Flat panel displays are coming down in price, and may reach parity with CRTs sometime in 2003, according to analysts. This section follows important developments in this emerging market. Look for frequent updates and product reviews as this market matures.
There are several good reasons to consider an LCD Flat Panel display (and a few reasons not to, which we'll get to later in this article). With no flicker, they are easier on the eyes than even a fast-refreshing Cathode Ray tube (CRT) display. Obviously, they take up less desk space, making them an attractive option for homes or business situations where desk or counter space is in short supply. They also stay cooler, making them a good choice for interior offices or areas with limited air circulation.
However, they are not ideal for all users. Graphic artists, for example, who are using an LCD screen as their only display, may be frustrated by the screen's inability to depict a true black, and, to a lesser extent, a true white. LCD displays, no matter how expensive or large, exhibit a clearly visible colour shift when viewed at an angle (in this regard, a smaller LCD is actually better for desktop publishing work than a larger one). If you need to see accurate colour across your screen, a flat-screen CRT (ideally, with a hood and a display calibrator) is the best display technology. (See our LCD vs. CRT report for more details on this topic.) Gamers, meanwhile, may find that a CRT is a better bet when using games that attempt to change the screen resolution -- a weak area on most LCDs. Finally, there's the issue of viewing angle. If you need to have more than one person simultaneously view the screen, LCDs are not the best choice.
Key factors to consider include the type of connector, contrast ratio, adjustment controls and the sharpness of the display itself. You should also check that the illumination of the display looks even -- lower cost displays sometimes have darker patches or exhibit unpleasant-looking colour shifts due to narrow viewing angles. For the best viewing experience, you should look for a flat panel with a wide viewing angle (note that both horizontal and vertical angles are significant here), a high contrast ratio and a DVI (or ADC, if on a Mac) digital video connector for the sharpest possible images.
There are further factors to consider, as well. Some models, such as the Samsung SyncMaster 151MP, include built-in speakers. But merely having a built-in audio subsystem doesn't necessarily mean that a flat panel is ideal for gaming. The response time of the display -- usually expressed in milliseconds -- is important if you are planning an using the monitor for gaming or animation tasks, where slower responses could impede the viewing experience or, in extreme cases, lead to streaks on the screen as the liquid crystals struggle to keep up with your mouse movements or other on-screen action.
Assuming that an LCD display makes sense for your applications, the biggest question to consider when looking at Flat Panel displays is what method you will use to connect it to your computer. Although it's no surprise that digital interfaces provide better image quality than old-style analog connections, no less than three digital flat panel "standards" complicate the picture. Tom's Hardware Guide has an excellent overview of the issues.
An examination of the technologies involved shows that the Digital Visual Interface (DVI) standard is the one with the most potential. It supports higher resolutions and also enables the connection of analog devices (usually requiring the use of an adapter).
However, the picture gets a little complicated when you consider that Apple, which once incorporated the DVI spec into its forward-looking Cinema Display, has since dropped DVI in favour of yet another proprietary "standard," known as ADC. At any rate, graphics cards and LCD panels compatible with both PCs and Apple computers exist. (There are at least three devices on the market, including Apple's own Apple DVI to ADC Adapter, that can adapt Apple's ACD displays to PCs or Macs with standard DVI connectors. See our report on Dr. Bott's DVIator elsewhere on this site for a hands-on review and further details.)
Oddly, despite Apple's technology partnership with ATI (which, as we speculated back in mid-2000, is now being challenged by nVIDIA), many of ATI's retail products for the Macintosh don't support the ADC connector, nor do most of Apple's current computers directly support DVI (only the April 2002 PowerBook models provide a DVI output connector). Fortunately, some of the company's newer products, such as the retail box version of the Radeon 9000 for Mac, come ADC-ready. Things are simpler in the PC world, where there are numerous display cards from ATI, Matrox and others supporting DVI.
And Matrox and ATI aren't alone in their support for DVI, however, the recent consolidation of the graphics card market that has seen both Number Nine (which once offered products with DVI connectors) and 3dfx go out of business, and Matrox retreat from the mainstream gaming market as well. Despite the confusion, we still think the best bet in flat-panel interface technologies is the DVI standard.
Samsung was one of the first to launch a 21-inch LCD flat panel display with support for video inputs. Shipping since Q1/2001, the display has a standard 1600x1200 native resolution with both DVI and VGA connectors. The display features inputs for NTSC composite video and S-video and supports Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture (side by side) viewing of dual inputs. See samsungmonitor.com for details.
PC owners looking for a more economical alternative to Apple's now-discontinued DVI version of its pricey Cinema Display (which works with "superwide savvy" DVI-capable graphics cards) should check out the Silicon Graphics 1600SW, a 17.3-inch "superwide" format (16 x 10 aspect ratio) TFT display with the same maximum resolution as Apple's 1600 x 1024-pixel Cinema Display. The 1600SW, which we've seen selling at prices as low as $1653 US, uses a 36-pin "OpenLDI standard" connector.
Darek Mihocka, developer of the "SoftMac 2000" Macintosh emulator, says, "they're just amazing -- the sharpest brightest cleanest computer monitors I've ever seen. I have a stack of four of them on my desk right now that replaced a big old stack of hot, dusty and heavy 21-inch monitors." Mihocka uses the displays at his booths at tradeshows, where he can usually be found showing off his latest emulation efforts.
There is an adapter available for the 1600SW allowing it to be used with virtually any graphics card on the market. SGI's website says: "MultiLink will also be available to existing Silicon Graphics 1600SW customers for $450 (ESP), and can be purchased directly from SGI at 800-800-4SGI or www.sgi.com. The MultiLink Adapter (which utilizes a scaling chip developed by Toronto-based Genesis Microchip) is covered by a three-year limited warranty."
According to the page at http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/6421.html, "a multi-resolution scaling feature [in the MultiLink] enables users to view lower resolution images at full-screen size." This feature is called "ratiometric expansion." With it, the display allows custom resolutions that, in essence, permit continuously variable resolution adjustments. Practically speaking, this feature allows LCD displays to deliver clear, non-jaggy text at various resolutions. Without, non-default resolutions would have unpleasant jaggies and distorted fonts.
And, if the 22" Apple Cinema Display or one of Apple's other LCD-based monitors is the apple of your eye, the fact that they ship with a proprietary, Apple-only ADC connector isn't a major problem. (You should, however, note that, in a PC World test of flat panel display vendors, Apple's warranty was rated worst overall.) A display adapter such as the DVIator (about US$148) allow these displays to be used on DVI-capable PCs or older Macs. In fact, despite information in a Dr. Bott FAQ that says "we are not aware of a commercially available video card that supports the necessary resolutions and refresh rate to support Apple's ADC," we've tested a DVIator on a Windows PC equipped with an ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder card with good results (and a few minor caveats) at 1600x1024 and lower resolutions.
Under Windows XP, the ClearType option (which triples the effective resolution) looks amazing, and the special widescreen version of the gorgeous "aquarium" screensaver from www.serenescreen.com makes a killer demo. It looked great, although we noticed a slight amount of green "pixel static" on desktops with dark background colours when we first installed it. On the default blue desktop, however, it looked perfect. Interestingly, after having the DVIator unit connected for a day or so, these rapidly flashing and random pixels seem to have vanished. Now that this minor issue seems to have disappeared, we are 100% delighted with the DVIator -- and tempted to permanently move it from our PowerMac G4 to the Windows XP machine where it really shines. (No, we mean really, really shines. For some reason, the DVIator seems even brighter by default on a PC than it does on a Mac. Thank heavens for the gamma and brightness controls provided in ATI's display driver.) The DVIator also supplies support for the Apple display's USB ports. Dr. Bott notes that owners of PCs equipped with several other GeForce and ATI Radeon series display cards have also reported success with the 22" and 23" Cinema Displays.
At the other extreme, there is a healthy market for low-cost LCD panels, which now start at prices under $500 Cdn. (Read the reviews of the KDS Radius Rad-5 and ViewSonic VE150m flat-panels in SharkyExtreme for a look at two popular models.) These displays sell for under US$400 and US$500, respectively. In short, the reviewer liked the single-cable design of the KDS model, but preferred the display quality of the Viewsonic unit. Beware of the ultra-low end. We're not sure how the manufacturing quality of the US$299 Proview PL541 LCD panel is, but if its life expectancy is anything like that of the company's CRT monitors, it's best avoided. On the other hand, it gets better reviews than the US$599 Sony,SDM-M51. Many of the dealers we've spoken to recently recommend the Samsung SyncMaster 570B TFT, ViewSonic VP151 and the mid-priced NEC 1810+. Tom's Hardware Guide has reviews of several leading models.
Seeking the ultimate "gee whiz" display? You might want to look at the growing selection of pivoting flat panels. You simply grab the LCD panel and rotate the landscape-oriented display 90 degrees to a portrait orientation, where the graphics card driver re-orients the display for the new view. It's ideal for publishers and others wanting to work on a "full page" display -- and, as you may expect, you pay extra for this luxury. This trick first appeared in the early 1990s on Pivot displays for the Mac from now-defunct Radius, which later sold the technology to a company called Portrait Display Inc. Current "Catalyst" drivers for ATI's Radeon series of graphics cards for Windows can add similar capabilities to virtually any PC. The lowest cost pivoting display we've seen is the CTX PV520. It sells for about US$409.
According to information on cold cathode fluorescent lamps at JKL Lamps, the life expectancy of CCFL lamps that usually drive LCD displays is generally rated at 20,000 hours. Some companies rate their products even more conservatively. Apple's Cinema display, which includes 4 backlighting bulbs, has an estimated life of 15,000 hours, according to an Apple rep quoted in a Sept. 21st, 1999 story at Macintouch.com.
JKL Lamps sells replacement lamps for backlit displays.
You should be aware that most LCD vendors consider a few "dead" pixels to be "normal" in large displays. (In Sept. 2002, CTX claimed to be the first and only LCD vendor to promise "no dead pixels" in its S530 LCD display.) If the idea of a dot on your screen that is completely dead or (more commonly) "stuck on" bothers you, examining the unit with the power turned on and a computer attached before plunking down your hard-earned cash is probably a good plan, as most companies won't cover these dead pixel problems under warranty. I find dead pixels really distracting and thus would never consider buying an LCD display or portable computer without seeing it in action first. Be aware, however, that most retailers won't allow to to open retail boxes and unpack equipment to check it out before buying. In short, it's a dilemma best solved by an agreement in writing that unconditional returns are allowed.
An Apple tech doc on LCDs and burn-in that notes that active-matrix LCD displays may exhibit a ghost image of menus or other items on the screen for long periods of time. This effect is usually only seen after having a static image on the display for 24 hours or so; the document notes that leaving it off for between one to two times as long will remove it. To preserve the life of your LCD display, the Tech Note recommends against screensavers and suggests using Energy Saver settings to turn off the display after a period of inactivity to extend the life of the backlight.
The latest operating systems from Apple and Microsoft support a feature known as sub-pixel rendering (Microsoft calls it "ClearType") that effectively triples the resolution of an LCD display via a clever software trick that independently controls the red, green and blue pixels on the screen. This trick does not work on CRT displays. Under Windows, you'll find it under Display>Appearance>Effects. In Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar, you'll find the "Best for LCD" setting on the System Preferences>General page.
Other caveats
PCWorld tested a number of LCDs and found that contrast ratios sometimes varied widely from the stated specs. In short, you should trust your eyes, not the manufacturers' marketing claims.
What's Ahead
The New Scientist reports that a new printing process developed by Cambridge Display Technology and Seiko-Epson allows a modified inkjet printing system to deposit light-emitting arrays of red, green and blue light-emitting polymers (LEPs) on a silicon substrate. The team claims it will be able to use this system to manufacture displays cheaply enough to make colour video affordable on future wireless Internet devices, such as palm tops, webpads and mobile phones.
Perhaps more importantly, the Achilles' Heel of LCD displays -- their limited colour saturation -- is being addressed by new technologies. While current LCDs -- the best of which use MVA (multidomain vertical alignment) deliver faster screen refreshes (usually around 10 milliseconds to light up; 15 to go dark), better brightness and contrast than standard TFT technologies, there are further improvements ahead. NEC-Mitsubishi displayed a prototype LCD using LEDs for light sources at Comdex 2002, and again at WinHEC. The so-called "wide gamut" 22-inch display boasted colour saturation 107% the vibrancy of NTSC color. Standard CRTs (~70%) and the best color corrected CRT monitors (~93%) pale in comparison.
Also at WinHEC, Bill Gates said that Microsoft expects the street price of 20-inch high density LCDs to drop to about US$400 by mid-2004. THe company is working to optimize future versions of Windows for a display density of at least 120 pixels per inch -- substantially higher than the 2003-era standard of about 95 ppi.
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