A Guide to Choosing the Right 19" LCD Monitor - 7 Models Reviewed
by Kristopher Kubicki on November 30, 2004 12:04 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Quantitative Analysis
Luminance
Brightness ranked as one of our most important display qualities. The largest mistake that we see people make when they buy a new LCD is to put their new, bright LCD in a dim or dark room (and as a result, turn the LCD down to 25% brightness). Not only is this terrible for your eyes, but it also offsets hues unnecessarily. A blue screen in a dark room doesn't look the same as a blue screen in a well lit one! Staring at your monitor shouldn't feel like staring into the sun. If you have plenty of ambient light around, you would be surprised on how much of a difference a 250 nit LCD looks compared to a 300 nit LCD.Below, you can see a comparison of the brightness for each of our LCD monitors. All monitors are set to the maximum brightness level and this was maintained for the duration of the review. The blue bar represents the advertised luminance and the red bar indicates the measured.
Much to our surprise, the NuTech LCD actually performed brighter than what the AUO spec sheet would have us to believe.
Our Contrast Ratio
For all the bad things that we said about contrast ratios on the previous pages, don't let us mislead you. Contrast ratios are important; they just aren't measured on any sort of level playing field, since manufacturer A and manufacturer B will measure them differently in order to market their product better. We do not have equipment as sensitive as manufacturers to test our monitors, but if we tested them all with the same conditions, we will still show a meaningful distribution of our monitors.| Observed Contrast Ratio | |||
| Highest Recorded | Lowest Recorded | Observed Contrast Ratio | |
| BenQ FP931 | 256.4 | 3.6 | 71.2 |
| Dell 2001FP | 222.6 | 4.6 | 48.4 |
| NuTech L921G | 278.2 | 2.6 | 107.0 |
| Planar PE191M | 234.0 | 3.0 | 78.0 |
| Samsung 193P | 230.4 | 2.2 | 104.7 |
| Samsung 910V | 219.8 | 2.6 | 84.5 |
| Sony SDM S94 | 233.8 | 3.0 | 77.9 |
| ViewSonic Q190MB | 261.8 | 2.6 | 100.7 |
As you can tell, things pretty much run the gamut here. We were very surprised to see the NuTech L921G showing up with the highest observed contrast ratio, but as you will note from our measurements, we were only able to measure within an accuracy of 2/10 candela per meter squared. As we get better testing equipment, we will continue to update the results of these LCD units that we bought for the lab in future reviews.
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Cat - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link
Kristopher, could you comment on the perceived lag that I've felt on three different 2001FPs? There's no ghosting, but the delay between moving the mouse and having an update on the screen is horrible. DVI-I and D-SUB, different video cards, systems, the works, they all have it.I don't see this on the other LCDs here at work. I know there was a Slashdot post about this a while back, and some have said it's caused by bad batches, but three of them having the same problem? I don't know if I should send my personal 2001FP back ...
InuYasha - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link
>Umm, yeah what up with that? Why can't someone >explain the reason to get a 19" versus a 17" if >the resolution is the same (ignoring that the >dot pitch is bigger thus easier to see).It's the same friggin reason why people buy a 50" TV instead of a small 20"
InuYasha - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link
>"Recall that 19" LCDs have roughly the same >viewing area as 21" CRT monitors, and that 17" >LCDs have about the same viewing ANGLE as 19" >CRTs.">angle = area in this case?
>Some stories get edited well on anandtech, and >some not so well...
a 19" LCD is measured EXACTLY 19"image display size, but a 19" CRT is usually like 18" or 17.x", the 19" is usally the glass size, not the actual image size for CRTs
sonicDivx - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link
Umm, yeah what up with that? Why can't someone explain the reason to get a 19" versus a 17" if the resolution is the same (ignoring that the dot pitch is bigger thus easier to see).Also why not list the settings you used for each monitor to attain the results you got (during subjective tests). This way we could set the LCD to your spec and go from there. Where is the Samsung 912N in review, its a common LCD out there?
>HelToupee
>viewing ANGLE as 19" CRTs."
>
>angle = area in this case?
HelToupee - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link
In the second paragraph on the first page:"Recall that 19" LCDs have roughly the same viewing area as 21" CRT monitors, and that 17" LCDs have about the same viewing ANGLE as 19" CRTs."
angle = area in this case?
Some stories get edited well on anandtech, and some not so well...
IHYLN - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link
I'm no english major but "more are better" "less are better" in some of the graphs made me wonder.nastyemu25 - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link
I agree, let's see a Sony HS-94P/B with x-black technology review!ocyl - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link
Should have dropped Benq's colour scores to 2 (or 1, even) for its decision to use a 6-bit panel instead of a True Colour (8-bit) one :PFilibuster - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link
>I think there have to be gamers here, and I do not think LCDs are there yet when it comes to refresh rates; it would have been nice to see the refresh rates on the monitors at 1024, 1280, and 1600.LCD displays don't have a refresh rate at any resolution. There is no flicker to be worried about.
Ensign - Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - link
In the Intro, it says, "A reasonably cheap, new 21" CRT runs for about $350; a reasonably cheap, new 21" LCD runs for about $330." I'm guessing that was supposed to say 17" or 19" LCD?