Widescreen TFT - better than a CRT?

I'm not too hot on what makes a good TFT monitor, or if it will be more pleasant to look at than my old CRT, so I'm hoping people here can help me out.

I'm currently using a 19" AOC normal CRT monitor, and I'm finding that the text is a bit blurry around the edges and suchlike (at a res of 1280x1024, 85hz), so I'm considering a 19" TFT, to be specific a Dabs value 19" - (dabs.com, quicklinx: 4CKTWS). This gets a good 5-star rating from many people, and is nice and cheap.

The specs on the TFT are - 19inch diagonal, 8ms response time, 1440x900 res - are these OK?

How much larger / smaller will the visible screen area be on a 19" widescreen TFT screen compared to a 19" CRT?

What happens if I don't run it at the full 1440x900 res? Does it make text and suchlike unreadable? What happens in games at 800x600 or 1024x768?

many thanks for your help

Always use the LCD monitor at its native resolution, in this case 1440 x 990, as it is the only resolution where one physical pixel corresponds to a picture pixel your computer is generating. If you go over that resolution the monitor will have to recalculate and fit the higher res into what is available (i.e. 1440 x 990) usually resulting in a worse quality picture. If you go below the native resolution you have two options. Firstly, you can opt to show the lower resolution using a full monitor screen. This again will result in recalculation and very likely in lower quality picture. Second option is better as it will use exactly one physical pixel per virtual pixel but the whole picture will not cover the whole screen, so you'll have high quality sharp picture but unused parts of the screen will be black.

Barney

My brother's just bought this 19" TFT (5 ms response) and says it rules, and it seems to be getting rave reviews:

http://www.savastore.com/productinfo/product.aspx?product_id=10290270&catalog_name=Savastore&page=customerreviews&pid=0

(It's about a tenner more.)

I like the old CRT monitors. ALot of people i know have got flatscreen monitors. They have a pretty poor viewing angle if you ask me. Maybe the more expensive ones are better i'd imagine, but why should i pay more, to have the same thing?

I reckon they are incredibly handy if your tight on space though.

After seeing that link, i may be wrong though :oP

Looks a cracker!

You can buy pretty much any computer equipment here from CCL.

19" Monitors (including the one listed above) here but cheaper.

http://www.cclonline.com/product-categories.asp?category_id=40

Darkheart

Modern TFT monitors rule. Period.

Holy cow. I had no idea these things had gotten so cheap!

Yes, but bear in mind that specs don't tell you much about TFT's. If you can, it's always best to see one running before you buy it. Two monitors with identical specs can look very different, and response time is measured in many different ways ( typical, grey to grey, rise and fall )


It will be about the same size as a 21" crt.


These days most TFT's look pretty good run at non-native res, but avoid it as much as you can because scaling doesn't look as good as using the natural res. The more scaling, the worse it is, so run it as close as you can. Obviously if the resolution you run it at is anything other than 16:10 ( which is what 1440x900 is ) will also be a different aspect ratio and things may be a little misshapen. Law and Order:Criminal Intent, for example, can only run at 4:3 and all the characters look squashed on a 16:9.

Also, what Barney says about pixel-pixel accuracy with borders won't work on all monitors. If you want that feature, you should make sure the monitor you buy supports it.

That can be fixed on nVidia cards using a DVI cable though, where you can configure it to display non-native resolutions differently, such as pixel-per-pixel as you mentioned, fixed aspect ratio-scaling, etc...
(I got a 2 year old 5:4 1280x1024rez flatscreen here and it looks great on lower resolutions, so I'd be assuming modern ones can scale even better)

Mainly love the fact it gives off less heat, takes less room, and just soooo much easier (on my) eyes to look at, what with there being no flicker and crap from CRTs when they're under 80hz.



Speaking of which, does that monitor even have a DVI input Voderman? I only see VGA cable mentioned on the specs.

I've got one of those Hanns-G widescreens as a secondary and its really very impressive. To be honest if I'd paid double what I did I wouldnt have been disappointed.



(Obviously it's the one on the right, the other is my 23" Apple Cinema Display).

For me the biggest benefit of TFTs are thay they are just so much easier on the eyes.

Aw man, me and my 17" are jealous. Very jealous!

Wow RiK, very impressive setup there. The Hanns_G monitor looks very tempting indeed.

I'm finding I tend to get headaches easily when looking at a CRT monitor for a while, even at 85hz refresh - I'm hoping that a TFT can reduce this problem.

One little warning about TFT they are SLOOW updates.

8ms is not tru.. it dose cleary not mean pixel changing from 100% white to 100% black at 8ms.

why is this important you may ask..

(For example play SuperMario bross in an emulator and se difirens. its praticly unplayable.)

but other that slow updates FPS tft Rulze.

Wings: Depends on the screen. More you spend, better quality you get (in most cases).

Playing games on my TFT is not a problem. It exhibits much less ghosting than my Nintendo DS Lite.

Yeah, it's entirely dependant on the screen. My first TFT was a 15" Sony, back in the days when a 15" TFT cost about £300. Officially that Sony monitor had a high response time, like 25ms or something, but in practice it was every bit as responsive as the 5ms monitors you see today. It's a shame Sony monitors aren't more widespread, or I'd have another one now. My old 15" Sony remains the best looking screen I've ever seen, size not withstanding of course.

Thinks to look for:

1) Low response time (high response time = blurring)

2) Contrast Ratio. the higher the contrast ratio, the better the colors. With a really low contrast ratio, colors may look more washed out than on a screen with a high contrast ratio.

3) Brightness: more isn't always better. the older generations tended to boast high brightness, but you're probably going to be more happy with a <400cd screen than one that's above that -- with a high brightness it doesn't take much to trade the eyestrain of an old CRT screen refresh for the eyestrain of a too-bright display.

4) DVI (if your video card supports it, or if you're planning to get a new video adapter at some point. DVI gives a much crisper image than plain old VGA. You'll be pleasantly surprised)

5) Go with a name-brand screen. Doesn't matter much which name brand, but walk far away from the no-name displays such as BenQ, Advueue, Rosewill, etc.
Philips, ViewSonic, Sony, Acer, HP, Dell, etc. are all just fine.

The biggest issue is that there are several grades of LCD screens, and many of the no-names use the lower grades. these are more prone to have dead pixels, or stuck sub-pixels (where a pixel is permanently stuck on red, green or blue). Their warranty also 'allows' for more of such defects, meaning that you may not be able to exchange a lower end screen with bad pixels.

6) Pretty much all built-in speakers sound like crap. They tend to be underpowered, and sound tinny. More than likely your existing speakers sound much better than whatever built-in speakers you'll run into. I don't know anyone with an LCD with speakers that's actually using them.

7) LCD sizes are slightly larger than CRT. IN general you get at least an extra inch of viewing size. (My 19" LCD is the *exact* same height as my 21" CRT, although the CRT is a fraction of an inch wider)

Some other considerations:

Many screens are advertised as 16.2 million colors these days. Note that those only use a 6-bit panel, and can only show 64 shades of a color instead of the 256 shades that a true 16.7 million color screen can do. Most of the 6-bit panels use some fancy hardware dithering algorithms to smooth out transitions and artificially increase the color count again, but its color representation won't be as good as an 8-bit panel.
The advatnage of a 6-bit panel is that it's "good enough" for most people, and they tend to be cheaper & a little faster than the 8-bit screens.

Personally I have an 19" Acer 1917ABMD, under $200, and absolutely love it. I'm never going back to CRT myself.

As far as 'normal' aspect ratio vs widescreen -- that's entirely up to the person. Wide screen can be great for movies, but some games won't look as good since you won't have a native 800x600 or 1024x768 resolution... It might be stretched oddly. Love 'em or hate 'em.

Remember that while the pixel count is prety much identical for both, the wide screen monitor does give you less square inches. the 19" is measured diagonally, and although both versions are 19", one is wider and lower than the other. A "Normal" 19" screen is 176 square inches, while a 19" wide-screen is 162 square inches. One of the reasons you're seeing so many wide screen displays is that they are cheaper to manufacture since the panels are smaller.
anyway, that one is all up to personal preference. Personally I prefer the non-widescreens.

One final thought: most of the cheaper screens only allow you to tilt the display, but can't be adjusted in height. Not a biggie, but figured I should mention it anyway.

is the DVI output the white plug about 1 inch long with lots of little square holes? I currently have a Geforce 6600GT which has one of these plugs.

Can this be used for a normal CRT monitor with an adaptor on the VGA cable, and would you get a better picture?

Yes. and it's normally a white connector, instead of blue like a VGA plug.



You can use the converter, but you will not get the better image: DVI contains both digital and analog pins, and if you use the converter then the digital pins will be ignored and the analog pins will be passed through. At that point, the end result is pretty much identical to normal VGA.

The advantage of DVI <-> DVI is that the signal stays digital the entire time, and the monitor gets a true representation of the information to display. With VGA (or any analog signal), the digital information in the video card gets converted to analog, and the monitor converts it back to digital before displaying. But while it travels in analog form it's possible for the signal to interfere with itself ever so slightly -- one pixel can affect the color of its neighbours slightly, and even the phase and clock can be a tiny bit off, all leading to a slightly blurred end result. While normally VGA looks "good enough" to most people, you can most definitely tell the difference if you put two screens next to each other, one using DVI and one using VGA.

The DVI screen has much crisper pictures compared with VGA, and this is very clear -- especially when you are running in a high resolution and are reading text.

Dont belive the 10 ms prommise.. its only means how pixel is reciving and can take next instuction. due to physical limit of tft it will cause blurryness if gfx moves fast.

note the only games that hav blurry problems is nes mario games retro stuff. All new 3d and movies you problably wont notice..

Maby then the text scrolls after a movie you can see difirens if you place them both beside.

CRT loses to tft to all but FPS :)