19" tft opinions

[joe3k]

I usually supply my customers with regular 19" tft's. However I have been wondering if the 19" widescreen tft's might be a better option? I haven't had much experience with them. Personally I use a regular 19" tft myself (although I have dual monitors but that is besides the point).

I always though for just regular document and web usage a screen which suits A4 (i.e. shows more of the page scrolling up/down) would be best. Obviously widescreen for playing video, but the majority of my customers are business users and wouldn't require this.

What you guys reckon? ...Oh and can anyone post me a link to good cheap 19" tft's? Whilst browsing Amazon this one caught my eye: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-P193WA...3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1238790245&sr=1-3

 

[JRDtechnet]

absolutely widescreen is better, the can see more spreadsheet across the screen or have more quickbooks modules opened etc.

 

[joe3k]

Actually mine are stated as wide viewing angle. Wonder if they actually are widescreen? Hmmm they probably are, lol. I never really thought about it and just assumed they were standard.

In which case can anyone recommend a decent 19" tft at a decent price?

 

[sys-eng]

TFT monitors info

Actually mine are stated as wide viewing angle. Wonder if they actually are widescreen?

TFT monitor specifications are awful. Viewing angles are meaningless. Actually, they are worse than meaningless because they are misleading. There are no regulations on how the "specs" are determined or what they mean. Most (95%+) thin panel monitors use 6-bits/color which means they can produce a maximum of 262,144 colors. They use some tricks such as dithering of adjacent pixels and claim they display 16.7 million colors. That is just not true. It is mathematically impossible and requires 8-bits/color. An 8-bit/color (24-bit total) monitor with an UPS panel generally costs twice as much as the same size monitor with a TN panel. People who are serious about editing digital photographs with programs such as Photoshop, should use a 24-bit monitor or a CRT.

I suggest educating yourself on the technology so you get the most for your money and provide better service. It is not complicated for techies but not nearly as simple as most people assume. Here is the best site with good information:

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/

In addition to the size and type, you need to look at the height to width ratio because some distort by stretching characters which is very distracting to most people.


LCD Panel Technology Type and Characteristics

TN film (Twisted Nematic)
- low manufacturing/retail costs
- restrictive viewing angles
- fast pixel response times
- dead pixels display white. Stuck pixels display GB colors
- lower contrast levels means blacks are not as dark as VA based panels
- lower color reproduction

UPS (In Plane Switching)
- improved viewing angles over TN
- very good color reproduction
- slower pixel response times than TN
- dead pixels display black
- lower contrast levels means blacks are not as dark as VA based panels

Super-IPS (S-IPS)
- same as IPS except ...
- likely best color reproduction of all TFT
- less expensive to produce than IPS
- improved pixel response
VA (Vertical Alignment) Technologies

MVA (Multidomain Vertical Alignment)
- compromise between TN and IPS technologies
- superior color reproduction over TN but not as good as IPS
- very good viewing angles but less than IPS
- higher contrast than TN or S-IPS means very good blacks
- dead pixels are black
- slower pixel response than TN or IPS
- details can be lost when directly viewing dark areas

Premium-MVA (P-MVA)
- same as MVA except ...
- "overdrive" technology increases pixel response but still slower than TN
- may have slightly degraded color reproduction due to "overdrive" process
PVA (Patterned VA)
- same as MVA except ...
- larger viewing angles
- higher contrast levels means darkest blacks
Super-PVA (S-PVA)
- same as PVA except ...
- “Magic Speed” (the Samsung equivalent to Overdrive) improves pixel response
- slightly improved color reproduction
- slightly improved viewing angles

Purchasing Considerations

TN Gamers
Considered a "gamers" panel due to it's fast pixel response times which reduces trailing images know as "ghosting". However, this advantage has been reduced by new technologies to accelerate pixel response times in other panel types. Colors and contrast tend to be weak and blacks are not truly dark. Viewing angles are significantly limited. However, monitors based on this technology tend to be inexpensive.

IPS / S-IPS Graphics Work or Web Browsing
Considered to have the best color reproduction of all panel types, these panels are well suited for graphics work or web browsing. Pixel response time is also good but slower than the TN "gamers" panel. Contast and blacks are also less dark than VA panels but viewing angles are excellent.

MVA / P-MVA / PVA / S-PVA Compromise for All-Around Use
These panels are a compromise between the fast pixel response times of the TN panel and the excellent color reproduction of the IPS panels. Contrast and blacks are best of all the panel types. Viewing angles are similar but slightly inferior to IPS.

 

[14049752]

Actually mine are stated as wide viewing angle. Wonder if they actually are widescreen?

Really? You don't know the difference between aspect ratios? I totally agree with sys-eng...you need to educate yourself a little bit about what you're selling.

 

[Marius]

Here you go...This will give you a good guidline

http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_technology_lcd_selection.html

 

[joe3k]

Really? You don't know the difference between aspect ratios? I totally agree with sys-eng...you need to educate yourself a little bit about what you're selling.

I think everyone knows what the difference between 16:9 (widescreen) and 4:3 (standard) is, just like with tv's, which incidentally used to be at 14:9 a lot of the time, which suited neither best but now with sky/ntl and the like not nearly as big an issue as it used to be. It's just that most tft's aren't actually what they state. Understanding brightness settings, resolution, response times, contrast Ratio, whether dvi or vga input... the simple stuff like that... that's what I fully understand and that's what I mainly focus on when buying.

Thanks guys, a few good looking posts on the more in depth aspects of tft's, which I'll read up on... looks like some good info on those sites.

 

[sys-eng]

There is a big myth that you should see a monitor in a store before you buy one. My experience has been that ALL the monitors at places like Best Buy are set wrong and look bad. Many are connected via analog instead of digital.

I am currently using a Samsung Sync Master 2253LW. I was going to get this model anyway then found it at Sam's Club for $200 which was $30 less than everyone else. It is very good for a TN panel. It takes a good video card to do 1680 x 1050 without running hot. I use an AT 4850.

When I do any serious photo editing, I bring out my old NEC Multi Sync GP 21" CRT. It is 80 pounds and put a bow in my desk but it has true colors. One day, I hope to have a 24" TFT with a 24-bit panel.

Read up on how to tune a monitor. One of the things I do in my maintenance/tune-up is adjust the monitor. I find a lot that have brightness too high and/or set to non-native resolution which is always blurry. Just a little bit of work and the customer is very pleased.

 

[joe3k]

Great article Marius. Still undecided if my wide viewing angle 19" is actually a "true widescreen" or not though, lol... madness! It's a shame the industry throws out so much disinformation on tft's. On the ruggedpcreview site write-up, I found the following quote very interesting:
"If you use your PC alone and you sit a normal distance from the screen, then don't buy a 19-inch monitor. Period".

Hmmm. not quite sure if I agree with that. If I was purchasing for myself yes then definitely. However if I presented a customer with a 17" I know they'd feel cheated... as this has been the response time and again. A 19" seems the current sweet spot with my customers, based on size and price. If I gave them a 20" or more, I again think they'd feel slightly cheated that I unnecessarily took more money off them than required, as I doubt if they'd notice much difference between a 19" or a 20" apart from the price (unless I could maybe show them the difference side by side). Hopefully they might appreciate it, if I took the time to go into depth and explain it to them, but if I take 15/20 mins or maybe 30/40 if they keep asking questions, explaining every tft sale I make.... man am I gonna be creating a lot of unpaid time for myself and will the customer really value the techno babble speak I'll have to make in order to get the point across, which I'll then have to explain in more plain english terms for them, that they probably still won't properly understand anyhow. Hmm I just dunno.

The mention that when consumers move from a square TV to a widescreen TV, they care most about maintaining an equal or greater screen height. In other words, people judge the size of the picture by its height, not by its diagonal measurement, I find is very true and also related to tfts.

The mention that widescreen 12" height compared to widescreen 9" height should result in never choosing the 9" unless you are very limited in available height at your computer desk, or you really like the shorter height. This again supports my thinking on preferring the less widescreen aspect and more towards the standard (i.e. less width more height), although not full 4:3. However is the tft with the large height still regarded as widescreen or standard with a wide viewing angle? Then introduce the 5:4 and the 16:10. Whereas the only thing that really matters is the dpi. Sheesh the manufacturers don't half make us jump through hoops.

When you then weigh in the resolution and the varying so called "widescreen" sizes, it's even more complicated.

Maybe 14049752 could kindly educate me, as he appears to know a lot about them. If you could kindly inform me of the difference between the aspect ratios (and include the relation to resolution, dpi, pixel pitch etc), I'd greatly appreciate it. Maybe even finish with a tft recommendation.

In the meantime there's a lot of info on sys-eng tftcentral site so I'll keep reading. I know I really should probably look at the 20" models, but something tells me I'll probably just stick with the 19" I found on amazon anyhow. At the end of the day price is one of the biggest factors, when I'd say 70% or more of standard users aren't really gonna notice if they've got a good monitor or a great one. A close friend of mine wants it though, so I'm trying to put in an extra bit of effort and get him a decent one for the price of an average one... I'm just worried that he'll say the height isn't as big as he'd have liked.

Who have thought that something so easy to setup, something generally easy to tweak and tune correctly, something that these days most are actually decent enough for general working, could produce such a difficult decision. Sheesh monitors eh.

 

[14049752]

Maybe 14049752 could kindly educate me, as he appears to know a lot about them.

No need to take offense. From your previous questions it seemed to me that you were ill informed. You asked about viewing angle, then pondered if that meant it was widescreen.... considereing they're not even close to the same thing, it's not hard to see why I said that you need to educate yourself.

But, sure, if you'd like to be educated: The viewing angle of a monitor, per all marketing speak that I have ever heard or read means the angle at which you can sit (from directly in front) and still be able to view what is displayed on the monitor. The meaning of the term is sort of outdated...old lcds used to require you to sit right in front of them to see the picture. I'd guess that nearly every lcd on the market now can be viewed from at least a 160 degree angle...which is "wide"...

A "wide screen" monitor is one that is wider than 4:3 aspect ratio. You can tell if your monitor is considered widescreen by looking at the native resolution. ..divide the width by the height... If it is greater than 1.33:1, it's widescreen...for example the screen I'm using now is 1920x1080, which is 1.777 at 16:9 aspect ratio. My monitor at work is 1440x900, which is 1.6, for an aspect ratio of 16:10.
It gets tricky when monitors stretch the aspect ratio, and do upscaling, though; You can have a monitor that has a native resolution that's a 4:3 resolution...but the pixels are stretch to be wider than they are tall. This mainly applies to hdtvs, though, and mainly 720p lcds.

As for dpi and its relation to resolution, it's exactly how you should expect. An 18.87" screen with a dpi of 50 (I'm just making up numbers, and we'll assume widescreen, aspect ratio of 16:10, ok?) is going to have a 4x better dpi than a 37.74" screen of the same resolution...

Umm..and dot pitch, was it? The dot pitch is the distance between similar color subpixels: Generally, you can look at dpi to have an idea of this.

Anyway, I don't really feel like answering any more questions on the topic. You can easily google and learn on your own.

 

[joe3k]

Hey 14049752, thanks for the great response. I have to apologise as I wrote the previous post after coming in from the pub last night. Can't believe I wrote such a long amount of waffle and actually managed to string fairly cohesive sentences together too, lol. In fact thanks to all, for all the great responses.

Mine are standard as I first though. I'm still undecided about whether to go widescreen or not. The main problem is the fact that "people judge the size of the picture by its height, not by its diagonal measurement". In which case I'd need to be supplying bigger than 19" screens, which in turn pushes up the price. When I drop off a 19" standard screen, the response is always the same... wow, thats a nice screen and what a great picture (even though it's what I'd call a 'good' picture but not what I'd call a 'great' picture. However like I say for most users be it home or business, so long as it's a flatscreen (halftime they don't know what a tft is) that's all that matters. Obviously for the gamers, the CAD engineers etc, they demand the bigger, better screens but for the vast majority pretty much any decent tft does the job.

I know what you supply this month compared to last month can vary, but what screens do you guys "currently" supply to your customers? A few weblinks to have a look at would be fantastic. Also do you buy them local or online? I think it's an interesting topic.

 

[Marius]

I have to apologise as I wrote the previous post after coming in from the pub last night.

lololol
Yeah...Sh!t like this happens

 

[joe3k]

Hmm just saw this deal. Looks decent enough, considering it's price:
http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/374728/hannsg-hg221ap-22-widescreen-lcd-mo/

 

[purple_minion]

Personally I feel you need to do what is suggested from a TV perspective... namely, what do you watch/do more of. If you watch only widescreen movies on your tv, buy a widescreen. If you watch mostly tv, and your tv is 4:3 buy 4:3. You can adapt that to your customers. Do you just surf and write up documents? Play games? As was mentioned only do accounting or spreadsheets? I think that will allow you to tailor it to their needs, and give you something to throw at them when they think it looks "small." Just point out that it might look smaller, but you are fitting in quite a few more columns or whatnot. Tailor it to what they need, not just one or the other.

 

[joe3k]

Good point purple_minion. I think seeing as they're a friend I'll stick to what I know. As it will be used mainly for surfing and word doc's etc... I think a 19" standard would suit them best, especially when price is factored in. I can get them a basic one for approx £70. They just want a decent monitor to do the job, for a cheap price.