Monitor pre-purchase questions

[Blackdog_kt]

Everyone is mostly paying attention to resolution and response times when buying monitors (especially gamers), but there are other equally important aspects like viewing angles, color fidelity and panel type.

Most of all, the most important thing is to realize how these specs are measured. I was looking for an LCD unit to replace my 17" CRT Trinitron last year and spent 2 weeks browsing dedicated hardware forums and review sites before making the decision.

I ended up with a Dell 2209WA 22" that runs a 1680x1050 resoluion (it's 16:10, so you get two small black bars top and bottom when watching films).

I didn't buy a 1080p monitor because i wanted to make sure tham i'm not going to be forced into a graphics card upgrade with the release of SoW (smaller resolution is easier to push for the GPU and looks just fine on the 22"). I also didn't look for a less-than-5ms monitor.

Granted, it was a bit of a gamble but payed off in the end. My monitor might seem worse in specs than other panels that were around at the time and it was also more expensive, I knew it was an IPS panel and these are pricey, although it was the budget range of IPS panels. In any case the reason it was more expensive became apparent upon delivery.

I get true 180 degrees of viewing angles with absolutely no distortion of color/brightness. I don't get blurring/ghosting when playing games even though it has a 5ms g2g response time and the colors are superb. It's the closest thing available to CRT image quality (yes, CRTs have better image quality, they are just too bulky to scale well for more than 19" and widescreen aspects, that's why the industry moved to LCDs).

So, why is that?

First of all, don't be fooled by the response time if there's no further definition of it. There are two response times, one is white to black and the other is gray to gray (g2g). The backlight of the monitor projects light and the crystals rotate under the application of voltage, letting the light through, shutting it off or resting in a partial, in-between position and that's how the different colors are displayed on each pixel.
If memory serves me right due to the way the crystals on the LCD work under the application of voltage, it's actually faster to go from black to white (from the crystal shutting off all light to the crystal letting all of it through and be displayed on the screen) than it is to go between two intermediate positions (g2g). So, a 5ms g2g response time is actually more valuable as a criterion of performance than a 2ms black to white response time.

Next, unless you are buying a monitor with a panel type whose performance you are familiar with, don't buy the viewing angles specs. It's not that the manufacturers are lying, it's just the way viewing angles are defined and measured. So, according to industry standards, a viewable angle is one where the viewer perceives at leats 10% of the monitor's total contrast.

In other words, your monitor could lose as much as 90% of its contrast when viewed from a certain angle and yet this viewpoint is counted as being withing specs. Kind of makes it sound like the big deal that it actually is, don't you think?

So, you could be leaning side to side with your TrackIR to spot that bandit and find out that you get distorted colours depending on your viewpoint, even though the specs say "viewing angles: 170 deg horizontal, 160 deg vertical". Not to mention lifting your head up to look over the nose during landing, with the horrible shift in brightness between the top and bottom of the screen in TN panel type.
You weren't lied to by the manufacturer, you were fooled by the way specs are defined.

Finally, unless you plan on getting the nVidia 3D gadget, there's no reason to go for a 120HZ monitor. As of a few months ago, the only panels capable of such refresh rates where the TN panels.

A brief summary of panel types most commonly used:
TN (twisted nematic): Usually the cheapest. Fastest response times, can go up to 120HZ, worst loss of image quality with a shift in viewpoint. I don't know if this has been fixed, but as far as i know TN panels are also unable to natively display full 32-bit colour. The way most monitors of this type manage to do it is by rapidly switching pixels between two colour values, creating the illusion of the needed third colour in the eyes of the user.

VA (vertical alignment): Mostly used by image editing professionals. Speed is not much of an issue for that kind of work, they obviously care about superior image quality though.
I haven't done too much research into them, but the main thing is that the crystals are aligned a different way. They come with their own set of advantages and drawbacks.

IPS (in-plane switching): Usually expensive panels but after last year's introduction of e-IPS by LG there are affordable models. The main drawbacks are slightly slower response times and inaccurate portrayal of the black colour in low end models. In fact, black is never completely black, but very dark gray and depending on the model, it might seem to give off somewhat of a "glow". In high end models, this is corrected by using a polarizing filter.
Advantages are that despite their slower response times they are still adequate for gaming (even action/shooters) and they have the best combination of viewing angles and color quality. Also, there's a new upcoming variation that will reach 120Hz refresh rates, so the last advantage of the TN panel will be negated as well.
If you have ever seen one of the recent series of iMacs and said "wow, look at that image quality", it's because they use IPS panels.

Truth is, i could never use a TN panel after experiencing IPS. Your mileage may vary, but for me resolutions and refresh rates take a backseat to comfort of viewing and colour quality.

I can spend hours in front of the screen and not feel tired at all. Ok, you need to do some calibration first time you use it, but it can be done well enough with online tools instead of buying calibration hardware kits. For example, the Dell i have is too bright, so i had to turn down brightness a lot before calibrating it.

Also, having a trackIR means i play with Vsync on, which limits your FPS to your monitor's refresh rate. LCD monitors work differently that CRT ones, so you don't need very high refresh rates to prevent flickering and tired eyes. In that sense, 60 limited FPS is more than enough so 60Hz is also fine.

My advice would be to seek out some promotional offers from Dell (there are a lot of those in the US and Europe, you can browse their website and maybe even get a salesperson's phone number to call) and check out their IPS range. They come with a 3-year on site warrantee for zero defective pixels. That means pixels with any kind of defect, as opposed to other warrantee policies, where a stuck pixel is defined as "a pixel which is stuck in either black or white colour" (tough luck if it gets stuck on red).

I know for a fact they have 24" models, i'm just not sure if they have the resolution you seek and the e-IPS economy panels, or they use the more expensive ones. I might sound like a salesman here, but the truth is i was so pleased with the the way this monitor performs and the terrific warrantee/replacement policy that it's a shame not to recommend it to others.