What to look for when buying an LCD Monitor

Index:
Why LCD
Overview of features to look for
Widescreen or standard?
What size do you need?
Connectors
Will it work with your PC/Mac?
Warranty

Ready to take the plunge and upgrade your boxy computer monitor to a flat panel, or perhaps youre still using an older LCD and are ready for a monster panel? Heres what you need to know.

Why LCD?

A lot of people dont put much thought into their choice of computer monitor, especially since their lifespan is much longer than that of the PC, and therefore they can be recycled from an old PC to a new one.

But the reality is that an monitor is your primary interface to the computer, and a good monitor can make a huge difference in your enjoyment of using the PC. Older CRT monitors have a flicker caused the scanning cathode ray gun facing the glass screen, and at lower refresh rates, can cause significant eye strain.

LCD monitors dont have this problem, since there is no scanning cathode ray gun, but rather, a panel of liquid crystal cells spread out in a matrix formation that are constantly updated. They also dont generally cause the glare problems that CRT monitors caused.

Theyre also considerably more energy efficient than CRT monitors, which will cut your power bill and help you combat global warming by minimising carbon emissions made on your behalf.

Overview of features to look for

Many people choose LCD monitors on price alone, and while this is a perfectly valid buying strategy for people on a budget, its worth considering if there are any specific features that would suit the main usage of the monitor.

For example, gamers will benefit from paying a little more to get an LCD display with an ultra-fast screen refresh rate. This is the number of milliseconds the panel takes to transition from showing a black pixel on the screen to a mid-grey or white one. Its an important measure because it determines whether a panel is responsive enough to display fast action without motion blur.

General home users may also benefit from looking for a monitor with inbuilt speakers and a USB hub for easy connection of extra peripherals without having to reach around to the back of the PC. Be sure these extras dont cost more than the price of buying them separately to the monitor, though.

Digital photography enthusiasts will benefit from a monitor that has an inbuilt multi-format card reader that can be used to quickly download pictures from a camera memory card to the PC, or even display them directly on the monitor without having to load anything on the PC.

High definition movie fans will want to look for a monitor that has excellent controls for adjusting the properties of the LCD panel brightness, colour, geometry and so on. Theyll also want to ensure the panel provides at least the resolution of high definition movies at 1920×1080 pixels, and that it can connect to their computer digitally via either DVI or HDMI.

Business users will want to check the warranty options on the monitor to minimise downtime if the monitor fails. Some brands offer an on-site warranty where a new monitor will be delivered by courier and swapped over on the spot for the faulty one.

Widescreen or standard?

Widescreen	Normal

LCD monitors introduce the choice of widescreen, cinema-style displays, or standard 4:3 ratio screens. 4:3 means the screen is 4 units wide and 3 units tall, or put another way, the width is four thirds of the height.

Widescreen displays are becoming more popular because of their ability to display movies and TV shows without fat black bars at the top and bottom. Theyre also good for running Windows Vista on because the Vista sidebar (which displays handy informational gadgets) sits at the right of the screen and can crowd a standard 4:3 size screen.

Standard monitors with a 4:3 picture ratio are better for word processing and other document type tasks that require vertical height on the screen. However, as noted above, if you plan to run Vista, its worth getting a widescreen monitor anyway and using the extra width for the Vista sidebar.

What size do you need?

With older-style CRT monitors, size was somewhat determined by the weight of the monitor. The bigger the got, the heavier and more difficult to move they were, and as a result most people never got a larger monitor than about 21. Now, with the light weight of flat-panel monitors, its possible to go as large as 30 and still be able to move house without getting specialist removalists in.

At the time of writing, the sweet spot in LCD monitor pricing was at the 19 size. 21 monitors jump up in price to over three times the cost of a 19 monitor.

However, thats not to say you should go for 19 21 and above gives a satisfyingly enormous desktop to work with, and that room to move can transform computing from being a mundane office task to something truly enjoyable.

As they say, though, its not the size that matters its what you do with it. What you can do with it depends very much on the resolution (number of pixels able to be shown) on the display. In general, the larger the panel, the larger number of pixels it can display. For example, a 21 monitor will typically be able to display 1680×1050px, while a 19 one may only be able to display 1440×900 or 1280×1024.

To get a panel capable of showing high definition movies at full resolution, youll need at least a 24 panel. These typically have a resolution of 1920×1200px slightly larger than the 1920×1080 resolution needed to display HD-DVDs and BluRay movies.

Connectors

VGA	DVI

LCD monitors come with a variety of connectors, so its important to get one that matches the connector on your computer. The main types are:

· VGA: the old style analogue video connector designed to be used with CRT monitors. Many LCD panels include this type of connector for compatibility with old PCs, but its not ideal, as the signal has to be converted from analogue to digital in the monitor, and this may result in pictures that are not perfectly sharp. If you are planning to use an LCD monitor with a VGA connection, make sure it has an auto-adjust function which can automatically sense the best settings.

· DVI: the newer digital video interface connector which carries signals in a fully digital format from your computers video card to the monitor. Unfortunately, its not fast enough to feed the very largest monitors with pixel data fast enough, requiring the use of two DVI cables or a DVI dual-link cable at once. (See note below.)

· HDMI: the latest digital connector designed for use in high-definition home theatre environments. It has enough bandwidth to carry very high-definition signals over a single cable, however not many computer video cards provide this as an output option yet.

The problem with really large monitors, such as the 30 monsters, is that they require a special video card and cables which may add considerably to the cost of your setup. This is because the design of the digital video interface (DVI) connector isnt capable of carrying signals to feed pixels to such a large display fast enough. As a result, you need a video card capable of a DVI dual-link connection, which uses two separate video processing chips and DVI connections, moulded into one cable.

If you have a reasonably new computer with a mid-range video card, it may already be DVI dual-link capable. Ask your retailer for assistance in identifying whether your PC is dual-link capable if youre interested in using a large monitor. This problem does not affect monitors using an HDMI connection, however, video cards with HDMI on them were rare at the time of writing.

Notebook users, particularly, may have problems connecting to very large monitors because theyre only able to work with the video capabilities built into their notebook. Apple MacBook Pro come with dual-link DVI connectors included, so they can drive the largest monitors with no problems.

Will it work with your PC/Mac?

The short answer is yes monitors do not require operating system drivers to work. You can just plug them in and they should work.

The longer answer is that its a little more complicated than that in real life. Your video card must be able to connect to the monitor, as mentioned above, and some monitors do come with handy software that allows your operating system to calibrate its colour settings to the monitors capabilities.

If you want to be sure before buying a monitor, the best way to check if it will work with your operating system is to do a Google search for reports from other users on how a monitor worked with their system.

Warranty

LCD monitors do have one major technology problem: the possibility of one or more pixels becoming stuck or dead, meaning that it will always show a bright white or black spot somewhere on your screen.

Before buying a display, check what the manufacturers dead or stuck pixel policy is. Make sure you have it in writing and printed out, because there is often confusion between retailers, the manufacturer and the distributor on the fine detail of the policy. (Some manufacturers say that they wont replace a panel unless there are more than five stuck pixels, for example, while others will have a different policy for stuck pixels vs dead pixels.)

Also check if there is an early-life failure policy for example, if the monitor develops a dead or stuck pixel within the first 14 days of usage, that you can bring it back to the shop and get a swapover straight away rather than having to go through a more extended warranty return process.

If you can, get the retailer to open up and demonstrate the monitor working to you before you leave the shop, so can check it for dead/stuck pixels. In reality, most shops wont be willing to do this, which is why the warranty is so important.

As noted a the start of the article, some brands even offer an on-site warranty where a courier will drop off a new monitor to you and pick up your failed one, for ultimate convenience.

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