How far has LCD tech come in 5 years? is it worth upgrading?

alek

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 25, 2012
Messages
149
Hey its time to upgrade my screen. I have a 5 year old benq 1920x1200 60hz.

I would like to pay about the same as i did $400. Is there any chance that my new product would be better than what i already got? thanks.
 
btw i dont care about viewing angels. as i find even my old screen has sufficent/good viewing angels NP.
 
I had a TN panel about that age that I was around the top of the line at the time, from newer TN's I've had things haven't changed just gotten cheaper(and maybe worse, LED backlight has a whole new set of issues with flashlighting effects, PWM flickering headaches, ect).

I guess it depends on the panel type in your display.
 
It hasn't come much further, but IPS panels have become much more affordable. If your old screen has a TN panel, then yes it's worth upgrading.
 
the (natural) upgrade should for me be to get 3x 24" or two 27" i would like to think. But at least the 2560x1440 are still more than 400$. and seems to have bad response time. maybe i should wait another year to see if they get better/cheaper?
 
Apart from price reductions over the last few years, LCD technology has hardly progressed in the PC monitor industry over the last 7 years or so, and up to this point, still lags behind LCD TV technology by about 4 years.

I have a nearly 6 year old HP w2408h monitor, and it uses a TN panel with a wide colour gamut CCFL, which is still superior to todays W-LED back-lighting that has been infesting the market over the last 2 years. The only benefit to W-LED is a thinner monitor profile, and slightly lower power usage, with the huge downside of not being able to produce much more than 72% of the NTSC colour space.

Ever since owning my 2408, I have been waiting for the holy grail of monitors...

24" or 27" display size
120Hz refresh rate (minimum)
Wide colour gamut (100% of NTSC colour space minimum)
8Bit colour panel (minimum, with no H-FRC tricks!)
1920x1200 minimum resolution for 24" (16:10 aspect ratio)
IPS, PLS or AMVA panel technology
Minimum of 2000:1 static contrast ratio
Programmable hardware 3D LUT
Ability to set brightness lower than 120 Cd/m2, but capable of 350 Cd/m2 or more
2-4ms G2G pixel response time
Less than 16ms total input lag (including pixel response time)
Light anti-glare coating - Not glossy!

These were specs I came up with 4 years ago, with most of these specs being available separately, but not together in one monitor. We are still stuck with sub 1000:1 contrast ratios, poor black levels, crappy edge lit W-LED panels and 60Hz refresh rates... So to sum-up 7 years of LCD monitor development, monitors have got cheaper, thinner, and LED lit. Nothing else has changed.


So like you, i'm stuck with a monitor that's nearly 6 years old, that is far inferior (in overall PQ, and refresh rates) than the CRT it replaced, with no news of a decent monitor on the horizon for 2013. I think it's going to be at least another 3 years before we start seeing really good LCD monitors, if at all.
 
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Depends on what you mean by "better".

Power consumption is certainly down, for one. We're also getting 120/144Hz displays. The 27/30" market has gotten a lot more crowded with much better specifications.
 
Stimpy - if you ever find a monitor that meets those requirements, please please please post it -- I've been looking for the same upgrade and funny enough am sitting on the 2408 today as well.

I'm disappointed that the technology really has not advanced much at all...
 
As stated, the monitor industry has seem focused on making panels cheaper, or adding extras for marketing purposes, not really improving monitors much themselves.

My ideal monitor is close to Stimpy88's too. Although I'd prefer S-RGB, and I would settle for less contrast even.

24", 16:10, IPS/PLS (maybe VA, if angles are improved), 1200-1500:1 contrast, 10-14 bit LUT, 8 bit panel, no BLB, A-TW polarizer or similar tech, and 8ms or less pixel response time (so long as there is no ghosting/overshoot on non-FPS games).. and most importantly, semiglossy or a light AG coating.

The thing that bugs me is that the above is a very reasonable list of things to expect to improve in 5+ years, and technology can make it now (and exceed it), but no manufacturers produce the above. The above specs would have been something I'd expect NEC to include for their NEC 2490 replacement ... if monitor makers actually improved models year to year, that is.
 
If you care about gaming things have improved some. A feature called overdrive reduces blurring somewhat, but how well it's implemented and how much of an improvement you get varies from display to display. 120hz TN LCDs offer another improvement, though not all games, or even most, support resolutions that high. I haven't played many PC games in recent years, but far as I know most games don't support anything over 60hz at 1920x1080.

I think Stimpy overstates the color issues with LED-lit displays. The difference is color gamut between a CCFL (fluorescent) and an LED backlight is extremely small. But there does seem to be quite a lot of issues with backlight bleeding/non-uniformity on LED backlit displays. This is not an inherent problem with LEDs though. It's just poor/cheap design and/or poor quality control.
 
Don't worry Jeepfun, I'm always looking out for my dream monitor, and if it ever appears, I will be shouting about it!

Dparm, my nearly 6 year old CCFL driven 24" monitor consumes around 40W after calibration, looking at most 24" W-LED monitors on the market, they use an average of 33W, so there is my point.

And your right Oofloom, but can you find a W-LED panel that is anything other than standard gamut? I haven't found one. The reason I want a wider colour gamut, is for photo-work. My dream monitor has to do it all, as I don't expect it to be cheap ;)
 
Actually I'm in the same boat. I'm considering if I should replaces this 2232GW (22" 1680x1050 2ms - most likely a TN panel) to a 1920x1080 with my next build. 1920x1200s are crazy expensive in my country so I'm not sure if these are even worth it.
 
Actually I'm in the same boat. I'm considering if I should replaces this 2232GW (22" 1680x1050 2ms - most likely a TN panel) to a 1920x1080 with my next build. 1920x1200s are crazy expensive in my country so I'm not sure if these are even worth it.

To be honest, it depends on what you want to use it for, if gaming, then one of the new 144Hz panels in 24" size would be a nice upgrade.

And yes, your current monitor is a standard TN panel.
 
Yep, primary use will be for gaming. There's a massive price difference between 23/24" 1920x1080 and the 1920x1200 monitors though - to the order of about 200$ more. Too bad we don't have 144Hz panels monitors here yet. Only 1-2 shops in the city carry the higher end, enthusiast gear and their websites don't list them.

Edit, checked again - there's one (1) model - Asus VG278HE 27" going for about $610. Considering that's about half of what I intend to spend for a new PC, I doubt I'm willing to shell out the money for that :|

I was thinking maybe in the range of 300$ or so. Must start reading up on the 144Hz ones I guess!
 
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To be honest, it depends on what you want to use it for, if gaming, then one of the new 144Hz panels in 24" size would be a nice upgrade.

And yes, your current monitor is a standard TN panel.
Depends.
Do you want better color? IPS.
Do you want CRT-quality zero motion blur? TN+LightBoost2.

60Hz -- I rate it 4/10
120Hz -- I rate it 6/10
120Hz+LightBoost2 -- I rate it 9/10 -- CRT quality "perfect motion" (Even in 2D)

The improvement of 120Hz versus 120Hz+LightBoost2 is bigger than the difference between 60Hz vs 120Hz.
If you care about zero motion blur (minimum possible blur, zero ghosting), get a LightBoost2 monitor and force-enable the strobe backlight during 2D.
If you are sensitive to flicker, then, it does flicker like a 120Hz CRT, but you get the CRT perfect motion effect if that's the most important part of a monitor.

Reaction times are much faster because you can see objects/enemies while still moving in video games, without stopping moving first. I'm finding my reaction times have improved by several frames, so a "15ms lag+LightBoost2" will beat a "5ms lag without strobe backlight" because of faster reaction times afforded by CRT-quality zero motion blur gaming. Input lag is less important than the zero motion blur effect if you're an online FPS video gamer.
 
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mark, wouldn't the strobing of lightboost be noticeable to those who are sensitive to pwm filcker?
Yup. But LightBoost2 can be turned on/off.
Besides, it doesn't flicker worse than a 120Hz CRT. If you were okay with CRT, you're okay with 120Hz LightBoost2 strobe flicker. And some people prefer the zero motion blur effect of CRT. The unfair 100-200ms reaction time advantage of a strobe display (CRT or LightBoost2), seeing enemies perfectly without stopping moving first, more than massively outweighs a 5ms-versus-15ms input lag difference. Also, even an infinite-speed response (0ms) LCD without strobing will have more motion blur because of sample-and-hold effect. So you really need strobing if you want the CRT perfect motion effect. (At least until people invent lag-free 960fps@960Hz. Motion interpolation is bad for gaming due to input lag)

Pick your preferred attributes. Color quality? Flicker-free? IPS vs TN? Zero motion blur (CRT quality perfect motion)?
You can finally get any of the above today in LCD. But you can't get all of them simultaneously in the same display. Yet.
 
If you care about gaming things have improved some. A feature called overdrive reduces blurring somewhat, but how well it's implemented and how much of an improvement you get varies from display to display. 120hz TN LCDs offer another improvement, though not all games, or even most, support resolutions that high. I haven't played many PC games in recent years, but far as I know most games don't support anything over 60hz at 1920x1080.

Not really true, practically all modern PC games support whatever the max refresh rate is on your monitor.
 
Mdrejhon, I last had a CRT monitor about 7 years ago, and I don't recall it ever flickering once I got the refresh rate to 85Hz and above. And I'm the sensitive type ;) , I normally see flicking in most displays and lights, as well as the DLP rainbows and stuff.

You don't mean interlace style flickering, do you?
 
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