Help with choosing right monitor

[kuhneboi]

I'm in the market for a new monitor. I'm wanting to go with a 22" or 24" and use it for a gaming/ hd movie setup. I've always been fond of glossy screens because they seem to look more vibrant and crisp when compared to a matte finished screen. The problem is I can't find a 1920 x 1080 monitor with a gloss screen for the life of me!! I've done quite a bit of research and I've found that matte screens have better color reproduction than a gloss screen but they've always seemed dull in comparison to gloss. Is it that I've never seen a quality matte monitor?

If anyone has any ideas on what monitors have a gloss screen, I'd appreciate it a lot. I'm wanting to keep the 16:9 aspect ratio but I'm willing to accept any ideas you may have

Thanks, a lot

[tmathews]

I'm pretty happy with my Gateway FHD2400 24" 1920x1200 glossy-screen monitor. The HP 2408w is glossy and nice-looking but the Gateway had more input options and a lower price. That was about a year ago -- they both probably have updated models by now. My main complaint with the Gateway is that there's not enough definition (contrast?) when displaying dark images. I've fiddled with contrast and brightness and gamma and just can't get the definition I can with a CRT. Oh well. Overall I like the Gateway.

[kuhneboi]

I was looking at that particular monitor. It looks nice and I thought about getting it. My primary concern is, however, that I will mainly be using the pc for watching HD movies. Will the 16:10 aspect ratio be a good way to go?

[tmathews]

I haven't tried HD movies on it but I know you can set it to retain the original aspect ratio or stretch to fill the screen. I've played 4:3 DVDs on it in fullscreen mode and don't notice the stretching after a short while. I would guess you wouldn't even notice 16:9 being stretched to 16:10 unless you really looked for it. If it did bother you you could always set it to preserve the 16:9 and have the small black bands at the top and bottom of the screen. For me, I'm greedy about getting as much on the screen as possible so I would go for a 1920x1200 over a 1920x1080.