LCD Buying Guide Part 3
Cleaning your panel
Please make sure that whatever you use to
clean your panel is designed for LCD's!
I cannot think of anything worse than taking your
new £300+ purchase and giving it the once over with some monitor
cleaner and then finding the coating removed and the whole panel
ruined.
Most PC vendors now sell something "designed for
LCD cleaning" and I'm sure that they all do the job very well.
However I initially found that a normal lint free
cloth does the job extremely well, fell free to dampen the cloth
if it is smeared finger prints you are trying to remove.
My latest purchase has been a camera lens
cleaner. These cloths are available from either a local
photography store or from PC vendors and are sold as camera/PDA
cloths.
These soft cloths are perfect for cleaning LCD's,
they can also be dampened for those pesky finger prints.
The near future of LCD's
There is no point me attempting to give a five
year predication on where LCD technology is going to go - OLED
is a rising technology which will probably eventually make both
CRT & LCD displays redundant.
What we will see is panels appearing with faster
and faster response rates. Sub 16ms panels will make an
appearance in 2004.
At the moment no panel larger than 17" has a
response rate lower than 25ms.
Although 25ms is fine for gaming the discerning
gamer may notice some slight ghosting & streaking. LCD
manufacturers will start working on 18"+ panels that also have a
fast response rate, probably around 16ms to start with and then
faster along side the 17" panels.
All of the major monitor manufacturers have
already agreed that over the years 2003 - 2004 LCD sales will
actually be higher than CRT sales for the first time ever.
Many monitor manufacturers are already scaling
down their CRT production, some will not be producing any CRT's
smaller than 21" from the end of the year.
As LCD's become easier to make then expect prices
to drop across the board (already happening on the 17" panels)
and also expect the "dead pixel" polices to improve, already
some manufacturers are guaranteeing that your new panel will
arrive with no dead pixels or sub pixels.
Final Notes
LCD panels are not for everyone.
I cannot recommend to anybody that they simply go out on a whim
and purchase one without having first seen one in operation.
Ideally you will want to see the exact screen you are
considering purchasing in use doing all of the activities you
will want to do (general Windows work, gaming, playing a DVD).
What is a great display in one person’s eyes may not be so good
to another person.
Do not be put off by people saying “LCD’s are not for gamers”.
Whereas this maybe true for the most discerning hardcore player
the days when all fast moving images simply blur and ghost on an
LCD are thankfully behind us.
If you cannot see the actual display you are interested in then
make sure you purchase from a vendor that will allow you to
return the panel for free or a very modest re-stocking fee.
Remember an LCD is an expensive investment and will be the part
of your computer you look at for 3+ years, it is really
important that you are going to get on with your purchase.
Some Models to look at
NEC 1760NX
17", 16ms, 450:1, DVI & D-Sub
Click here for reviews on this panel
Hitachi CML174SXWB
17", 16ms, 400:1, DVI & D-Sub
Click here for reviews on this panel
Hitachi CML175SXWB
17", 16ms, 400:1, DVI & D-Sub
Click here for reviews on this panel
Kogi L7EH
17", 20ms, 350:1, D-Sub
Click here for reviews on this panel
Iiyama 4314
17", 20ms, 500:1, D-Sub
Iiyama 4315
17", 25ms, 350:1, DVI & D-Sub
Samsung 172X
17", 16ms, 500:1, DVI & D-Sub
Samsung 172W
17" (Widescreen), 25ms, 400:1, DVI & D-Sub
Click here for reviews on this panel
LG 1710B
17", 20ms, 500:1, DVI & D-Sub
LG 1710S
17", 20ms, 500:1, D-Sub
ViewSonic VP171B
17", 16ms, 500:1, DVI & D-Sub
Samsung 181T
18.1", 25ms, 500:1, DVI & D-Sub
Samsung 191T
19", 25ms, 500:1, DVI & D-Sub
Click
here to download this document in
Microsoft Word format (Zipped)
Please Note: These pages are usually updated
before the downloadable version
Guide Parts
1
2 3
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