Whay is the difference between Samsung 20in monitor 204B & 204BW?

Answer 1

Samsung SyncMaster 204B - 20" Black Monitor
Samsung SyncMaster 204BW - 20" Black Widescreen Monitor

Widescreen is very good because it allows you to view two pages side by side. BTW you might want to look for a 22" Widescreen like this one. Some places sell them for as little as $10 or $20 over the cost of a 20". For that you get an extra 2".


Samsung SyncMaster 226BW - 22" Black Widescreen Monitor

Answer 2

As 80sGuy said, one is wide (16:10 aspect ratio), the other is full frame (4:3 aspect ratio).

However, IMHO, two page views fit MUCH better onto a 4:3 aspect ratio, as this gives an almost perfect match. On a widescreen the screen is too short to fit a page. If you want a three page view, it would fit better, but it would probably be too small to read.

If you do the math you can see that a 20" widescreen only has 90% of the pixels that a 20% full frame has. (1680 by 1050, compared to 1600 by 1200). Also the screen is physically about 94% of the area of a full frame.

However, if you want to watch a movie on the computer, the wide aspect ratio means that you will not have big bars top and bottom of the screen, and it will give a much bigger movie image.

Despite the smaller resolution and screen area my last monitor purchase is a widescreen. But it really is a personal choice.