OT - Monitors - TFT v. CRT

[Dave Plowman]

Yup. The day they turn up in TV vision control rooms they'll be worth considering.

[Witchy]

Bugger :) I'll stick with me homebuild PC then.

-- cheers,

witchy/binarydinosaurs

[Andy Wade]

Well I bought a Dell 'UltraSharp' 1800FP (18in. 1280x1024, DVI i/p) earlier this year and it's pretty good. One early observation was that text displays looked a bit fuzzy, rather like a CRT with poor colour convergence, whilst graphics were pixel-perfect. I eventually discovered a display setting in Win-XP (display properties, appearance, effects, "use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts") which, when changed from "cleartype" to "normal", improved things dramatically. So I'll pass this on as a tip: turn ClearType off, it doesn't help.

Not noticeable on this one, but I don't do games.

Not. I measured 42W for a typical screen, 50W flat out white, 2W in powersave, and 1.5W when "off".

This one does. Standard IEC mains connector on the underside of the housing behind the screen: very neat.

But becoming competitive with high-quality CRTs, perhaps. The display quality of cheap CRTs seems to be getting worse - as more cost reductions are implemented, no doubt.

[geoff]

In message , BigWallop writes

I use an NEC 18" TFT - it has the same viewable area as a 19" CRT and cost just over £400. Unfortunately it has a wide enough viewing angle that my wife can see when I'm looking at what I shouldn't be. It knocks spots off the 3 19" CTR monitors I have.

[davenpat]

You must have good eyesight then, cos I can't read the writing under the icons at that resolution :-) And my monitor is 20 inches. Or do you only use that res for games (I hope, or I'm going blind)

Dave

[Chris Oates]

and nobody has mentioned 'dead pixels' yet either !

[Grunff]

I could live with the odd dead pixel (I have one on my laptop - it's like a fried to me) if all else was equal. But it's not.

[Chris Oates]

dreadfully sorry but your are going blind

1600x1200 is lurverly (I'm short sighted)

I'd go higher but the monitor won't take it.

[John Rumm]

Clear type uses so called "sub pixel anti aliasing" - the idea being with a LCD you can control the individual pixels with accuracy, and hence you can position 1/3rd pixels to give you a smoother edge. It requires that the monitor has the same ordering of RGB elements in each pixel that the software is expecting - if you get a monitor with a different order then you get the colour fringe effect.

Most I have seen these days have built in PSU

[usenet]

You can change the size of the writing to whatever you want, it's not dictated by the resolution.

[usenet]

... and is over twice the price I should think.

[usenet]

A 19" flat CRT screen (like the LG Flatron one for example) is a *lot* less than £350, I think they're under £200 now.

[David Hearn]

I guess I could possibly live with a dead pixel - but what I wouldn't want is a pixel which was constantly on. I've seen these any they're infinitely annoying. A green little dot in the same place on the screen whatever is on it. Annoyingly retailers apparently have a certain number of pixels which are allowed to fail yet still be acceptable. If I ever got a TFT display and had one fixed constantly on, I'd return it. Dead (off) pixel I'd still try and return it - but may well not kick up a huge fuss if they didn't allow me to return it.

D

[David Hearn]

Microsoft also have a web-based tool that allows you to configure ClearType to change how it displays it. Basically you pick the text that is clearest for you and then Windows will use that setting rather than the default. I'd really suggest you give it a go and see what you think once its been tuned.

[John Laird]

The "annoying" retailer near me has a sign up at the checkout pointing out that TFT screens come in different grades. Only the highest, and most expensive, grades are free of all pixel defects. I think these are typically bought for uses like checking X-rays or other medical scans. Retailers are in the lower-grade market where you may be lucky, may not.

[nightjar]

The Health & Safety Executive publication I checked at the time claimed that, with CRTs, flicker was considered to be unavoidable for about 5% of the population.

I would probably have built her a shelf with an electrically heated pad on it instead.

Colin Bignell

[geoff]

I should think so.

[davenpat]

So am I, but...... It's just that bit too far.

I've just had a go at the higher resolutions and I'm quite impressed. Particularly when I changed the icon text size. The highest my monitor will go is 1600 by 1200. I can go as high as 2048 by

1536, but it falls to pieces and I have to default to something lower :-(

I'll have a better play later in the week, when I have more time,

Dave

[Dave Liquorice]

42W is "still remarkably greedy" in my book. This 17" iiyama CRT is taking around 60W not a great deal of difference.

[Grunff]

But really, is 40W or thereabouts worth worrying about when your PC is eating a couple of hundred?