LCD / Video Card advice request

[Andrej Marjan]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 07:40:17PM -0400, Peter King wrote:
> I'm thinking of getting an LCD monitor. But recently I've gotten burned
> with computer hardware purchases, and thought I'd ask for advice first.

> Most of my work is with text, often in console but sometimes in xdvi or
> xpdf; I don't need 3D acceleration or anything of the sort, but a sharp
> display is a must.

> It seems as though an LCD monitor with a DVI input, paired with a video
> card having a DVI output, produces better-quality results than analogue
> connections. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

In general it should, but not necessarily. I recall seeing a review for
a monitor that actually produced *worse* quality through its DVI input.

I've been looking into an LCD monitor myself, and here's generally what
I've observed:

- There are very few LCD panel makers, but many monitor makers. The
  brand of monitor matters, because different manufacturers use
  different qualities of components, like circuitry and (important!)
  backlights.
- The principal trade-off at the moment seems to be between update speed
  and colour fidelity. The fast panels (the ones that make it possible
  to watch movies and play games) tend to have poor colour fidelity (6
  bit colour channels). Some manufacturers then use dithering schemes to
  improve this somewhat, but that causes flickering in solid dark
  regions.
- Many people seem happy with the output quality of Samsung monitors.
  They generally use slow panels with good colour fidelity and
  sharpness, but unless you're one of those freaks who can use a CRT at
  1600x1200-mheWeHwAo40 at public.gmane.org and not notice, you'll never be able to play video on
  it.

If you're picky, then you have a fair bit of research ahead of you.

Just to state it clearly: if all you will ever do with your monitor is
text-related or static, then you have a wide range of monitors (and
panels) to choose from.

But if you'll *ever* need to play video on the monitor, then you'll find
that only a very few monitors (and only 2 panels IIRC) can do the job at
all, and the price you pay is colour fidelity (which doesn't matter for
text anyway), and possibly viewing angle and some other such things vs.
the newest slow panels/monitors.

I recall that there are some pretty decent introductory articles on
Tom's Hardware about the topic, and they are unusually accurate and
truthful considering the source.

HTH.
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