All right. Calling on my TurbCAD User Forum friends out there that are computer-system savvy:
Background: I usually draw houses. That's a pain enough on my 17.3" laptop screen. Now I am involved in a lengthy project for a large commercial building that is 200'x115' with 2-acre site-plan. I do not have a (functioning) desktop system, nor a stand-alone monitor for that desktop system.
I'm thinking that I what I want to do is: Add a second monitor to my laptop- along with a separate USB keyboard, and work with that. I'm thinking something like 27" is going to serve me and be in my price-range (<$300).
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Physically shopping here locally (Best Buy, Office Depot, Office Max, etc.) I narrowed down to a 27" 1920x1080 LCD monitor
(300 cd/m2 brightness; 1200:1 typical contrast ratio, 15,000:1 dynamic). Just to be sure it would work with my laptop, and that I would be happy with the resolution, I brought my laptop down to Office Depot and had them actually hook it up.
Though I have a HDMI output, the monitor wasn't HDMI capable; we plugged it into my DVI (VGA?- it's 15-pin) port. We adjusted my display properties to 1920x1080 resolution, but I think/feel that my video-driver was just "making up" the resolution (my laptop's native resolution is 1600x900)- resulting in the pixels being larger than they actually are. Basically, I wasn't happy with the way my drawing looked on the larger second monitor- not "crisp" enough. I don't think I would be satisfied with the monitor, working with it for hours and days on end.
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Question: Taking a look at my laptops specifications (linked below), what would be the best specifications and connection capabilities of a large (27") second monitor that would result in ±100dpi resolution and be crisp and clear when viewing CAD objects? (keep in mind, that I'm not thinking 3D modeling and rendering at this time; I know my lack of actual video-card is going to limit me on that)
Also: My little bit of knowledge and research makes me think that- since I mostly work in 2D with a lot of Black Lines and Objects on a White background- I want a higher contrast ratio. Would that be correct? What is the minimum contrast ratio- "typical" and "dynamic"- that I would be looking for and would fit within my budget of $300?
Thanks for any help and input. -Alvin(my HP G72 260US laptop specifications here:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c02159504&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=4217273&tmp_track_link=ot_search