flash (macromedia): I?m in my last year of my degree and am considering doing a bit of freelance
web developing (mainly flash but also html) alongside which ever initial jobs I
manage to get when I leave. I currently work on an old 15? 1024*768 pixel LCDs
and frankly I amazed myself I have survived so long using only it.

Hence, I am considering upgrading. Low end 20.1? widescreen LCDs 1680 x 1050
are starting to become affordable (dell sells one for under ?250) and would
appear to me to offer more than enough screen space to code and draw in flash
at the same time or have both Photoshop and Dreamweaver open side by side
without things getting too cluttered.

Is this likely to be sufficient for a part time web developer or is it really
worth to splash out on a fully HD 1080i 24?+ screen? Or am I better of
investing in a smaller low-res 19? with better contrast brightness and response
time? (I?m of the opinion that response time in not of much importance to a web
developer as even flash content tends to be low frame rate).

Please share your thoughts,

Chopo

Chopo,

I'd gravitate more towards two 19" LCDs than one big one. I find running two
at 1280px wide gives me plenty of room for design files on one side, and
palettes and whatnot on the other. You'll get more screen real estate for your
buck. Keep in mind also that the average user is still running 1024 wide, and
so you should keep that rez/max browser size in mind when you are designing.
It is easy to forget when working in an environment as big as 1600 wide...

j

Cool, No chance of getting away with one 19" then? I mean another thing i
forgot to mention is that the place i'm currently renting is small one 20.1"
monitor is itself pushing my bedroom desk space to its limite. I calculate two
19" monitors to take up well over a meter widthwise. The set up i was
considering was one 19-20.1" on my desk and keep my old 15" monitor for testing
at low res on this sort of built in shelf on my wall thats just big enough to
hold it.

How about response times, is it worth paying more for a faster response time
in a job ware most of the work we produce is static?

I've been doing web design for years (not too much Flash, but a lot of html),
and the way I look at it is this: While it's nice to have a huge monitor (20"
widescreen), most of the people who view your sites are not going to have that
type of monitor, unless you're going for gamers. Most people will have a 17" or
smaller monitor. I think the most common resolution is 1024x768, but that can
change at any time. If you think it looks nice on your huge fancy monitor,
that's one thing, but keep your audience in mind and design for them.

True, and as a 1024x768 monitor user myself its some thing i get the impresion
some les able web developers forget.
Having said that i intend to keep my 15" for testing purposes, even if its not
on my dektop all the time and one thing is vewing a website and another is
developing it. Especialy when your strong point is graphic design such as in my
case, tools have to go someware.
All in all however i am geting the impresion from both of you that a huge
monitor is not as esencial as i thought. So ill probably go between 19-20 (ok
probably 19") inches depending on price. I've always been anoied at the fact
that a 19" dosent actualy offer more pixels than a 17" though.