ATM I am running 2 CRT 15" moniters. But I am going to buy myself a 17" flat panel moniter but what do I need to know? I read alot about waiting time and things like that and have not got a clue what it means. So hopefully some people out there will be able to explain things for me. Thanks

make sure it has a very fast response time and that it comes with dvi and vga. VGA sucks for LCD monitors. Make sure you get a DVI cord and that your videocard supports DVI. My monitor's response time is 16ms which i guess is decent. but it doesnt support DVI :'(

If you want more specifics; head over to www.ocforums.com and search for monitors. there are tons of reccomendations and information there about pc hardware. reviews and stuff too.

Take a look at the monitor you want to buy. Forget response times. No TFT can even dream about being fast but it's all a matter of taste.

Make sure the response time is very fast, or else you get 'ghosting' and it looks awful in games (like a motion blur). Some screens have it (mostly LCDs), and others have a slight hint of it that it is hardly noticeable.

The "response times" provided by the manufacturers are practically arbitary numbers and you shouldn't decide because of them, never!

haha. my monitor gives me a tiny bit of blur but only if say a car goes whizzing across my screen at 100mph. its kinda cool just make sure your videocard and Monitor support DVI.

Quote from SladiVadi :

The "response times" provided by the manufacturers are practically arbitary numbers and you shouldn't decide because of them, never!

True I guess, but if you have very good eyes, the difference is noticeable when going by the numbers. You might as well go around and see what screens you can demo to see how good the image quality looks during motion.

Yeah unfortunately the manufacturers aren't helpful with their PR numbers.

Response times:

25ms = bad. Only old monitors, like mine, should be this rubbish
16ms = getting better, just about suitable for gaming
12ms = getting close to CRT in visual performance, and good value for money now too
8ms = was the fastest for a long time. Virtually no ghosting visible
5ms = the best I think so far. I doubt anyone could tell it from a CRT in terms of ghosting etc.

The newer response times like 6ms and below are "cheated". Instead of a "white-to-black-to-white" cycle they nowadays use "white-to-lightgrey-to-white" to get faster times.
My checklist for buying a LCD:
a) Use a current model. Nearly all current LCD-panels have sufficient response times. 12ms or below is fine.
b) Use a LCD-panel with 16,7 million colors. There are panels with fewer colors and they won't display the true color. That is especially hindering when you want to print something, because the displayed and the printed images have different colors.
c) Buy somewhere where you can return the monitor without specific reason. Dead pixels are not included in the warranty and do not count as return-reason. So you may be stuck on a monitor with dead pixels when you can't return it without reason.
d) Don't trust monitor-speakers. They're useless. Even a deaf person could hear that they sound crappy.
e) Depending on your enviroment choose a suiting contrast and brightness.
f) If possible, let the salesman show you the display. Let him check it on dead pixels in front of your eyes and take a look at a black screen. Some screens can't display homogenuos black (they fade white around the edges).
That should leave you with a great display.

Vain

Quote from Vain :

The newer response times like 6ms and below are "cheated". Instead of a "white-to-black-to-white" cycle they nowadays use "white-to-lightgrey-to-white" to get faster times.
My checklist for buying a LCD:
a) Use a current model. Nearly all current LCD-panels have sufficient response times. 12ms or below is fine.
b) Use a LCD-panel with 16,7 million colors. There are panels with fewer colors and they won't display the true color. That is especially hindering when you want to print something, because the displayed and the printed images have different colors.
c) Buy somewhere where you can return the monitor without specific reason. Dead pixels are not included in the warranty and do not count as return-reason. So you may be stuck on a monitor with dead pixels when you can't return it without reason.
d) Don't trust monitor-speakers. They're useless. Even a deaf person could hear that they sound crappy.
e) Depending on your enviroment choose a suiting contrast and brightness.
f) If possible, let the salesman show you the display. Let him check it on dead pixels in front of your eyes and take a look at a black screen. Some screens can't display homogenuos black (they fade white around the edges).
That should leave you with a great display.

Vain

Black is generally a problem with LCD/TFT Screens, as the screen is lighted from the back.
So, if you're going to do any art on your comp, go for CRT, as they are more true in colour. Another thing I don't like about TFTs is that they usually are limtied to one screen resolution, and any other looks terribly blurry.
Also, I don't know if the "glow at night" effect I have aquired by being exposed to the radiation for one and a half decades would persist, if not refreshed daily

Yeah, following on from what he said, TFTs are fixed res, so make sure you can run all your games at that res. Also, 17" TFTs tend to be 5:4, not 4:3, so not only will any other resolution look really bad, but it'll be distorted too. 19" TFTs are no better, so you'd need to get at least a 20" to get a normal aspect ratio, and they're damn pricey. Avoid cheap brands too. And don't buy silver, it looks tacky.

Myself, I'm saving for a 21" CRT. Find a TFT that will do 2048x1536. Oh, and heavy is GOOD.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Myself, I'm saving for a 21" CRT. Find a TFT that will do 2048x1536. Oh, and heavy is GOOD.

have you got any idea which monitors are worth buying ? ive read a lot of complains about iiyamas being blurry most of the time and you need to send them back to the support a few times until your lucky enough to get a good one and samsungs havin an annoying hum ... and since eizo doesnt manufacture crts anymore and since im reluctant to pay some 50 euros for shipping for a used monitor bought on ebay that i havent even seen prior to buying it im out of ideas which monitor i should buy

Havent read the whole thread, but those response times dont provide the same speed, it depends on the display and the the sort of panel. For example, the 23" TFT Benq has 16ms, but many tests say it's really fast compared to others.
If you want to do GFX stuff, you need to have a good colour depth either.

Quote from Vain :

The newer response times like 6ms and below are "cheated". Instead of a "white-to-black-to-white" cycle they nowadays use "white-to-lightgrey-to-white" to get faster times.

Actually transition to black to white to black (or vice versa) is not the slowest. Slowest I think is gray to white to gray or something like that.
But yes, manufacturers announced figures don't tell much. Because the response times differ with different colors and to what the pixels color has to change to. And there is not even an unified way to measure response times.

Better just take a look at reviews of TFT monitors.
I myself have Hyundai 15" TFT. According to Hyundai this has 16ms response time and the ghosting is hardly noticeable. You have to look really carefully to see it.

The backlight is unaffected by the color information. The brightness of a pixel is controled by the sum of the brightness of the subpixels. That's why TFTs have so bad black (the picture is black, but still the backlight is glowing bright, shining slightly through the subpixels, creating a tid bit of grey, or worse, one of the RGB-colors if one of them shines through more). So to switch from white to black all subpixels have to switch from bright to dark.

Vain

Quote from Shotglass :

have you got any idea which monitors are worth buying ? ive read a lot of complains about iiyamas being blurry most of the time and you need to send them back to the support a few times until your lucky enough to get a good one and samsungs havin an annoying hum ... and since eizo doesnt manufacture crts anymore and since im reluctant to pay some 50 euros for shipping for a used monitor bought on ebay that i havent even seen prior to buying it im out of ideas which monitor i should buy

A little OT, but this rings a bell;
I have two IIyama 454 19" HM903DTBs (little brother of the 22" 514), and from the specs, they are about the best 19" monitor money can buy....
However, I've had both replaced under their 3year RTB warranty, and IIyama will be getting a call shortly to replace one of those (refurbed replacement) again!!

When the faulty one gets warm, it is blurry as feck, and if it gets really warm in the summer it phases in and out of something that I can only describe as similar to a 30px gaussian blur.
Both of them also have slight distortions in the mask on te right hand side, causing a kind of banding (not your regular 16bit bandng, its far more subtle), and also causing the screen to turn funny colours when you hit degauss. Additionally, they take forever to set up right.

All in all, not impressed, so I won't be buying another IIyama.

I'd wait for the first SED monitors to hit the market and see how those turn out (in quality and price) Thosiba is should come out with one at the end of the year.

Quote from Mbrio :

I'd wait for the first SED monitors to hit the market and see how those turn out (in quality and price) Thosiba is should come out with one at the end of the year.

Seems too good. It might turn out too expensive, but let's hope it doesn't.

Quote from SladiVadi :

Take a look at the monitor you want to buy. Forget response times. No TFT can even dream about being fast but it's all a matter of taste.

A Respone time does matter. A response time of 12 or below is very good. I have a Philips 17" TFT and is very good. Also look for the amount of colours - think 16.9M is very good,


Thanks all!!

Quote from Mbrio :

I'd wait for the first SED monitors to hit the market and see how those turn out (in quality and price) Thosiba is should come out with one at the end of the year.

i figure the will still have the annoying 1 resolution only bahaviour of lcds ... flat and nice idea but still no crt competitor

Right, I have a budget of ~£200
I want it mainly for gaming.
I have a ASUS Geforce 7800GT graphics card which has 2 DVI slots.
I want to get it from a shop, so if for any reason it needs to go back or something, it can be easliy. The shops I have to choose from so far are:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martp ... amp;sm=2&tm=undefined
http://www.currys.co.uk/martpr ... meljkhjcflgceggdhhmdgmh.0
http://powerc.com/cgi-bin/psea ... =1&rn=644&s1=902A

If CRT means a big lump out the back of the moniter, then I would rather not have that, I have always thought that flatscreens have better image quality, am I wrong?

If someone can compile a list of things I should look out for that would be amazing.
Thanks alot for all of your replies

First of all i would recommend having a snoop around HERE for loads of information on TFTs. Especially the ones in the stickies at the top of the page.

There is a TFT SELECTOR kindly provided by Baddass on the above OcUK forums, also have a look around the rest of the site too for some top tips

Basically this is how they are laid out in the world of TFT screens.

25ms = Very slow srceen and very hard to come by in anything other than larger sized screens. Very good viewing angles though and usually brilliant colour reproduction.

16ms = A little ghosting but nothing massive, good viewing angles and good colour reproduction. Not many screens (smaller screens anyway) use this speed any more.

12ms = For a PC that is multifunctional, this is really the one to go for. Its a fast screen with very little ghosting, while keeping very good viewing angles and good colour reproduction. Loads of choice here, but the LG 1780 range is meant to be one of the very best, although its not the cheapest.

8ms = Very fast, no ghosting, or very little. However, the speed comes at a price. Images are not as colourful as on slightly slower screens, and unless you are sitting almost in front of the screen you will notice a difference in image colours. Very good for gaming, but for movies, usually a no go. In this range the Samsung 713 range seem to come out on top trumps on the performance:value ratio or the new Xerox 172 range.

4ms = w00t, an uber fast screen, this is absolutely great. Ermmmmmm, not if your doing anything but gaming and are directly in front of the screen. Compared to slower screens the 4ms models are generally not as vivid colour wise, and are meant to be pretty bad for viewing angles. If your going for this speed then the Viewsonic G2G screens are probably the best to go for.

Never follow the guidllines on the specifications given, manufactureres test the screens to their advantage. The best thing to do is find a decent place with user reviews, rather manufacturer specs.

If your wanting to buy from a shop rather than online i would recommend looking at your local PC shops, not major stores. PC World are absolute con artist and will overprice by a huge margin. They wanted £350 for my screen, i got it online for £220, for example. Currys is alright, but they dont seem to stock a lot of stuff (around here anyways) and what they have is expensive and pretty poorly made.

Its worth having a look around online, even if you dont want to buy online. It might just swing your views because of the savings you'll make.

www.aria.co.uk
www.microdirect.co.uk (where i got mine)
www.overclockers.co.uk (a bit more pricy, but great customer service)
www.ebuyer.co.uk

Hope that helps.