Monitor advice

[GregD]

I am building a modified "Woody" clone and I need some advice on the monitor.  I will be running MAME games and console games up to Super Nintendo on the machine.  In my price range, I can get a 22 LCD at 16:10 or a 19" at 5:4.  Which would you get?  I have some guys telling me to stay away from the widescreen format and some telling me to only go widescreen.  Thanks in advance for your input.

[mytymaus007]

a good 5:4 could cost $300 plus HP lp2065 20 inch thats what i have amazing LCD worth every penny plus no arcade monitor hassels plus it rotates for vertical games and big enough for horizontal games. It all comes down to what games you want to play! Retro games 5:4 is the way to go New games will look great also because its a 20 inch screen

[Cynicaster]

I am building a modified "Woody" clone and I need some advice on the monitor.  I will be running MAME games and console games up to Super Nintendo on the machine.  In my price range, I can get a 22 LCD at 16:10 or a 19" at 5:4.  Which would you get?  I have some guys telling me to stay away from the widescreen format and some telling me to only go widescreen.  Thanks in advance for your input.

IMO, the only good reason to go with a widescreen monitor would be if you plan to run MAME with the on-screen bezel artwork activated.  Personally, I can't stand having that artwork activated, but to each their own.

[scofthe7seas]

What about "The Ninja Warriors"?!!?

[Blanka]

There's often a good amount of HP 2065's on classified sites in very good condition for 100$. Thing is these monitors are sold by the thousands to businesses, and many owners don't know its such a good thing. They trade it for a cheap as FullHD 24 inch TN with 1:1000000000 contrast only to find out after a few weeks they bought ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.

[alfonzotan]

Geeks.com has refurb 2065's in stock for $89...

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=LP2065-PB-B&cat=MON

[mytymaus007]

Geeks.com has refurb 2065's in stock for $89...

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=LP2065-PB-B&cat=MON

NICE just bought another one yeh baby This is one of the best no hassel LCD

[DNA Dan]

The defect specs are sort of scaring me away from getting a second replacement. I suppose it's no less a gamble that getting one from smokey joe on fleabay.

Let us know what sort of dead pixels and stuff you end up with.

[scofthe7seas]

"Slight scratches in the screen" is the one that disturbed me..

[mytymaus007]

ill post pics up after i get it any thing like that im having a fit over the phone

[nitz]

I am building a modified "Woody" clone and I need some advice on the monitor.  I will be running MAME games and console games up to Super Nintendo on the machine.  In my price range, I can get a 22 LCD at 16:10 or a 19" at 5:4.  Which would you get?  I have some guys telling me to stay away from the widescreen format and some telling me to only go widescreen.  Thanks in advance for your input.

Some people will tell you not to go widescreen because that's not what the original games used - but the thing is, they didn't use 5:4 either! I was in the exact same situation as you when I was choosing a monitor - 16:10 22 inch or 5:4 19 inch for about the same price. I just did some math. Displaying games in the 4:3 ratio on the 16:10 gives you the equivalent of roughly a 19.4 inch monitor. The 5:4 is only going to give you roughly an 18.5 inch monitor. If you do a good job of putting a bezel around the widescreen, no one can tell it's not 4:3.

The only thing to be careful of is to be sure that you can display the emulators you want to play fullscreen without stretching. Having a video card that can do the 16:10 display's native resolution (probably 1680x1050) is a must. Mame will be fine, but some emulators, particularly ones that haven't been updated in a few years, will not be able to display fullscreen without stretching unless your video card can do aspect ratio correction. Of course they won't be correct stretched to full screen on a 5:4 display either, but it's much closer to 4:3 than 16:10 so it may not bother you.

My video card does not do the aspect ratio correction, so for those emus that stretch in full screen, I get around it by running them in windowed mode and using an autohotkey script I found called "poorman's fullscreen" to put a black border around them so they appear almost like a full screen display would. It's not ideal, but it's a sacrifice I was willing to make to get a bigger screen.

If you're the type who doesn't mind messing around with video modes and emulators and such, I'd say go for the widescreen as its effective size is nearly an inch bigger than the non-widescreen. If it sounds like too much of a pain to you, you may just want to sacrifice a bit of size to make things easier.

Hope this helps and welcome to the forum.

[DNA Dan]

I guess <$100 for a retail $500 monitor shouldn't matter too much about condition. I paid about $150 on a fleabay refurb and it's not flawless. You just have to lower expectations and realize you paid less than 20% of retail new. Not a bad deal at all, even in it's condition.

[RandyT]

Most of the refurb stuff from Geeks is graded lower, to keep people happy.  I.e. if you buy something with a hairline scratch in the case, but they say in the description that it could have a crack in it, then chances are that you will be happy because you got a "good" one.  I've never been displeased with the value of their refurb items.

[alfonzotan]

Most of the refurb stuff from Geeks is graded lower, to keep people happy.  I.e. if you buy something with a hairline scratch in the case, but they say in the description that it could have a crack in it, then chances are that you will be happy because you got a "good" one.  I've never been displeased with the value of their refurb items.

Yep.  I bought one of these last year, and it arrived in great shape.

[mytymaus007]

Just open my new used HP Lp2065 Looks great fturned it on the Screen is in 100% working order no scratcheds or dead pixels the grey frame has some blemishes off the top, looks like tape was removed. No worries ill be spraying the frame black because it going in a cab. Otherwise for $120 with shipping unreal deal. 

[Donkbaca]

SWEET!

[DNA Dan]

Awesome! Hopefully they're still available. I need to pickup a replacement before all the 4:3 monitors are gone !
Just pulled the trigger on one of these. $107.99 with shipping included. Even got 2% cash back using ebates. Makes it about $105 delivered. Unbelievable price.   I hope mine isn't jacked!

[DNA Dan]

Just got my monitor today (perhaps the last one they had?) and the LCD is flawless! Some scratches on the bezel like mytymaus already mentioned but who cares since it's being painted black? Definitely hope they get more in, I will be getting a third. My cabinet is completely built around this monitor so without it, I'd have to redesign my cab. Thanks for the hookup!

[Blanka]

Awesome! Hopefully they're still available. I need to pickup a replacement before all the 4:3 monitors are gone !

They are not even still available, but they are still made! HP puts these by the thousands in dull office projects. When pixels and vertical workspace matter, this 2065 is still the cheapes per pixel solution. No other IPS screen offers 1200 pixels vertical, or 1600 in pivot, for say 300 bucks.