Advice wanted: non-Apple LCD for Sawtooth G4

D k Cornelius · Sep 18th, 2003, 12:28 PM

I need some advice in this old subject area.

I have a G4 350 Sawtooth with an Rage 128 Pro in the AGP 2x slot. It has been a great server with a couple of very large hard drives on a PCI/ATA card. As a server we've used an old 15" Multisync as the monitor, which usually didn't display anything beyond the log in screen in OSX before it was shut off for weeks at a time.

Now we want to use this machine to stitch together panoramic photographs on a part-time basis, on top of it's server duties. Because of the slow G4 and the legacy 2x AGP it does not seem worth the $ to put a faster video card & convertor to ADC just to run an expensive Apple LCD screen on a slow G4.

As long as the photo apps do not slow to a crawl under X, we would rather wait slightly longer for each action than to have to swap the drives to a newer box, again. But in the future I know that I'll be calling MacDoc, maybe sooner if this screen gets us into multiplayer gaming at work.

We want the smaller footprint of an LCD and to turn the screen around 180 degrees to show the photos. (not swivel to portrait, but swing in a circle to show people in the desk opposite, like the iMac arm is able to do.) Perhaps a low cost VESA arm can be picked up, but I'm not beyond using a stable "lazy susan" or equivilent under the base of the screen.

Anyway, enough background, here are the questions:

• We do want some decent screen real estate, 1280 x 1024 would probably be the minimum. Is it also the maximum with that video card?
• Is digital input a must-have feature, ie - noticably better quality?
• If I plug the PowerBook in the second connector on a screen is the a switch to toggle back and forth like a KVM box?
• What else should we consider? The unit doesn't have to be the cheapest, but cost is the biggest factor. Used is okay too, though I don't know if the LCD lifespan is still shorter than than a CRT.

The NECs and ViewSonics (like the VP181b) with the slim bezels are much more attractive, especially since I am trying to "sell" the photos I'm displaying. (Various film location to film directors.) I know we'll be adjusting the screen dozens of times per showing, and some of the screens are a pain to adjust, taking both hands and a lot of resistance against the desk every time. A 17" iMac would be perfect for this particular requirement.

Thanks for your input!