14.01.06:
Choosing between CRT monitor and LCD display

I decided to invest on an LCD display a few months ago. After long hours of Google research and canvassing, I got he LG 1780Q (”17inch) for about Php20,000 which was considered an expensive panel at that time since the rest fall under the Php15,000 range. I fell in love at first sight — this is the most gorgeous flat panel display I’ve seen that is superslim, has a unique Pressure Sensitive control buttons, and can actually be pivoted/rotated in almost all directions. Unfortunately, these features are just eye candy and nothing more. Even the attention-grabbing f-Engine feature of this panel which at first I thought was a specially designed chip that enhances color quality, is nothing but just display setting presets — Text, Movie, User, Normal.

My ultra slim active-matrix TFT LCD boasts of an incredibly fast response time of 8ms which is ideal for gaming and movie playback. But for the average user, this aspect is hardly noticeable if one would compare an LCD with fast response time to one that has a slow response time of, let say, 25ms. It also has both 15 Pin-D sub(analog signal) and DVI-D(digital signal) which I think should be considered by anyone who is planning to invest on an expensive flat panel. I say this because an LCD’s true benefits can be appreciated when you use digital signal with the help of a good video card that supports this as well of course.I use my desktop PC primarily for web design work — and stictly no gaming (except when I have nothing to do, I play WarCraft for not more than 3hours). After a few months, I began to miss the better color accuracy of my old 20-inch bulky flatscreen CRT monitor (20inch). This is the reason why most graphic designers still perfer CRT over LCD. Recently, I also realized that my LG display was using a 6-bit TN display and this is why it can only claim to produce 16.2M colors rather than a 16.7M colors 8-bit SIPS display. Apparently LG had to use the Twisted Nematic(TN) type and not Super IPS (SIPS) because they were one of the first who developed the TN method — I don’t know if this is still true though. When I compared my LG 1780Q to an AOC LM725 display I was so surprised to discover that the AOC which is Php5,000 cheaper has better color quality regardless of its slower response time of 16ms.

Nonetheless, I made the right choice of investing on an LCD display because of the obvious advantages of it over the traditional CRT. An LCD has almost half or a third of the power consumption of a CRT. Another advantage is less eyestrain which can be said by almost all LCD users who were CRT users in the past. This is very true and perhaps the main reason why I would still prefer an LCD over CRT since I have migraine.

Now is the best time to get an LCD flat panel display since the price is on a constant downfall as more LCD manufacturers are finding ways to improve the technology and at the same time lower the cost of production. However, if you are given the choice between having dual CRT monitor or an expensive state-of-the-art LCD such as my LG 1780Q, which will you choose? Hmmmm… given that the cost of an LCD is the same as the cost of buying two CRTs. Maybe what I’ll do is sell my expensive LG display then save up a bit so I can go for a dual mid-range priced LCD displays!!!

This entry was posted by Marc on Saturday, January 14, 2006 under Hardware, Team Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.