pc monitor wanted for laptop - what determines max resolution

davb

britishboy wrote: »

oops forgot to ask, what connections give the best quality image?

DVI or HDMI give the best quality image (digital) but with the laptop you mention, I think you are stuck with VGA (analogue)

longwalks1

Davb

whats best lead i can use then to get a good image? vga to vga? or would vga to dvi or hdmi be worth getting?

davb

britishboy wrote: »

Davb

whats best lead i can use then to get a good image? vga to vga? or would vga to dvi or hdmi be worth getting?

No you need VGA to VGA, as it's what's being output from the laptop (analogue) that controls things in this case. The best you can do is get a decent quality VGA lead, as you can get ghosting with the cheaper ones.

longwalks1

cheers again davb

where best to buy a good quality one? prices vary so much, but worried even paying a lot for one might be a cheapo one re-labelled? What should i look for in one?

davb

britishboy wrote: »

where best to buy a good quality one? prices vary so much, but worried even paying a lot for one might be a cheapo one re-labelled? What should i look for in one?

Look for the thicker ones, they usually have better shielding, and also tend to have gold contacts and oxygen free.
Depends on how long you need it (you need higher quality for longer cables), but there are couple of 3m on Ebuyer for under a tenner which are quite decent, gold and high integrity - personally I would go for the second.
Before you shell out though, check if the new monitor comes with one. If it does, then you can at least try it first.

almillar

You should be able to find the max output resolution of your laptop by just Googling - I guess you have intel GMA graphics of some sort, you should see what you have in the display settings window where you would go to change resolution. You want to make sure that it's the OUTPUT resolution that you're looking at, as it'll also list the resolution of your laptop's screen (maybe 1366x768?).
Anyway, your laptop should output whatever resolution any 22" screen can handle, so no worries there.
HDMI is best, DVI is the same, but without sound, then VGA.