Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

[bgavin]

Would those who work on LCDs regularly, please recommend a brand that is less troublesome?

I have need for a 22" or larger 16:9 widescreen monitor, and don't want to get stung with a brand that is known to use cheap parts.

[bgavin]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

I've been out doing some digging, and came up with some starter data.

Samsung, LG, and BenQ appear to be the primary LCD panel manufacturers.
TN+Film, PVA, and IPS are the primary panel types.

TN+Film is the low end, cheap and plentiful.
PVA is a significant step up in color quality and saturation, less accuracy.
IPS is the high end accurate color rendition for graphic artists, etc.

Pixel overdrive is a problem with ghosting and lagging.
Super fast response, i.e. < 20 msec, is the cause of image lag and ghosting.

I've seen a number of posts here regarding broken BenQ panels.
Q: Is BenQ the one to avoid?

[dood]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

I use a large number of Acer monitors. I can only guess that they'd be BenQ panels inside. Had a few problems, but so far none of them are out of warranty. Acer's warranty exchange is painless...

Their monitors may not be incredibly accurate, but at $180 for a 22" wide, the price is right. I've got one on my desk here at work and one at home. both model x223w. I've also purchased a bunch of the standard aspect 19 and 17" displays, and all are of the same "high for low-end" quality.

[370forlife]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

I bought a Westinghouse 22", and so far it has given me no problems for about 2 years. No stuck pixels, no dead pixels. We have another on my parent's dell, and it is the same story.

[willawake]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

older eizo lcds had nice caps rubycon etc but dunno about their newer ones, also i was not impressed with the lower end of the newer eizo range. but the high end is a different story.

worrying about TN+, PVA, IPS is like worrying about buying a ford or a porsche. what is your budget? if you want general usage can put up with poor view angles and not perfect colours then you are ok with TN+. but if you want realistic photos etc and good viewing angles then you dont want that but also you sacrifice speed (if you are into gaming)

if you are talking about PVA or IPS then its Samsung, LG, NEC, Eizo for that and maybe you want to add in the budget a calibration device to get the best out of the monitor.

i have a samsung 22" in the office which is a TN+. i thought the colours were not very realistic very saturated and too much contrast. i never calibrated it and it was relatively cheap, nice for office. at home i have a samsung pva 17" which is great for photo editing. if i replace i would get a 24" pva or ips. i would budget for 850-1000 euro.

can get some good reviews on http://www.prad.de/en/index.html

[zandrax]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

I agree with Willa: set the budget and your preferred use, then check the tecnology because there isn't a perfect one, only the more suited to your needs (and budget).

TN is cheap, widely available under most panel sizes and resolutions (I think only 26"+ can't be manifactured manifactured with TN, but the limit changes every year) and adequate for office work. Usually screens with the fastest response time are TN. Defects are color fidelty (colors are somewhat washed out: glossy coating partly addresses this issue, but it turns the panel into a mirror) and view angles, more limited than any other tech and with evident color shift when moving the head from the centre.
IPS has the better color accuracy among LCD panels and the widest view angles, so IPS based monitors are targeted to photo editing: not to say, they're expensive too.
VA family divides into MVA (Fujitsu's Multidomain Vertical Alignment, later licensed to others) and PVA (Samsung's Patterned VA): despite name and origin, they're different technologies. In short, MVA advantages are high brightness and very deep black which compensates a color fidelty between TN and IPS (dark tones are usually lost or rendered darker) and a slow response time for transitions between similar colors (e.g. black to white is fast, mid gray to white is fast but mid gray to dark gray is slow): most lcd tvs use a variant of MVA because of deep black and minor impact of response time on movies. AFAIK only Samsung manifatures PVA panels, which are very sharp and with good contrast; brightness is between MVA and TN, suffer of lost of dark tones and slow response times too and the high sharpness enhances compression in videos.
Recent monitors (recent = from 2004-05 upwards) apply an higher voltage to subpixels to make the transition between colors faster, so to reduce response times: this is called overdrive and may introduce ghost image and corona (edge enhancement) effects on fast movements (action movies, games, etc.) which range from negligible or barely noticeable to evident depending on implementation: every monitor is a single case, even among products of the same brand. MVAs with overdrive are named AMVA, PVAs are S-PVAs and IPS are S-IPS, AS-IPS and others.
Some employ LED backlight to increase the gamut (range of viewable colors) from 72% to about 90% of NTSC color space, but on cheap TNs this is usually a marketing gimmick: color saturation is always inferior to IPS and *VA and all TNs are 6 bit panels which render other colors through dithering (quality of dithering depends on implementation: older monitors up to early 2000s were ditherless, old have a partial and noticeable dither - color flickering if dynamic, patterns if static - and more recent employ HiFreq dynamic dithering, which should be way less noticeable), so they're the least suited to take advantage of wider gamut.

Said so, Prad.de is a panel bible and hosts accurate reviews too; Flatpanelshd has an extensive list of panels (given a model, you can find out the panel inside), TFT Central is useful for tech infos and both Behardware and Xbit Labs have good reviews (mostly gaming oriented, but are still useful).

Zandrax

[bgavin]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

Much appreciated. I knew I was asking in the right place.

I don't game at all.
Don't show movies.
Unemployed, so cost is a factor.
I do a lot of VM work, and need a very large amount of screen real estate.
I do a lot of code development, remote support, and business work.

I've been thinking two monitors might be better than a wide screen, but the wife needs my current monitor. I have to get another screen.

I will haunt the site above, and go learn some more.

[ edit ]

I'm still hunting to see if there are components to avoid in LCDs, i.e. BESTEC power supplies, Fuhkyoo caps, and so forth.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

Barring cracked screens, the screen [LCD panel] itself is rarely the problem. The PCBs behind them are and manufacturer of the LCD panel and the PCBs don't have much to do with each other. You might find an LG LCD panel and BenQ PCB's in the same unit.

There are a lot of dead Westinghouse 19" to 25.5" on ebay.
I've been trying to get my hands on a cheap semi-dead one so I can figure out what their problem is.

My favorite for personal use is to get a Viewsonic and recap it.

A lot of those with BenQ circuit boards have problems with transistors in addition to caps issues.
- On that: Do a search for C5707 [the transistor that blows] and the screen you are considering and hopefully you can avoid that problem.
[That transistor seems to be a single source item. Only one mfr makes them.]

.

[Wizard]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

And one more thing about avoiding Acer/Benq monitors is POOR cooling due to extreme tight back cover. Barely have height for capacitors.

Cheers, Wizard

[bgavin]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

The PRAD site is a total gold mine for information. Very in-depth. Thanks for the referral.

The Eizo 22" looks to be the top of the pile.
The Hyundai 241D looks awfully good too.

All of these are much more capable than I need.
I'm doing just fine on a Viewsonic VA903b, other than needing a bigger screen.

I've seen enough Acer computer problems to figure they probably have problems with their monitors also. The don't get very good reviews either.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

I would advice you to read this thread too
While allot is to be said for the importance of the Panel recently manufacturers have found a new way to fuck up the LCD's; https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6148

[willawake]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

and dont forget the sometimes panel lottery which happen as the same model come with 2 or maybe 3 different panels

[zandrax]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

Willa and Per are right: while a good overdrive can reduce the response time whitout being noticeable, image enhancement functions implemented inside the monitor (e.g. dynamic contrast, dynamic color saturation, "cinema" mode and such) increase input lag (time between receiving the signal and displaying on screen): this is, however, an issue for gamers (you may die in the meanwhile, the movement is stuttering, etc.) and an annoyance for all not gamers.

Different issue is the "panel lottery", aka changing the panel during the production but keeping the same model name: early monitors have the original panel and are reviewed, people start buying the well reviewed ones because are good products for a cheap price, sales rise but the manifacturer can't keep with orders or has already finished the stock of panels. Then it starts replacing the panel with a different one (usually from a different manifacturer, sometimes even a different technology) and selling the "new" monitor under the same name: it wouldn't be an issue if these panels could show the same image quality, unfortunately this almost never happens and buyers are disappointed from the inferior product. Sometimes the manifacturer even hides everything could reveal the panel employed (e.g. the panel letter on old Samsung monitors' labels and the name inside service menus): this is IMHO deceiving.
Dell mastered the panel lottery for years (e.g. the 2007FP with a S-IPS or an inferior S-PVA: photographers were attracted from the fair price, they wanted the S-IPS one and got the S-PVA) until Samsung joined with the infamous 226BW (4 different panels from 4 manifacturers: AUO, CMO, CPT and Samsung. Electronic and bios were optimized for the Samsung panel, so all other three had unrealistic default colors, correctable with a proper calibration, and the CPT one had a backlight issue too). I found another site with a panel list, lcdtech: it seems more comprehensive than the falatpanelhd's one.

Since you're on a strict budget, look for new TNs or old PVAs/MVAs/IPS': the first are cheap (new 19" at 1440x900 widescreen are budget models for less than $150, 22" at 1650x1080 or 1920x1200 are mid of the line for $200-250) and the second can be a bargain depending on offered price and components (you're facing aging backlights, bad caps, weak or prone to break transformers ...). Broken ones can be repaired if you understand the possible defect.

Zandrax

[bgavin]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

I entered all the PRAD summary data into my computer spread sheet, then sorted by the Very Good attribute. I printed a list and went to Fry's yesterday to see if any were on the list.

Nope.

Fry's (here) does not stock any PVA or better displays. Evidently they stock what moves, and avoid the esoteric (read: high quality) components. I was pricing the Eizo here in the US... very expensive.

I'm doing quite well on a Viewsonic VA903b, so maybe I will just get a second one and go dual monitor. I have no need for true 16:9 widescreen, as I play movies on the TV. Evidently all the major players will be entirely out of 16:10 shortly, and standardizing on the 16:9 used by the movie companies.

FWIW, I found the 24" widescreen is really what I need for size...

[willawake]

Re: Recommend LCD Display With Less Problems

yeah i saw a 20" and 22" side by side and i couldnt stop myself getting the bigger one