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I think a good place to read opinions about monitors is amazon.com. You don't need to buy anything, but you can read many reviews about many, though not all, monitors.
A few days ago I received a Samsung Syncmaster 2443BWT, a 24" widescreen LCD monitor that I bought at amazon (free shipping). It had only three reviews, but I checked reviews elsewhere and I got a closer look at its specifications in Samsung's web pages.
I am a gamer, but I also want to see good DVD play.
I can't recommend that you buy the 2443BWT, for the simple reason that I have used it for only a few days. Maybe after a few months of usage, I'll feel more confident about it.
Here are some things that I was looking for and that the 2443BWT has given me so far:
1. DATE OF MANUFACTURE: I was thinking that newly made monitors would be more likely to have state-of-the-art features. The 2443BWT first became available at amazon on February 13, 2009. I thought that was not bad. Then, after receiving my monitor and registering the serial number at Samsung, I learned that my particular unit was manufactured in October 2009. Just a few days old!
2. GAMING SPEED: I didn't want anything with more than 5ms (milliseconds) response time. There were monitors with 2ms response times, but I read reviews of players using LCD monitors with 5ms response times, and they said that was plenty fast enough. The 2443BWT has 5ms. Together with its other features, that was good enough for me. In the few days I have had it, I have tried only Heroes of Might and Magic III, IV, and V. They have all ran well.
3. CONTRAST RATIO: My 2443BWT has a stellar contrast ratio of 50,000:1. This was one of the "other features" I just mentioned. I have yet to watch Blu-ray movies with my new monitor, but I have no doubts they will look great. This is because regular DVDs look great. Since my head is only about three feet from my monitor, I watch DVDs in a window, not at fullscreen. That way, at least with the adjustable PowerDVD player, the picture is always sharp. I have never before seen the pure, bright colors I have been seeing on my 2443BWT. Eye candy indeed! It also looks great with the Heroes games, particularly Heroes V, which supports the maximum resolution (1920x1200)
4. SUPPORT FOR 1080p: My 2443BWT has this, which is good for watching high-def videos.
5. MAXIMUM RESOLUTION: My 2443BWT's maximum (and native) resolution is 1920x1200. This was critical for me, not only for having sharp DVD playback, but also for supporting 1280x1024, a necessary resolution for Heroes IV.
6. CONTROLS: Control of aspect ratio is important, especially for games made before widescreen monitors came into use. My 2443BWT has what I need. My previous Samsung monitors had buttons underneath the border of the screen. They were too hard to manipulate. For my 2443BWT, they are out in the open where I can see them and easily manipulate them. So far the only change I have made from the default settings was to change the "Image Size" from "Wide" to "Auto." The "Auto" setting allows me to play the two older Heroes games (III and IV) in smaller screens. Playing them at full widescreen results in distortions, pixellation, and framerate slowdowns. For Heroes III, the "Auto" setting was the only change I needed to make (on my previous monitor I had already right-clicked the game icon and set the Properties/Compatibility tab to run at 640x480). Heroes IV doesn't run properly unless I set my desktop resolution to 1280x1024, as well as having the monitor setting at "Auto." I expect that with other games, particularly older ones like Diablo II and Baldur's Gate II, I will need to make similar adjustments.
7. STAND and SETUP: At amazon, I read a few reviews about how one Samsung monitor (I forget which one) was giving purchasers trouble with the installation of the stand. My 2443BWT was shipped with the stand already installed. (The height is adjustable, but I have not needed to do that.) All I needed to do was plug in the power and video cables. I went to Samsung to get a driver for the monitor. The only thing the monitor driver does is to allow the monitor's proper name to show up in places like the Device Manager. Samsung didn't have a driver specifically for Windows 7 64-bit edition, but their Vista 64-bit driver did the job. My 2443BWT came with a CD, but I haven't installed any software from it. I have read that the Magic Tune software conlicts with NVidia's software. I don't want that. The 2443BWT came with a quick-setup foldout, which I could have done without, but which I welcomed. The user's manual is a .pdf file obtainable at the Samsung website (the CD helped me to connect to it).
8. DVI video cable: My 2443BWT came with both an analog and digital video cable. My NVidia GTX 295 video card requires the digital cable (DVI).
9. REVIEWS: Before buying my 2443BWT, I considered the remarks made in reviews.
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