I really want to buy a new monitor but I'm starting to wander about all these
wide screen monitors.. it seems like they are mostly giving you more "viewable desktop space" rather than increase in size of actual stuff being displayed. any thoughts?
You are right. A larger screen generally runs at a higher native resolution which means that the items on the screen are generally the same size as they would be on a smaller screen. However, this means that the larger screen gives you more room for other things, e.g. it is great for working where you can have two documents open side-by-side, for instance. If you multitask, you can keep all the windows open on screen and don't have to minimize them so you can see what's going on. If you watch TV/videos on the monitor it can show widescreen programming without letterboxing.
You should also bear in mind that if you get a larger screen and you run it at a higher resolution, your graphics card may start to struggle with games and applications that it used to manage fine. That monitor can become pretty expensive if you find you need to upgrade the graphics too.
Having said that, I do recommend a widescreen monitor if you don't already have one. I bought one some time ago and could never go back to 4:3 now. If you have a 19" 4:3 then changing it for a 19" widescreen won't make too much difference to the graphics card. If you go larger then it will.
Buff
I have both a standard 4:3 20" monitor, as well as a 19" widescreen for a secondary computer. Of course, the 20" has much more real estate than the 19", and it also has a higher resolution (1600x1200 vs. 1440x900). However, I really enjoy using the 19 widescreen and I will eventually replace the 20" with a 24" widescreen model. I will probably look for a 1920x1200 native resolution.
As Buff pointed out, it will put a strain on the video card. So, I figure it will be a good time to update the 7600GT to a 9800GT.
I'm using a 22 inch Samsung wide screen that supports a native 1680x1050 resolution. I have two systems connected and am using a KVM to switch between them. One system has an nVidia 7600GS and the other is using a nVidia 9600GT. Both cards do a good job with the display.
I do find that the Vista system with the 9600GT seems to do a better job with the display, it just seems to be better looking and easier on the eye. This is true also on the system with the 7600GS that I dual boot with Vista and XP, when I boot into Vista on the system the display is just cleaner looking. One thing I found I had to do was to increase the font size a bit. It was just to small for me to see comfortably at the higher resolution. Also on the XP system, enabling Clear Type fonts made for a better looking display.
I believe that most 22" and 24" monitors use the same native resolution (1680 x 1050) so I guess you would get slightly larger text on the 24".
Buff