LCD monitors

While chatting in World of Warcraft a friend of mine mentioned being tempted to buy a 22" wide-screen LCD monitor, which he seen for less than $300. Sounds tempting, although I'd probably rather pay a bit more for a higher quality model. If I had a wide-screen monitor, my priest would actually *see* something in raids beyond the CTRaid windows which are currently blocking most of his field of view. :)

 

So while I was still thinking about that, some IT technician came by at my office and replaced all our CRT screens with LCD screens. And I can't really say I'm happy. The problem is that on a LCD screen the brightness varies with viewing angle, more on some models, less on others. For ergonomic reasons you should place your monitor so that its upper edge is at the height of your eyes. So you're looking straight at the upper part, but down onto the lower part. And on the LCD monitor I got that difference in viewing angle makes the lower half of the screen much brighter than the upper half. If I set the brightness to be okay for the upper half, then everything on the lower half is too bright and the colors too pale. Which isn't much of a problem at work, but would certainly be annoying for playing games, which tend to be a lot more colorful than Microsoft Office.

 

I think I should take a look at some LCD monitors in a shop to see whether they all have the same problem, or whether that is a specific problem with the cheap screen I got at work. But I'm planning to buy a new computer this year, probably a Dell again, and with Dell I obviously can't look at the screen before buying it. Anyone got a Dell wide-screen LCD monitor and can check whether the lower edge is brighter than the upper one?