What to look for in a LCD monitor: a guide

[Absolut Talent]

I dont normally look at my spam.....but this one caught my attention cause it had the topic of GFFX vs 9700. Its some newsletter I think i signed up for before, from pcstats.com. So all that is below is ripped from this stats email. Thought it would be helpful for a few people
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In the past, comparing CRT monitors was easy; tube size and pixel dot pitch were the basic building blocks you could use to make a decision about relative picture quality. Nowadays, upgrading from an old monitor to a nice flat LCD display means you'll be faced with a ton of numbers, ratio's and other LCD specs which just don't make much sense to the uninitiated.

Choosing a good quality LCD for your home or office is not as hard as it may seem however. Once you have settled on a display size (17", 18.1", or 19" for example) choosing the LCD monitor with the best possible picture quality all comes down to understanding what specs mean, and how to read them. When comparing LCD displays there are mainly four specs to consider: Brightness, Viewing Angles, Contrast Ratio, and Pixel Pitch.

1) Brightness/Luminance - Expressed as 250cd/m2 or 250 nits depending on the manufacturer, but basically the higher the number the brighter the display will be. You want the brightest display you can find for the best possible picture; 250nits is good, 200nits is the bare minimum. Luminance is based on a logarithmic scale, so small differences in values are not going to be that noticeable.

2) Viewing angles - Expressed as either a series of two angles such as 160 degrees horizontal / 160 degrees vertical (160/160 for short) or broken down to an expanded form; 80 degrees up / 80 degrees down / 80 degrees left / 80 degrees right (80/80/80/80 for short). Viewing angles basically tell you the widest possible perspective you can see the screen from before the image looses contrast. Some displays have reached the 170/170 range, but anything over 120/120 is acceptable for a 15" display, and 160/160 for 17" and up.

3) Contrast Ratio - Expressed as a ratio like 300:1. The values typically range from 250:1 for value oriented displays to 500:1 for better models. Values of 350:1 or 400:1 are usually considered standard.

4) Pixel Pitch - Expressed as a metric number like 0.264mm which describes the center-to-center distance between individual pixels. There isn't much variation in pixel pitch as each size of LCD display is basically set to a certain native resolution like 0.297mm for 1024x768 resolution 17" displays, and 0.264mm or 0.281mm for 1280x1024 resolution 18.1" and 19" displays respectively. Generally speaking, the tighter the pixel pitch, the sharper the picture.
Unofficially there is a there is a fifth aspect to consider called Pixel Response Time. If you're a gamer, or like to watch DVD's on your computer this spec is one of the most important. Unfortunately, most manufacturers do not state the figure which can have a large impact on just how well an LCD monitor displays quickly moving images. Pixel response times are expressed in milliseconds (ms), and describe how long it takes to turn a pixel from off to on to off again. This value typically sits around 25ms, but the lower the value, the better.

[MAC]

If you play First Person Shooter games or want to use your LCD monitor to watch DVD movies, there is another spec you need to check, Pixel Refresh Rate.

Pixel Refresh Rate is the time it take for a pixel to change from one color to another color and then back again. There are normally two numbers given; rise rate and fall rate. The lower the pixel refresh rate, the less ghosting there is. A total pixel refresh rate ( rise + fall) of 25 ms is considered the minimum for LCD monitors used for gaming and DVD movies.

Currently, the LCD monitors with the lowest pixel refresh rate that I know about are the Hitachi CML-174 and the Planar PX-171M. Both are 17" LCD monitors with a total pixel refresh rate of 16 ms.

MAC

[DocSilly]

" Currently, the LCD monitors with the lowest pixel refresh rate that I know about are the Hitachi CML-174 and the Planar PX-171M. Both are 17" LCD monitors with a total pixel refresh rate of 16 ms. "

The sad truth is that the actual pixel refresh times are far from the 16ms stats. There was a LCD roundup in the german computermag C'T at the end of last year, they tested 23 LCD monitors and the best pixel refresh rates were around 25ms (including for those with 16ms stats). At least most LCDs with 25ms stats were this fast.