Windows

Top Five Monitor Buying List

Posted by on Jan 28, 2008 | 4 Comments

Gnomie Paul Borowski writes:

  1. Get a company with lots of good reviews so you know what you are getting. I see lots of people getting stuff from the cheaper companies without looking at the specs. This is not smart. Go with a company you feel safe with or have heard good things about.
  2. Make sure you do your research. Some people read a couple good reviews and they think that the product is perfect for them. Make sure you check out reviews from three or more Web sites. Or ask someone that knows more then you about monitors.
  3. Get a high contrast monitor. The higher the contrast, the more colors. 1:1000 contrasts means there are 1 in 1000 different color shades. A low contrast monitor won’t look as good and colors will not stick out as much.
  4. Response time. If you will be gaming you should get a response time under 7 milliseconds. Anything over could not be getting the full potential out of your graphic card. Also make sure your graphic card can support your resolution and size of the monitor.
  5. Make sure you get what you need: CRT or LCD? Most people get LCD today. CRT monitors are not nearly as good, plus they’re big and junky. I would never consider buying a CRT.
  • Mike Nelson

    One mistake in the advice article. LCD’s have more pict-u-lation than CRT’s. Unless you buy the higher end of LCD’s, the colors won’t look right. The quality of LCD’s are getting better every year and the price of quality is coming down. The problem is many people buy the cheapest LCD, and they get exactly what they pay for. CRT’s are usually cheaper with higher quality of picture, but they are bigger and bulky.

    I expect that in the next 5-10 years, CRTs are going to disappear from the market, just because technology will move on, just like the old non color monitors did.

  • kydna

    Paul would never consider buying a CRT monitor. As a photography enthusiast, I beg to differ. For the widest color gamut, a pro CRT display still outperforms LCDs by a large margin, although some LCDs such as the Eizos are fast approaching what a tube can render. For day – to – day use, yes, a LCD is the best way to go now these days, but for photo enthusiasts (unless they wish to spend over 2k quid for a pro LCD) a CRT is still sweet cream.

  • Tom B.

    “CRT monitors are not nearly as good, plus they’re big and junky.”
    CRT monitors are certainly big and bulky, but for applications where accurate color is important, like photo editing, they’re better than an LCD.
    LCD screens are also less predictable. I have two LCD screens on my desk at work, an older 18″ ViewSonic, and a brand-new 19″ Dell. The Viewsonic only claims a 300:1 contrast ratio, while the Dell claims an 800:1 contrast ratio. However, the ViewSonic provides MUCH better contrast, despite the nominally lower contrast, even after tediously adjusting the contrast and brightness on the Dell — things like the light-grey lines at the bottom of a ‘sunken’ Windows text box are invisible on the Dell, but visible on the Viewsonic.

  • Jim Smith

    Some good advice, and some very incorrect advice.

    The contrast ratio (e.g. 2000:1) has nothing to do with the number of colours resolved. It is the difference between true black and true white. The higher the contrast ration, the crisper the image will appear, with black and white being rendered correctly at the higher ratios. The colour space (number of colours defined) is generally sRGB and has nothing to do with contrast ratio.

    The last statement (number 5) is a personal opinion and includes incorrect advice also. Choosing between a CRT or an LCD has everything to do with deskspace and budget. but more importantly, what you will use it for. An LCD will take up much less space than a CRT. However for the same budget, the CRT will generally give a better picture, with many more colours displayed than a consumer LCD monitor. Consumer LCDs are not used by professionals for video or photo editing as their ability to portray smooth gradients of colour is not nearly as good as a CRT. LCDs with this ability cost many hundreds of dollars. While consumer LCDs may appear brighter and more saturated thatn a CRT, the value in a CRT is in its ability to resolve colour. LCDs used for internet, gaming etc will be perfectly fine, but a really not the choice for video and photo editing.

    Jim Smith
    Ancaster Ontario