LCD Round-up

TheKillerBee writes "The TechReport has posted a nice comparison of several different LCDs. A plethora of benches are present to help you decide how to spend that Christmas bonus check!" The screen update times still aren't fast enough for gamers, but they still are ever so delicious.

Why Bother

[TheEnglishPatient]

From the article:-
"The good will have to really outweigh the bad and the ugly if you want to justify an opulent LCD purchase to your boss, to yourself, or worse, to your significant other."

Obviously LCD still hasn't bettered CRT so keep you old monitor and spend the dosh on something else instead.

LCD vs CRT

[theeds]

Despite the years that lcd's have been around I still don't get why people buy them over crt. Yes they take up less space and if you poke them you can make cool designs, but past that they suck. I just hate it when I'm scrolling and the page gets all blurry, it's like a bad cam version of a movie.

Re:Hello ignorance!

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the author was talking about ghosting caused by slow LCD updates, which is still an issue. Sure, you may not be able to see the flicker you get with CRTs, but you can see after-images when you've got a lot of motion going on.

LCDs are fine for gamers

[Getzen]

"The screen update times still aren't fast enough for gamers, but they still are ever so delicious."

Just to set the record straight, many people, myself included, have found that update times less than 30 ms are plenty good for even the fastest games (UT2003 springs to mind). My 15" KDS is excellent for gaming -- I can't imagine ever going back to a CRT.

The resolution still isn't up to par...

[httpamphibio.us]

I'm a real estate whore... I'm currently running 2 19" monitors at 1600x1200 (3200x1200) and I'm seriously considering getting a third. I've looked at LCD's every once in a while and I've never been pleased with what I've found, I can get a very decent 19" for under $200, Viewsonic PF790's are what I'm using now. Lower cost, higher res, I could even get three of these and be right in the middle of the pack pricewise. Apart from the Apple Cinema HD [apple.com] (which I wouldn't mind getting four of) I can't think of an LCD that cuts it.

Wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but facts do [apple.com]. What, do you live in a cave? Apple makes LCDs that aren't attached to powerbooks and iMacs.

Re:Why Bother

[KFury]

It's funny how a 1280x1024 LCD at $799 is considered opulent. It wasn't so long ago that an 800x600 15" CRT cost more than that.

Most places I've worked have sprung for Trinitron tubes back when they cost a premium. Why is it unreasonable to think they'll go LCD? Do you have any idea how much these things save in desk space? and frankly, they make users happy, which also helps the bottom line. The up-front cost is a small price to pay for the continuing dividends.

Re:Why Bother

[tuffy]

Obviously LCD still hasn't bettered CRT so keep you old monitor and spend the dosh on something else instead.

If you want to stare at text all day long, you'll need a CRT with a fast refresh rate to approach LCD's "no refresh" approach, so in that respect LCDs are far superior. But, if you want to play action games, you'll need an LCD with a fast update to approach a CRTs refresh rate. On the other hand, if you have too much desk space and need to put more watts through your UPS, CRTs are superior in that respect also. But, LCDs still don't have the brightness of a CRT.

In short, LCD and CRT tech are different and the value of each will depend on just what the user is looking for in a monitor.

Flat panel CRTs

[regne]

Does anyone know what happened with flat CRTs [slashdot.org]?. I'm still waiting for a 36" Magnetic Matrix Display to replace my old 4:3 TV set. Should I start breathing again?.

Re:Hmph.

[red_dragon]

Because they believe that:

• Apple hardware is completely incompatible with PC hardware;
• ADC only works with Apple hardware;
• There are no ADC-to-DVI converters.

Ignorance is bliss, some people say.

Re:Don't bitch about lack of Apple LCDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately you are an idiot. DVI Apple monitors are easily found. DVI is common on many GeForce 1/2/3/4 cards. You plug it in and it works.

I'll get "used to it"?

[realmolo]

So many people with LCDs that they use for games are saying "Yeah, it ghosts sometimes, but you'll get used to it". Screw that. LCDs cost more than *bigger*, better CRTs. So I'm paying more to have a crappier picture in essentially every way (color, speed, viewing angle, brightness are all superiour on a CRT)? Give me a break. Oh, and the "saves valuable desktop space" argument is bullshit, too. What, exactly, are you going to be putting behind your LCD display, now that the space isn't taken up by the CRTs tube? LCDs are cool because they are thin, don't use much power, and have a sharper (though not necessarily better)picture. That's it. Otherwise, they suck.

TCo, it's not just for megacorporations!

[Jeremiah Blatz]

One thing that really upsets me about thes LCD reviews is that the authors are totally lazy. They say "LCD's are more expensive up-front, but they're smaller and save desk space." Fine, but that statement is useless without numbers.

1) Real estate
Save desk space? Whatever, LCDs let you save floor space by getting a smaller desk. So, how's this pay? Well, the initial cost of the LCD should probably go up a bit, since most folks don't have a narrow desk. So, tack on $50 as a base cost for a new desk. (If you shop at IKEA, you can get a new top and re-use your existing legs, driving the cost down towards like $25. If you're seriously rich, maybe you'll drop $500 on a new desk, but you probably already own the LCD.)

So, now the repeating costs. A 2' desk that's 6 feet wide will save you 6 aq'. In Manhattan, a 1000 sq' apartment is $2000/mo. or $2/sq'/mo. In Pittsburgh, it's more like $.10/sq'/mo. Obviously, where you live makes a difference. So, annually, we have:
LCD Savings
Cheap cities: $7/yr
Expensive cities: $144/yr (no wonder that every business in Manhattan buys LCDs as a matter of course)
Note that the payoff period for the desk is more than 9 years in Pittsburgh, so there is about 0 space savings.

2) Power
Unless you live in California, I think electricity's about $.07/kW/h. Let's assume you use power saving reasonably and stuff. If you work at home, or multiple people use your computer throughout the day, the monitor's probably going to be on like 12 hrs/day. If you're a more causal user, it's probably more like 4. If you use your computer to read email once a week, you don't read slashdot.

So, according to the article, monitors use 100w, LCDs use 50. Assume you use your computer 260 days per year (5 weeks/year not using). For the heavy user, CRT is 100*12*260*.07/1000 = $21/yr. The causal user is $7/yr. LCDs are half that, for a cost savings of $10 and $4.

So, how expensive are LCDs? Well, 4 years seems a reasonable length of time to own a monitor. So here's a comparison for a 17" LCD and 19" CRT (which have about the same viewable area). Assumes the initial cost of the LCD is $650(+50 in Manhattan), CRT is $250. Lists the cost difference of an LCD:

Manhattan (heavy use): $152 less
Manhattan (light use): $144 less
Pittsburgh (heavy use): $260 more
Pittsburgh (light use): $384 more

Hopefully this ads a touch of rigor to your buying decision. I suspect that if you live outside the energy-subsidized US, the energy costs will become more significant. If you live in a hot climate, you might want to factor in A/C costs (see below). Also not factored in is the reduced eyestrain with LCDs. For those of you who work long hours, this is probably worth the LCD price on its own.

For another take on TCO, which is more detailed WRT power & cooling, but seems less useful to me, check out this page [viewsonic.com].

Re:One big problem (literally) with CRT's

[ckedge]

Short Depth monitors (like the Viewsonic PS790) have horrible quality problems. You either have abberations (one color shifted a pixel off) near the edges of the screen (which on a 19inch are pretty big) and a sharp center, or you have the same problem or a vague fuzziness in the center of the screen while having sharp edges. There's a big reason they dropped "short depth" as a "big feature point" and are now all over "flat", and quality and warranty-cost issues are part of it.

AND to top it all off, "short depth" wrt tubes means 17 inches deep instead of 18.5 inches. Ooooh, so much more compact.

Good Enough (tm)

[syylk]

I read many posts saying that LCD will never catch up a good CRT, that LCD still have a long way to go, that numbers don't lie, etc. at least wrt fast moving things on-screen and action packed games.

All valid points, I concede, but I want to give my experience. With my workmates, we usually give up the lunch break, have a quick sandwich, and fire up Unreal Tournament on our laptops. One year old stuff, mind you, nothing groundbreaking (Asus L8400 and Acer 212TX). Original UT, not UT2003 - the latter doesn't even install on the machines!

Well, just today we totalled a 20-0 CTF, with our lame LCDs. We were four, against four "godlike" (= max difficulty level) bots. I know that bots, even max skill, aren't a match for human creativity, but still, we managed to wind up a nice score on LCDs.

Are we really good (I dearly doubt that), or actually a slow-refreshing LCD isn't an unsurmountable obstacle in fast action playing?

Can I say "just good enough"?