Monitors

I've just started a new job as a CAD technician and am interested to know what is recommended in the way of monitors. As I'm staring at it all day. Im thinking of ideal size and eye protection.

Thanks:o

Get the largest display your company will opt for. A good size is a 20 to 22 inch LCD monitor. You can consult CADalyst Magazine as they review monitors they deem appropriate for the CAD environment.

Start here:

http://www.cadalyst.com/reviews

Tom's Hardware also has some good hardware reviews (not CAD oriented but still good).

you know what they say...."bigger is better".......i have a 26" at home and its wonderful....i only have a 19" at work, which is ok, but as soon as we get some money rolling in we are all geting dual 22's.....go BIG

well, here in my company they opted for two 19" monitors to which drafter, in the beginning i found it a bit strange but then its pretty usefull to have one monitor to the paletts and the other only for what really matters, the drawing area.

I've asked at work if I could have a Lacie 324 24" their have mentioned the samsung 26" kilmanjaro. (Half the price) Has any one any knowledge of it?

I have little experience of monitors but here is my experience so far:

I finally opted for a BENQ 24" widescreen after a strong review from a forum member.

I had delivery but, one day out of the box, the screen developed a blue square 8" x 4" that doesnt go even when in DOS. They are exchanging it under a 3 year warrenty.

The supplier said I should have bought Samsung because of superior parts quality but wouldnt exchange it as I had delivery of it over 30 days earlier and must deal with the manufacturers.

I use my old monitor (HPL1906) for the toolbars and secondary programmes and the main monitor for the drawing view. That works very well.

(Just a few snippets of info which may be of interest)

I dont get about the so called quality of Samsung, at least looking to the LCD market they have without any doubt beautiful products, although in terms of quality they are some steps behind.

Samsung's reputation for quality monitors has been fairly consistent over the years. But in the end it is up to the individual user to determine what looks best to their own eye. After all, you're the one that has to spend the majority of your work day looking at it.

Tesco do a really good 22" lg monitor for £120.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-5771.aspx

Lacie, a monitor I had considered, told me their monitors are too good for CAD and are marketed at Photoshop style touch up where very exact colour matching is required.

(Just thought I would add that)

Do anyone find the 26" monitor too big. Lower sharpness etc.

If you get a monitor larger than 22" I find the Icons, sharpness, lines ect are not very good. You need to but a good one. I just bought a 24" Dell for $160 on sale reg. $369 I think... Its crap. I should have payed the extra money for the 24" UltraSharp.

We all use Dual 22" LCD Dell monitors and they work fine. 22" are small. I would go with Dual 24 or 27" Dell UltraSharps with a good V-Card (Gaming or Professional)

Thanks for your reply Viper04

It would be interesting to know how dual monitors are utilised by other CAD users. I use my large screen Benq for Acad and the small one for the toolbars and any other programmes.

I have two AutoCAD's running, 1 on each screen. This way I can say layouts drawings while doing elevations and fabrications drawings. The only thing is when using XREF's you don't get the Pop-up message saying the xref needs to be updated if you change something on the other AutoCAD screen.

Works nice for 3D stuff as well.

All this talk about dual monitors makes it sound like the technology is but a couple of years old. I ran dual monitors in 1985 only at that time it was all text on a 14" monochrome monitor and all the graphics on a 21" color monitor. It took a video card costing $3000 to do it too! Seems pretty funny now.

I 1st started using duals back in 1999. Using a Matrox dual head card. Very nice cards for 2D work. It was several hundred dollars then but you can get these for around $10 in used bins all over the place

im using a 24" samsung syncmaster at home and i have to say its very nice and was very reasonably priced when i bought it about a year ago. At work i use a 24" dell, my brother also has one of these. The difference between the 2 is minimal but when put side by side the dell does appear to have a better contrast ratio especially when viewing at an angle. I dont see this is a problem since we look at our monitors head on right? Also a very good monitor isnt really necessary for CAD work, well not as much as digital imaging anyway