So you are looking for a monitor for your computer. You are not 100% certain as to what you are looking for. Simply because you are either just coming off an old CRT monitor, or one of the first breeds of lcd monitor. If you are just now coming from the first breeds of flat screen monitors then I have to tell you, quite a bit has changed now. A nice new flat panel monitor will do you some wonders. If you are coming from a CRT monitor ( I will assume it was a very high quality CRT monitor) then you are not looking at better, or worse resolution, . What? what you say? We can feel safe in saying that this is a whole new ball game now. First gen flat screen monitors were no comparison to crt monitors. Now days it is finally a whole new game. It’s low cost high quality now. Wide screen areas. With the advent of High def televisions (HD tv). We got a huge choice in upgrades and tweaks and inventions that shot monitors through the roof in their evolution.
So let’s get into the budget tech review and explanation to help you select a good flat screen monitor. I will make this simple as possible. Bring the Flat Screen Monitor into an easy way to shop. After this you might as well upgrade your television. You can use this review when making that choice also. I just don’t believe the resolutions or image quality will be near as crisp as what you will see with your new monitor.
Here are 4 very important things to look at , Resolution, Scan Types and Contrast ratio and of course the one that isn’t listed on any boxes or manuals: blackness (black levels), view degree, light reflection.
Now to explain these qualities. I will use my best “Redneck definitions”. Well. In a sense.
Resolution
How many pixels across the top by how many pixels down the side. Screen size is not defined by resolution but a key ingredient in image quality is. You can have a monitor that is eleven inches across the top and six inches down the side (small wide screen)(not the right way to measure a monitor, but should be). The resolution for this flat screen monitor example could be 1440×900.
Then you look at a monitor that is 32 inches across the top and 17 inches down the side. This larger monitor could have the exact same resolution of 1440×900.
In this case, bigger is not better. Not at all. a monitor at that size would have to have a resolution of “4320×2700” to even compare. Kinda unachievable. but who wants tiny monitor ?
720p is better than 1080i.
Scans
Progressive scan and interlaced scan.
Progressive is the latest and newest higher quality. you are better off getting Progressive. Some videos and 3d programs still use interlacing so you may want to look into what kind of deinterlacing is used on the monitor or hope it is handled well with your video card.. Think of Progressive as very fast stacked lines to make an image.
Interlaced was dropped for the most part. Think of Interlaced as as static you would see on your old television. Every other pixel or so flashes while the next one is loading. Kinda
Most people can not see the difference between the two flat screen monitors. Unless they use both types of monitors for a while and then switch between them after long use. After using progressive scan, I get a headache when I use interlaced now.
Contrast ratio
There are two terms that get mentioned when talking about Contrast. Static and Dynamic
Static is very important, dynamic is bonus points.
Static is the Native settings fixed contrast.
Dynamic is your contrasts fluctuation range.
The higher the static, the better
If the dynamic contrast ratio is the only thing listed and it says something along the lines of 200,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, it might sound a bit fishy. but I would surely grab that monitor before I would even walk near a flat screen monitor with a 2000:1 static contrast ratio. Typically the static is 75%-90% of the dynamic. Usually. Good luck with that?
My monitor 10,000:1 . Does not list if it’s dynamic or static. I am assuming the static is atleast 8000. While the flat screen monitor in my office is 800:1. poor quality at work.
unorthodox but important, blackness, Viewing Angle, light reflection
If you turn the monitor on while a light is on in the room and the screen goes all white while you are looking at a Yin/Yang Symbol. Well the black levels on that flat screen monitor/ flat panel monitor are crummy
Light Reflection is what you see when you turn a light on and the glass (if it’s glass) reflects back at you so much that you can’t see the display.
Viewangle, stand dead in front of the monitor at a comfortable distance (3-4 feet), step once to the left and twice to the right and see if the imaging gets hard to see, watch the edges and the corners for a looming growing shadow as you move. People who stand dead beside the monitor to check it….. um…. you really have no idea how to use the monitor do you? really, why in the heck would you want to stand next to it while you use it ? but you do want to know it looks good when your loved one looks over your shoulder as you watch a video together.
So.. What is 720p 1080p and all that stuff about?
Easily said by today’s basic standards for a monitor’s design, look at the resolution for the side and round down to the nearest res.
So if the resolution of your monitor is 1440×900. Then you have a 720(look at the 900. yep that simple). It didnt use to work like that but pretty much all flat screen monitor companies use the same standards these days. You have a 95% chance of that being correct.
TLDR -(to long didn’t read) Summary below
My flat screen monitor tech specs.
Contrast Ratio 10000:1 (the ratio of the luminance of the brightest color (white) to that of the darkest color (black) that the system is capable of producing)
Brightness 300 Nit (Candela per square meter)
Maximum Response Time 2ms
Aspect Ratio 4:3 (The aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension)
Horizontal Viewing Angle 170°
Product Type LCD Monitor
Vertical Viewing Angle 170° (viewing angle is the maximum angle at which a display can be viewed with acceptable visual performance)
I hope this helps you select a good flat screen monitor in your future.