Monitor Specifications

[therock003]

When looking for a Monitor what is it important to look for?

I know that Contrast is more of a marketing scam and people tend not to take it into any consideration, myself included. Now what about the rest.

Brightness.
What's a good value for brightness? What does it mean if one Monitor has greater brightness than another, let's say one has 400cd/m2 and another 300. Is the difference significant?

Response Time
For computer Monitors isnt it important to get from 2-5ms so that you dont have problems in Games and when watching action Movies? Does that mean that an 8ms Monitor will leave artifacts on heavy sequences?

Frequency
Ok this i dont understand it's value complete. Why do we care hoe many times a Monitor refreshes? MAy that be 100 or even higher, why is this important? So that a continus image will help our eyes while lower refresh rates may strain our vision and eyesight?

Viewing Angle
Ok this must be important cause on laptops it seems that you need to agjust the screen by tilting it all the time due to low viewing angle. But how do the numbers translate? What Does 170/150 mean? That if you're located at an angle greater than 170/150 you dont see what you get?

Did i forget any other marketing factor?

Besides all of these General Stuff, isnt it more important if a Screen outputs the correct value of each color it is supposed to project? Cause we never get enough information about this. All we get in order to choose are brightness contrast and this few othe things, but how do we know that a screens colorimetry is going to be accurate?

I apologize for this long discussion but i'm in the process of choosing some montirs and all this superficial specs dont seem to help me, i want to be able to jusge the actual quality and performance of a screen and make a good choice.

[guns1inger]

You care about frequency because if it is too low the eye will pick up on the changes and you will get eye strain and tiredness earlier than necessary.

8ms is actually better than some TVs, but faster is generally better, all else being equal.

Brightness is one thing, contrast is another. Most monitors have low contrast ratios - often around 500:1 up to 2000:1. Higher is better. I have just installed a 20000:1 Samsung monitor on the edit box at work - nice.

However the key to getting it all working correctly is calibration. If possible, get a calibrating device such as a spyder. We use the spyderexpress2 as a low cost calibration tool, and it works very well.

[jagabo]

Brightness is how bright the brightest whites are. Pretty much all LCD monitors can output at brightness levels way to high for normal home/office use. You will likely be turning the brightness down way below the max the monitor is cable of.

Response time is how fast the LCD cells can change from one brightness to another. Slow reponse times will result in blurred motion. Unfortunately, there is no standard by which this is measured. Manufacturers will pick whatever method gives the best number. So you can't really compare from one manufacturer to another. Or even different models from one manufacturer. You have to see for yourself or find independent reviews.

Frequency is the refresh rate supported at the input. LCD monitors will not flicker like a CRT so this doesn't matter in that respect. It will make a difference in gaming if you use vertical sync. With a 60 Hz monitor you will only ever get 60 frame per second. A 100 Hz monitor will get you up to 100 frames per second.

Viewing angle is also calculated in an arbitrary manner. Again, manufacturers will use whatever technique they want to make the monitor sound good. The way the picture degrades from one monitor to another will be different. With some you will see color shifts, others you will get reduced contrast, etc. You have to check this for yourself.

Contrast is the difference between the brightest brights and the blackest blacks. Once again, these are reported in whatever way the manufacturer wants. The numbers may come from completely unusable or impossible usage scenarios. The bright number may come from displaying a bright white image with the monitor's back light turned all the way up. The dark image may come from a completely black image displayed with the backlight turned all the way down. This may give a very big number but is useless. Look for independent tests that measure static contrast with an ANSI checkerboard image.

Given that most monitors bright levels are way to high, and that reported contrast numbers are useless, you want to look at the black level. A high black level means blacks will show up as dark gray, not black. With a poor black level you will not get good contrast under normal viewing conditions. Black level is more important for home theater use (where you may be watching in a darkened room) than in office use (a brightly lit room).

Another parameter you want to consider is uniformity. Some monitors will be brighter or darker at the edges. You won't find this reported by the manufacturers. Some of the major review sites report it. http://reviews.cnet.com/Labs/4520-6603_7-5098394-1.html

So the bad news is that most of the numbers reported by manufacturers are nearly useless. You must see the monitors in person. The good news is that most of the LCD monitors from the major players are pretty good these days.

[therock003]

The thing is that Most PC Monitors arent even readily available in my country.

The procedure here is pick the Monitor, order it, and have at it.

There's no going to the store and seeing it, cause it's never there! At least not the PC Monitors. Major electronic stores, have a vast Collection Of LCD and Plasma TV's but still not so many PC Monitors at display.

At the Moment I have narrowed down my choice to 3 different models which are.

LG W2600H 26'' TFT
Samsung SM-T260 TFT 26''
SAMSUNG SYNCMASTER 2693HM BLACK


Their major difference in specs are that the last one has a brightness of 400 over the others which have 300, and some contrast differences between each models.

But are these enough for me to make the choice? How do i know which one performs better over the other?

I would also like the Monitor to have the Pivot feature. The Samsung T260 although it's a newer model and it's prettier to look at than the other one, it doesnt not provide the pivot so i kind of leave it out. Although it's a great looking Monitor and a fultifunctional at that.

What are your takes between these 3 bad boys?

[sanlyn]

The thing is that Most PC Monitors arent even readily available in my country.

The procedure here is pick the Monitor, order it, and have at it.

There's no going to the store and seeing it, cause it's never there! At least not the PC Monitors. Major electronic stores, have a vast Collection Of LCD and Plasma TV's but still not so many PC Monitors at display.

At the Moment I have narrowed down my choice to 3 different models which are.

LG W2600H 26'' TFT
Samsung SM-T260 TFT 26''
SAMSUNG SYNCMASTER 2693HM BLACK


Their major difference in specs are that the last one has a brightness of 400 over the others which have 300, and some contrast differences between each models.

But are these enough for me to make the choice? How do i know which one performs better over the other?

I would also like the Monitor to have the Pivot feature. The Samsung T260 although it's a newer model and it's prettier to look at than the other one, it doesnt not provide the pivot so i kind of leave it out. Although it's a great looking Monitor and a fultifunctional at that.

What are your takes between these 3 bad boys?

Stick with Samsung, even if their product line varies from model to model. Dell LCD's are often a decent bet. In any case, query Google for monitor reviews before you decide. Avoid non-technical reviewers who say things like "the color is GREAT!!", which is a meaningless statement. Many reviews target monitors that have disappeared from store shelves anyway (it seems every OEM changes their product line every 90 days or so), but sources like Amazon and Newegg.com have many monitor reviews on even some old but still available monitors. http://www.consumersearch.com/lcd-monitors has some review summaries, though like many sites they target monitors that have disappeared.

As far as general specs go, few published specs can be trusted. A monitor that states a 2000:1 contrast ratio can barely produce a 400:1 real-life ratio in use, which is barely sufficient; most pros calibrate for around 700:1. A brightness of "400" is too bright; somewhere around 120 is a more usable figure, so turn that Brightness control down. You can take a look at this website (http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/). The articles deal with either very expensive or obsolete monitors, but at least you'll get a sense of how monitors actually perform and how people should really adjust these critters.

Jagabo has suggested the Spyder line of calibrators, though I feel they're inaccurate and prefer the slightly more expensive Xrite/EyeOne line. But a Spyder is far, far better than trying to eyeball a monitor, which never works well.