TN Technology - Old vs New

[psb]

I'm being constantly surprised by comments about how bad TN lcds are (allegedly). Apparently TNs suffer from atrocious viewing angles, excessive backlight bleed, poor colors, (16.2M not 16.7M) and are often derided as bargain basement in terms of value

I bought a TN ( Acer 2216) 2 months ago and I'm very happy with it. I can see the whites go yellowish if you move right over to one side or the other, and see the brightness change from BRIGHT to normal to dark as you move from above the screen to below it, but so what?

WIth no ghosting, no input lag, a black black, and 22" of real estate at 1680x1050 for $330 it seems pretty good value to me and I'm surprised by these guys who claim they are in fact crap. HAs TN tech improved in the currwent generation? Were they once much worse?

Would anyone who has an 'old' TN lcd, and one of the new 22" TNS, please do a side by side and let us know if the problems apparently endemic in old TNs have been mitigated in the new generation

 

[tightline]

I'm being constantly surprised by comments about how bad TN lcds are (allegedly). Apparently TNs suffer from atrocious viewing angles, excessive backlight bleed, poor colors, (16.2M not 16.7M) and are often derided as bargain basement in terms of value

I bought a TN ( Acer 2216) 2 months ago and I'm very happy with it. I can see the whites go yellowish if you move right over to one side or the other, and see the brightness change from BRIGHT to normal to dark as you move from above the screen to below it, but so what?

WIth no ghosting, no input lag, a black black, and 22" of real estate at 1680x1050 for $330 it seems pretty good value to me and I'm surprised by these guys who claim they are in fact crap. HAs TN tech improved in the currwent generation? Were they once much worse?

Would anyone who has an 'old' TN lcd, and one of the new 22" TNS, please do a side by side and let us know if the problems apparently endemic in old TNs have been mitigated in the new generation

I got one on the way from pagecomputer (not for me I'll sell to a client for $600) but I'll do some A/B shots for you in clone mode with a NEC 20WMGX2 so you can see IPS blacks, IPS color, IPS color strata, ISP angles justaposed to your TN.

 

[Shaman]

From what I can tell (just by reading, not from experience) TN panels have come a long way, specially the latest ones have much better contrast and are true 8-bit. The only area they still lose is on viewing angles wich affects color accuracy and is therefore not suited for (serious) image editing.

But I guess most of the anti-TN users here don't really do any graphic work and only want wide viewing angles so they can showoff their large displays when their friends come over and can't all sit in front of the screen at once.

 

[psb]

I got one on the way from pagecomputer (not for me I'll sell to a client for $600) but I'll do some A/B shots for you in clone mode with a NEC 20WMGX2 so you can see IPS blacks, IPS color, IPS color strata, ISP angles justaposed to your TN.

Yes please. The test gradients were very useful inshowing the up/down brightness change which I hadnt noticed in normal use. Blacks still look black enough for me tho'

 

[joemama]

From what I can tell (just by reading, not from experience) TN panels have come a long way, specially the latest ones have much better contrast and are true 8-bit. The only area they still lose is on viewing angles wich affects color accuracy and is therefore not suited for (serious) image editing.

But I guess most of the anti-TN users here don't really do any graphic work and only want wide viewing angles so they can showoff their large displays when their friends come over and can't all sit in front of the screen at once.

I believe all current TN panels are 6-bit with dithering to achieve 16.7m colors...8-bit TN's are supposedly in the works but I don't know if any current panel uses one. I have noticed (from experience) TN panels have come a long way...my old 17" Dell at work was replaced by a newer model a few months ago and it looks much better. Also here at home I have a 4 year old BenQ FP931 that I keep around as a backup and it doesn't look near as good as the TN's I see on display at stores...even after I hardware calibrate it.

 

[tightline]

All Panel techs have come along way. IPS used to have 50ms reponse now its beating TN's, historically the fastest. There is still no such thing as an 8bit panel for TN, they use frame rate control (FRC) to get close to a full 8-bit depth but to descering eyes looks incomplete. The major impovement is horizontal viewing angles of modern TN's getting very wide alhough still distorting color and hue it's 100x better than in the past. It's become less annoying and sellable in something other than a laptop where the other techs can't play due to power usage.

 

[Snowdog]

Viewing angles are very critical to me. So much so that I can't stand using PVA/MVA panels. I got rid of two and now have a TN panel. TN horizonal is better.
http://i.pbase.com/o5/04/606404/1/67386274.bYbv23lc.angles.jpg

Vertical viewing angles are definitely not so hot. But this is not as important as horizontal ones.

As far as color. Looking at images and games it looks better than my CRT, no worse than PVA I owned. It is only when doing a gradient test that the weakness is revealed. So yes this may be an issue.

Black looks black as long as you don't have a dimly lit room. Then you can notice black is emitting light. Problem for all LCDs.

Bottom line, TN gets a worse rap than it deserves. I am only interested in TN or IPS.

IPS is clearly the best, but the most expensive.

 

[psb]

I got one on the way from pagecomputer (not for me I'll sell to a client for $600) but I'll do some A/B shots for you in clone mode with a NEC 20WMGX2 so you can see IPS blacks, IPS color, IPS color strata, ISP angles justaposed to your TN.

Still looking forward to the side by side comparison of Acer TN vs NEC AS-SIPS...

 

[kreidel]

There is still no such thing as an 8bit panel for TN,

Is this true? Samsung says that their 225BW is a new true 8-bit, is this possible?

 

[Shottah_king]

I believe all current TN panels are 6-bit with dithering to achieve 16.7m colors...8-bit TN's are supposedly in the works but I don't know if any current panel uses one. I have noticed (from experience) TN panels have come a long way...my old 17" Dell at work was replaced by a newer model a few months ago and it looks much better. Also here at home I have a 4 year old BenQ FP931 that I keep around as a backup and it doesn't look near as good as the TN's I see on display at stores...even after I hardware calibrate it.

They actually use new techniques on TN panels to achieve the 8bit color. I can't remember where i read it but yeah. Sorry I can't provide linkage.

 

[Shottah_king]

Is this true? Samsung says that their 225BW is a new true 8-bit, is this possible?

I'm not sure if its truly 8bit but in the gradient tests, there is no banding present. Either way it produces what 8bit panels can minus the low vertical viewing angles.

 

[tightline]

PSB I got the acer 22" here from pagecomouters for 303 and nothings changed you get what you pay. TN still sux. Back light bleed top and bottom, no such thing as black overall, dithering effects on pics, poorer viewing angles, washed out color.. :::SIGH::: it's not even close to an IPS. I will take some pics in the morning..hopefully it will be representative as I'm no expert with the camera.

Edit I use XP silver default theme and on the Acer the menu bars looked washed out not shinny like they do the NEC..

Running Gradient Linearity Tests the Acer will not show divisions everything just blurs together at the lighter ends. Try it yourself http://lcdresource.com/tools/gradlin-cmy-v0.3-fs.exe

Blacks are not as black and whites not as white on acer. Blah how can you guys use this crap? Must be old peoples and losing sight