You have probably heard it before, but it bears repeating…the
best way to know if a monitor is right for you is to view it in
person. Specs are a great tool for narrowing down your choices,
but they are no replacement for hands-on experience. Plenty of
large resellers stock a wide range of monitors and some are on
display. Go down to every shop you can and see if you can find
the monitor you are thinking of buying. You never know, that
slightly low spec one you shunned in favour of that extra inch
of screen may beat everything else hands down in \’real world\’
performance.
The Minor Issues
Dot Pitch/Pixel Size Dot pitch is the distance between phosphor
dots (sub-pixels) or between TFT LCD cells of the same color on
a display screen. A smaller number generally means that the
image on the screen is sharper, as there are more dots in any
given area.
A display with a smaller dot pitch is usually better, but this
is not always true because of the methods used to measure it.
There are many methods of measurement as well as differing pixel
geometries on the screen and differing screen resolutions when
judging image quality on the display.
Most of the time, dot pitch is measured on the diagonal, this
gives the most accurate representation of dot pitch of the
display. Later some companies introduced a horizontal dot pitch
measurement. By measuring only the horizontal dot pitch and not
the vertical, cheap, low-quality displays can appear to have a
smaller dot pitch.
For example, a display with a 0.28mm (diagonal) dot pitch has a
horizontal pitch of 0.24 or 0.25mm depending on some monitor
construction variables, a good quality 0.26mm (diagonal) display
has a horizontal pitch of 0.22mm.
Be careful not to get the two different measurements confused as
that 0.26mm dot pitch monitor may have more dots per millimeter
than the 0.24mm dot pitch display.
Contrast and Brightness Contrast is the ability for the monitor
to vary brightness between the foreground and the backgound. It
is expressed in a ratio ( i.e. 500:1). Typically the higher the
ratio, the better the image quality will be as the display will
be able to show bright colors next to dark without washing out
the black or dulling the colors. Display brightness is expressed
in candela (cd) and is defined formally as:
Phew, what this means to us it that the greater this number, the
brighter the display is capable of being. However, you must
watch the power consumption of the unit. A display that has a
very high brightness level will consume more power than others
with a lower value. The old adage, \”a light that burns twice as
bright lasts half as long\” sort of applies here. So a trade off
between brightness and power consumption is something to watch.
Viewing Angle CRT monitors are viewable from almost any angle.
That is to say if your view is not blocked by the curve of the
screen or the surrounding plastic frame. TFT LCD\’s have a narrow
focus and therefore can only be viewed from inside a certain arc
of angles. As the technology improves, this arc is being
improved. This should not have any affect on the primary user of
the PC, as they should sit facing the display. But if you like
to have bystanders watching you achieve the ultimate score on
puzzle bobble or you are trying to show off to your girlfriend
your best trick in Tony Hawk\’s pro skater, then you may have
some issues (and they also might not be able to see the monitor
Analog vs. Digital connectors More and more graphics cards are
coming equipped with DVI connectors. But should you get a
display with a DVI connector, and analog connector, or one of
each?
The advantage of a DVI connection over the analog is that the
DVI connection allows for lossless transmission from the
computer to the display. Signal noise, for instance, should not
be a concern with the DVI connection (no more hum bars on the
monitor when the vacuum is being used). It also provides support
for much higher data rates which are needed for the larger
diplays (such as cinema screen size displays). Currently, no
other advantages of the DVI connection specification are being
exploited. If you would like to know more on this subject go to
the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG) who developed the
specification.
What To Look For When Buying
As mentioned earlier, Response Times are the primary concern of
any TFT LCD screen. Viewsonic is advertising their VP201s
monitors as having Response Times (Pixel Response, Video
Response) that are fast enough to present \”Realistic,
artifact-free 3-D gaming.\” These monitors have a \”blistering 16
millisecond (16ms) Response time.\” Hitachi also advertises their
CML174B and CML 175B LCD monitors with Response Times of 16ms
\”enabling smoother computer video, animation and gaming
movement.\” Samsung goes one step better with their 172X LCD
monitor that sports an amazing 12ms Response Time.
Next, be sure to select a screen that has a native resolution
that meets your needs. That is to say, if your system can only
play games at 800×600 then buying a 2048×1536 monster display
won\’t give you any advantage and will almost certainly do more
to hinder your game playing and your enjoyment of it.
Check the dot pitch measurement and make sure you are comparing
like-for-like if you are looking at more than one display,
especially from different manufacturers.
High contrast and high brightness, but low power comsuption is a
very good combination because this will give you impressive
visuals and your display will hopefully last longer.
Other, smaller, concerns (like the price) I will leave to
personal preference. A TFT LCD that satisfies all of these
criteria will hopefully do justice to your game visuals and give
you the gaming experience that you desire.
About the author:
Willson Peterson is computer expert and network engineer. He is
the author of
tml\">\”How to backup your computer data.\”
Click here ==> http://www.ebookarticle.com to visit his website.