Best LCD monitors: how to choose
Picking where to put your pennies when it comes to pricing up a PC can be a pain. Compromises must be made. But if any component deserves a large chunk of your dosh, it's undoubtedly a monitor. Choosing the best LCD monitor can be a pain, but we're here to help.
The screen is quite literally a window into the workings of your PC. It's the one component that influences the user experience every time you sit down and fire up. Put another way, a shader-packed graphics card is great for games. For everything else, it's a billion transistors twiddling their thumbs.
A high-end CPU admittedly has a wider repertoire. For most things, most of the time, however, a cheap quad-core chip delivers all the performance you can actually use.
What LCD monitor?
So, a good PC monitor gives more and it gives it more often. That's not all. Flat panels do not develop as rapidly as most PC-related technologies. Buy a high-end pixel pumper today, and it will be looking old hat inside six months; Performance boosts of 50 per cent or more from one generation to the next isn't unheard of. Likewise, CPUs, hard drives, you name it. But not screens.
A great example here is our very own Dell 30 incher. It's over three years old. That's an eternity by the standards of most PC components. But it's still a stunning screen. In terms of scale and resolution, in fact, it hasn't been bettered.
What's more, it probably has at least a year or two as a high-end screen left in it. In that context, if you'd paid £800 in 2007 you can spread the cost over five years. Suddenly, it doesn't look so expensive.
That's not to say flat panel technology is at a stand still. As we'll see, there are some interesting developments afoot in all parts of the market. But what it does mean is that is that a quality monitor is almost definitely the best long-term investment that you can make for your PC. With the general case in favour of flat panels all sown up, it's time to get specific.
The PC monitor industry is currently dominated by a single screen technology, the liquid crystal display or LCD for short. However, there are several variations on that theme. Not all panels are equal.
LCD panels explained
Getting to grips with the three main LCD panel types is therefore your first and most important step towards flat-panel perfection. However, it's also handy to have a basic understanding of how an LCD panel works. Every picture element or 'pixel' in a liquid crystal display contains – you guessed it – liquid crystals.
A typical LCD panel is made up of thousands, if not millions of these pixels arranged in a grid. Behind this grid is a backlight. Shove an electric current through the crystals courtesy of a pair of transparent electrodes and – presto-chango – they realign.
In simple terms, there are two basic positions or states the crystals can assume, one that blocks light and one that allows light through. Strictly speaking the crystals don't actually block light, they polarise it and in combination with static polarisation filters light either passes through the LCD panel or is blocked.
Anyway, the crystals can assume a huge number of intermediate positions between on and off, allowing some but not all light to pass through. What's more, in a colour LCD panel every pixel is made up of three individual elements covered by filters in the primary colours: red, green and blue. Vary the intensity of light passing through each of these elements and you end up with a full palette of per-pixel colours. Clever, eh?
If that's the basics, the details of how each panel controls the crystals vary considerably and that throws up some very obvious differences in image quality. Which brings us to the first of our flat panel triumvirate: cheap 'n' cheerful Twisted Nematic. Usually known as TN, its raison d'etre is quite simply to be the most affordable full-colour active-matrix LCD technology.
Consequently, TN panels aren't exactly renown for world-beating visual fidelity. The trouble with TN In fact, TN panels suffer from a number of inherent image quality problems. Poor viewing angles are perhaps the most obvious give away that you're looking at a TN panel.
The problem here involves the way the liquid crystals in a TN panel are effectively fixed at one end. When a current is passed through, the crystals bend or 'twist', hence the name. However, this is not as effective or accurate as crystals that are free to fully rotate.
The upshot of using this particular technology is that light tends to leak out at undesirable angles and that means that colours can look odd if the panel is not viewed from directly in front of it. Then there's the fact that the default position of the crystals in a TN panel allows light through. Combined with the restricted crystal movement, this tends to result in poor black colours, limited contrast and an overall watery, washed out appearance. Put simply, TN panels are leaky when it comes to light.
Those bendy crystals make for relatively poor colour accuracy, too. However, it's not all bad news. The limited range of crystal movement does have one upside – quick response. Put a current through a TN pixel and the crystals jump to faster than any other panel type. That means sharper moving images. Perfect for games and films, in other words.
In-Plane Switching
Next up is In-Plane Switching or IPS. This technology is effectively everything that TN is not. In other words, it's pricey but pulchritudinous [Ed - the dictionary says 'bootiful!'].
For starters, the crystals in an IPS panel are free to fully rotate about their axis. They also have a pair of controller transistors per picture sub-element where other panel types have just one. The net result of which is that IPS panels control light better than any other LCD technology. That translates into the most accurate and realistic colours and the widest viewing angles. And that's why you find companies, such as Apple trumpeting the use of IPS panels in devices like the iPhone 4.
In many ways, IPS is the finest LCD tech available at the moment. IPS is not, however, the best by every metric. The extended range of movement the crystals can achieve makes for longer response times and blurrier moving images. IPS panels are also not all that hot at completely blocking out the backlight.
VA, the halfway house
Indeed, that's a trick done best by our final panel tech, Vertical Alignment. There are two types of VA panels, PVA and MVA. The former is more common, but the basic principles are common to both of them.
Most significantly, the default, current-free position of the crystals blocks light from passing through. This allows the deepest and most convincing blacks of any LCD panel technology and the greatest contrast between dark and light tones. That in turn allows for the richest, most saturated (if not the most accurate) colours.
In most other regards, VA panels are a perfect halfway house between TN and IPS panels. They're more colour-accurate than the former, but lack the fidelity of the latter. Likewise, VA screens are halfway between the two when it comes to viewing angles and pixel response.
Screen tricks
If that's the crucial panel types covered, there are a number of secondary screen technologies that are worth understanding. Until recently, backlight technology had been essentially static for a decade or more. You could have any backlight you wanted, as long as it was based on Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL).
More recently, LED or Light Emitting Diode technology has begun to assimilate LCD monitors, having already become de rigueur in high-end HDTV sets. It's important to appreciate that current LED monitors are still based on LCD technology for the panel itself. It's only the backlight that is LED powered.
All the usual LCD caveats therefore apply. However, LED backlights do deliver a number of important advantages.
LED BENEFIT: LED technology consumes less power, but it's still essentially the same tech
For starters, they use less power. They also respond more quickly, making dynamic contrast technology more viable. But most of all, they produce purer light, allowing a wider gamut of colours.
Another factor that effects image quality on any monitor is digital image processing technology. At least, that's what the manufacturers would like you to believe. The most widely publicised is dynamic contrast. The theory behind dynamic contrast makes a lot of sense.
Games and movies vary in brightness from outdoor daytime vistas to dingy dungeon scenes. Why not vary the backlight to suit? That's just what a lot of monitors are now capable of doing. The result, on paper at least, are incredible contrast ratios measuring in the millions to one.
In practice, dynamic contrast doesn't really deliver. More than anything, it tends to crush detail in darker scenes.
Another lesser known digital enhancement technology is pixel overdrive. The idea here is to improve pixel response. It's achieved by pumping excess voltage through the liquid crystal in an attempt to get them to move more quickly. In practice, it does just that. But it also has a tendency to cause the pixels to overshoot the target colour state. When that happens, the colours can go a bit, well, weird.
That's not all. When used in VA panels, overdrive can cause another problem, the dreaded input lag. This involves a tangible delay between the output signal from the video card and the resulting image update on the panel itself. As an end user, you notice this in the form of sluggish mouse responses on the Windows desktop or laggy inputs when playing games.
Pick a panel (or two)
That's key technologies covered. Now it's time to pick a panel and that means setting a budget, choosing a size and deciding on the resolution. When it comes to the latter, your choices have become more limited of late.
Nearly all 22 to 24-inch panels now sport the standard full-HD 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. On the upside, that means that even bargain basement 22-inch panels below £150 offer as much desktop real estate as many larger screens. In fact, you have to go all the way up to the likes of Dell's £700-plus U2711 27-inch monitor or HP's £1,200 30 incher before you actually get more pixels than a cheap HD 22-inch monitor.
It's also worth remembering that the pixel pitch, or pixel size, on a 22-inch HD monitor is much smaller than that of a 24-inch or larger HD monitor. That impacts image quality in a number of mostly positive ways such as improved clarity and sharpness.
A more ambiguous benefit of a tighter pixel pitch is smaller text, which will or won't bother you depending on your eyesight. A further knock-on effect is that with 22-inch HD monitors, the pixel pitch is so small it's debatable whether anti-aliasing is really necessary.
So, there you have it. It may seem like there's a lot to learn when it comes to picking a panel. But the key lessons are simple enough. First, remember that all panels are not equal. If a given screen is large and cheap, it's probably based on a TN LCD. Second, the latest LED powered monitors are desirable but not the huge leap forward manufacturers would have you believe. Finally, don't assume that a bigger screen will have a higher resolution, that's rarely the case.
Hit the next page for the monitor reviews...
Best LCD monitors: 10 best LCD monitor choices
1. Asus ML249H - £189
Asus's 24-inch VA panel doesn't aim to be the best in its class, but it's still more than competent, and quite a bargain. There's no 3D goodness/uselessness (delete as applicable) here, but it boasts a 3000:1 contrast ratio and an impressive 178-degree viewing angle. There's a handy HDMI-in for connecting gamesboxes, and its award-winning swivel stand means it doesn't have a footprint bigger than, well, Bigfoot's. We're slightly disappointed by the lack of adjustment with the stand, but overall it's a well-formed and perfectly adequate screen.
2. Hanns.G HS233 - £233
£233 does sound reasonable for this 23-inch 3D monitor, but chuck in the extra £120 you have to pay for a 3D kit and it does become a little extortionate. That said, we're actually rather impressed with Hanns.G's monitor, which is resolutely gimmick-free but still includes a 3ms response time and a 1,000:1 contrast ratio. Even without the 3D trickery it boasts solid colours, boosted by the backlight. Its 3D performance is up there with the best, and it's worth the investment if you plan on buying a 3D kit in a couple of years - when it's in the bargain bin at PC World.
3. BenQ XL2410 - £264
Benq's monitor comes with a twist – literally. It can tilt through 180-degrees, giving you a vertically orientated display perfect for viewing web pages and writing the next Harry Potter books. It's also a 3D 24-incher, although it doesn't include Nvidia's 3D vision kit. A 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and 2ms response time make the mere act of window-switching in Windows 7 pleasurable, and its size and shape are perfectly suited to gaming and movies.
4. Iiyama ProLite E2472HD - £174
Coming in at under £180, Iiyama's full-HD 24-inch monitor includes an LED backlight. Our doubts about its build quality were quickly relieved when we saw the image quality: the backlight makes it bright, clean and powerful. Black levels are consistently strong, too, and it's a great gaming panel. The only kink in Iiyama's armour is that Benq's EW2420 is available for cheaper, and it packs a VA panel over Iiyama's TN.
Read our Iiyama ProLite E2472HD review
5. Iiyama E2710HDS - £230
Measuring a desktop-conquering 27-inches, the E2710HDS is a truly epic monitor. At this price point we expected it to let us down, but its TN panel has very little compression in our white saturation and black level tests. It has good viewing angles, and a 2ms rating ensures a good pixel response. Even colour saturation and vibrancy are a cut above the norm. Its 1920x1080 resolution is pixel count is admittedly the same as an HD 22-inch monitor, but at this size you aren't going to sit close enough to notice.
Read our Iiyama E2710HDS review
6. BenQ EW2420 - £161
We've been blown away by BenQ's 24-inch monitor, which packs a gorgeous VA panel at an incredibly low price. Contrast and viewing angles are both impressive, and its blacks are none-more-black. It also fails to fall into the VA trap of giving an over-saturated colour palette, instead delivering subtle hues and no white compression. The only minor disappointment is flesh tones, which have a slightly green tinge. Other than that, BenQ's monitor is truly in a class of its own.
7. Samsung Series 9 T27A950 - £650
Samsung's unusual stylings make this 27-inch 3D-capable monitor and TV stand out from the crowd. It's designed primarily to be used as a monitor, but it's easy to switch it to TV mode and "enjoy" The X-Factor. The panel is LED backlit, too, which gives an even light - a benefit of the panel's size. Unlike many other monitors we've looked at, the stand is infinitesimally adjustable, which makes for relaxed viewing. A pair of 3D specs is included, too, so you can enjoy 3D content immediately.
Read our Samsung Series 9 T27A950 review
8. Apple 27-inch Cinema Display - £830
It may be the priciest monitor in our round-up, but - as expected - Apple's stunning 27-inch monitor is one of the brightest, sharpest screens we've ever laid our monitor-weary eyes on. It's a whopper, and packs 2560 x 1440 pixels into its ludicrously lovely designer frame, and the gloss finish really brings out the colours. Our only niggles are the lack of height adjustment, and the fact that you can pick up a refurbished 27-inch iMac for only a few hundred pounds more.
Read our Apple 27-inch Cinema Display review
9. ViewSonic VG2436wm-LED - £166
Despite being set to 100 per cent brightness out of the box, ViewSonic's 24-inch monitor still impressed in terms of picture quality. The panel can be swivelled, rotated, and pivoted to your heart's content, and it'll even rotate 180-degrees - although this doesn't switch the orientation of your OS. It can also be VESA mounted to your wall or desk, which saves senseless clutter. Our only disappointment is the lack of an HDMI interface, which means you can't connect your Xbox.
Read our ViewSonic VG2436wm-LED review
10. Samsung LD220Z Lapfit Touch - £282
No monitor round-up would be complete without a touch screen, and Samsung's 22-inch Lapfit Touch is just that. It's explicitly designed to be a second screen for your laptop, and enabling its touch screen features is simply a question of connecting the USB cable. It's a decent screen, too, with a resolution of 1920x1080 and a nice ergonomic design. It's just a shame that Windows 7's touch screen features suck - but this isn't Samsung's fault.
Read our Samsung LD220Z Lapfit Touch review
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