Color Accuracy
Imaging professionals definitely like to have accurate colors, and the best way of assuring that your display shows the proper colors is to use a colorimeter and calibration software. However, not everyone has access to such tools and many users are unwilling to spend over $200, so we calibrate and test the various LCDs. We didn't perform a thorough evaluation of color accuracy on the FP241VW, so we will limit our Delta E comparison to calibrated performance where we target a white level of ~200 nits - anything more than that is too bright in our opinion. The FP241VW actually ended up at 270 nits, but that won't substantially affect any of the scores. Before we get to the results, here are the display settings we used on the BenQ LCDs. We let the LCDs stabilize for at least one hour before performing measurements. We will compare results with the Dell 2408WFP, which so far has achieved the best overall color accuracy of any LCD we have tested, as well as the previous two BenQ LCDs.
| LCD Brightness and Contrast Settings | ||
| Standard Calibrated (~200 nits) | Calibrated for Print (~100 nits) | |
| BenQ E2200HD | 65 Brightness, 50 Contrast "Normal" (95-95-95 RGB) |
20 Brightness, 50 Contrast "Normal" (95-95-95 RGB) |
| BenQ E2400HD | 73 Brightness, 50 Contrast "Normal" (94-94-91 RGB) |
30 Brightness, 50 Contrast "Normal" (94-94-91 RGB) |
| BenQ FP241VW | 35 Brightness, 50 Contrast (270 nits) "Normal/sRGB" (47-48-45 RGB) |
N/A |
After calibration, the FP241VW still fails to come anywhere close to the Dell 2408WFP - and in fact it doesn't even match the accuracy of the less expensive E2400HD. That said, it's interesting to note that the color accuracy curves for all three BenQ LCDs are extremely similar, to the point where I now have to wonder if backlighting has a far greater impact on color accuracy than I previously thought. It makes sense that better backlighting would allow the panels to achieve better color accuracy, but I don't have any evidence for this assertion other than the above chart. Anyone serious about color accuracy is probably going to want an average Delta E of around 1.0 or less post-calibration. So far, only S-PVA and S-IPS panels achieve that goal, although it's possible a better backlight would allow the A-MVA display to match the other displays. Note also how the bottom half of the above chart is dominated by LCDs that use TN panels.
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tomoyo - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
AUO seems to have focused on using AMVA and AMVA3 (their latest tech) only on LCD TVs. The only way to get their good stuff is to buy a 32" 1080p LCD TV using their panel. If you look at their current monitor production, it's literally ALL tn-film. Depressing to the extreme.http://auo.com/auoDEV/products.php?sec=monitor&...">http://auo.com/auoDEV/products.php?sec=...mp;func=...
JarredWalton - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
And the worst part is that the page starts out by talking about how great AMVA is... and then they only have TN panels listed. Ugh....tomoyo - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
Going by B5 analogies. Looks like E-IPS is now our last best hope for good LCD panels. S-PVA would interest me more if there was less input lag, but E-IPS seems to have a good chance of giving us good viewing angles + decent panel speed. Now if we could only get LED backlights + 120hz + ergonomic stands in a 16:10 format over a wide variety of sizes, then we'd be in business. I can't imagine that some company out there wouldn't see an opportunity for premium lcd monitors that hardcore gamers/photography/graphics lovers would love to have at moderate prices. I think this area is a completely unrealized market opportunity.I also really dislike the 16:9 format for LCD monitors. It's takes away the balance between fullscreen and widescreen that we have with 16:10. Another cost cutting move that annoys me greatly.
darklight0tr - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
LED backlights on computer LCDs seem to be a very low priority for manufacturers right now. The focus for that tech seems to be LCD TVs, which is disappointing. I'm beginning to think we'll see OLED computer displays before LED backlight LCDs at the rate they're going! The other problem with the LED backlighting is many manufacturers have been pairing it with TN panels. Its like putting a V8 into an econobox.E-IPS looks to be very good, but one of the reasons I went with S-PVA despite the display lag possibility is contrast is a weak point for IPS technology, and that was an important feature to me. Plus, it wasn't widely available in the screen size I was looking for.
If they make 120hz PC LCDs available, I want it to be TRUE 120hz, not the crap they've been selling with LCD TVs. I've seen "120hz" TVs and its obvious that it is an image processing technology that emulates 120hz, and it looks like crap. My friend has it on his TV, and I had to make him turn it off because it was so distracting.
erple2 - Monday, June 22, 2009 - link
To be fair, the bulk of the 120Hz technologies in TV's (particularly flat panel sets) exists solely for de-judder purposes. It conveniently lets you display 24 fps, 30 fps, and 60 fps content at an even multiple.My Sony TV is a 120 Hz TV - I think that there are 2 things that it's used for:
1. "Motion Smoothing" - very cool but super-annoying technology that smooths out and essentially interpolates intermediate frames in slower than 120Hz content. It's somewhat distracting with film - you can think of it as watching a movie, but filmed with a modern high end digital video camera. The "action" is interpolated to appear more than 24 Frames per second. I don't like it.
2. Solid de-juddering. Since most TV's are 60 Hz, when showing content that isn't an exact multiple of 60, the TV has to do some pulldown to get the image to appear right on the TV (the so-called 3:2 pulldown). The 120 Hz "fixes" that, since you don't need to do any complicated pulldown algorithms to get the proper effect.
Since there is no 120 Hz content available that you'd normally watch on a TV (games displayed from a very high-performance computer being the only exception I can think of), I think that it's mostly a marketing talking point.
So, no, generally, the 120 Hz TV's are actually 120 Hz TV's - they do update the display ever 1/120th of a second. However, given LCD's inability to fully RENDER a new pixel that fast is a whole 'nuther issue. 120 Hz translates to 8.333 ms response time necessary to actually change the image on screen.
darklight0tr - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
On top of all that there has been a disturbing move to 16:9 displays. I know they are trying to standardize things, but I really like the extra real estate offered by 16:10. I guess I'm going to have to keep my DELL 2709W until something amazing comes along or it explodes.hyc - Thursday, June 18, 2009 - link
Second that. I want a 42" 1920x1200 monitor to replace my living room TV, but no such beast exists, they're all 1920x1080. Talk about frustrating.The interesting thing about "voting with your wallet" is you can only vote from a selection of what the manufacturers offer you, there's no way to vote for a new product that none of them currently offer. These days, my wallet has been staying closed...
tomoyo - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
The market for LCDS has been terrible for over a year now. Basically all the high quality non-tn films have been discontinued with a few rare exceptions. Also all the high quality height adjustable stands are mostly gone, which makes it almost impossible to put lcds in a position that doesn't cause back/neck/carpel tunnel/etc issues. It's idiotic what we have these days.I'm lucky I have two older dell models that are non-tn film at work and a similar one at home, all with adjustable stands. 1905FP and 2001FP to the rescue. Sadly I can't even imagine changing these out for any new model, because in general the new models are WORSE. I consider myself stuck with these models until a miracle happens.
Now for a secondary screen, generally the best solution I've found for a good panel is to get a 32" LCD TV 1080P. That's one of the only ways to get a moderately usable screen at a low price, which also has FAR more inputs than any Lcd monitor. You can't get $600 Lcd Monitors that are 32" with 3-4 hdmi inputs and massive amounts of composite/component/s-video. The only huge negative is the low resolution, but 1080P is certainly liveable and great as a secondary video watching device.
BugblatterIII - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
I've got a Dell 2407WFP but that's being reallocated so I'm planning to get the Dell 2407WFP. H-IPS screen, portrait rotation, fantastic quality, low latency etcBugblatterIII - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
Of course I meant planning to get the HP LP2475w.