Large, Extra-bright Monitor Recommendations?

[Makosuke]

Like the title says; my dad's vision is getting progressively worse, so I'm looking to fix him up with a ridiculously bright, preferably very large monitor. He likes photography, so at least moderate color accuracy would be nice (video performance is completely irrelevant), but is secondary, since if he can't see it it doesn't much matter how good the color is. Not ridiculously expensive, also nice.

I can, of course, go sort monitors at Newegg by brightness and pick the highest one, but if some of the online tests are to be believed, the specced brightness isn't necessarily accurate, and that doesn't tell the story if it looks like complete crap otherwise.

On paper the Hanns·G HG-281DPB is ridiculous in brightness and size, but it's basically a TV (HDMI-only); I like ViewSonic and Samsung, but on paper most of their screens aren't notably bright.

So, any recommendations are hugely appreciated!

 

[ymarker]

The 28" hanns is well regarded as you've probably noted from the newegg reviews. It will also help with folks with poor vision as the same text appears larger on the 28" with the same rez as a 24".

I'd stick with the 28" and google how well a monoprice.com cable mini-display port to hdmi works with it.

On my home HTPC I have a 52" lcd connected via dvi->hdmi and the text is crisp.

 

[Makosuke]

A bit of follow-up, for reference if others stumble across this thread.

I ended up taking a chance and going with the Hanns·G HG-281DPB. So far, so good. Details:

* It's friggin' huge. Also pretty thick, and not the most stable base in the world, but considering the bargain-basement price tag (I paid $340 with shipping and tax from Newegg, and I've seen it cheaper on sale elsewhere now and then) the build quality is actually pretty high.

* Speaking of the base, it isn't height-adjustable, though I don't know if any other monitors that big are, either. It does, however, have a swivel in addition to tilt, which is nice.

* It's certainly bright. I'll stop short of blinding, but a whole lotta light comes outta that panel.

* The color isn't as bad as I expected. It's still a TN panel, so it's not fantastic, but the off-angle color shift isn't horrible, and after calibrating it's really not all that bad (though it is a little contrasty, as is the case with most TVs).

* It's essentially a TV without any extra inputs (just HDMI and VGA/Component combo); you can even see a spot where I assume the IR receiver would go on models with a remote.

* That said, is fully functional as a monitor. It includes a DVI-HDMI cable right in the box, so no need for an extra adapter, and a Mac offers both "TV" resolutions of 1080p, etc, as well as a wide variety of computer resolutions. The panel itself is actually a 16:10, computer-style ratio of 1920x1200 (as opposed to a 1080p TV 16:9 of 1920x1080). And, indeed, the Mac detects and offers the full 1920x1200 resolution as an option. Didn't realize HDMI could do that, but obviously not a problem.

* Has built-in speakers (hidden in the back), which of course sound like crap. Par for the course of any monitor, and pretty much any TV, too.


The only setup thing that wasn't completely obvious was that it wanted to look for the VGA input until I explicitly set it to HDMI in its menu system. Once I'd done that, though, no problems detecting input and sleeping when none is available.

The bottom line is also good--my dad can see it and likes it.