up?

Yes, it'll work. Your graphics card probably has a VGA out. It may have a DVI out. In either case, you're covered.