disadvantages of tft lcd monitors quotation

Responsible for performing installations and repairs (motors, starters, fuses, electrical power to machine etc.) for industrial equipment and machines in order to support the achievement of Nelson-Miller’s business goals and objectives:

• Provide electrical emergency/unscheduled diagnostics, repairs of production equipment during production and performs scheduled electrical maintenance repairs of production equipment during machine service.

TFT stands for thin-film transistor, which means that each pixel in the device has a thin-film transistor attached to it. Transistors are activated by electrical currents that make contact with the pixels to produce impeccable image quality on the screen. Here are some important features of TFT displays.Excellent Colour Display.Top notch colour contrast, clarity, and brightness settings that can be adjusted to accommodate specific application requirements.Extended Half-Life.TFT displays boast a much higher half-life than their LED counterparts and they also come in a variety of size configurations that can impact the device’s half-life depending on usage and other factors.TFT displays can have either resistive or capacitive touch panels.Resistive is usually the standard because it comes at a lower price point, but you can also opt for capacitive which is compatible with most modern smartphones and other devices.TFT displays offer exceptional aspect ratio control.Aspect ratio control contributes to better image clarity and quality by mapping out the number of pixels that are in the source image compared to the resolution pixels on the screen.Monitor ghosting doesn’t occur on TFT displays.This is when a moving image or object has blurry pixels following it across the screen, resembling a ghost.

TFT displays are incredibly versatile.The offer a number of different interface options that are compatible with various devices and accommodate the technical capabilities of all users.

There are two main types of TFT LCD displays:· Twisted nematic TFT LCDs are an older model. They have limited colour options and use 6 bits per each blue, red, and green channel.

In-plane switching TFT LCDs are a newer model. Originally introduced in the 1990s by Hitachi, in-plane switching TFT LCDs consist of moving liquid pixels that move in contrast or opposite the plane of the display, rather than alongside it.

The type of TFT LCD monitor or industrial display you choose to purchase will depend on the specifications of your application or project. Here are a few important factors to consider when selecting an appropriate TFT LCD display technology:Life expectancy/battery life.Depending on the length of ongoing use and the duration of your project, you’re going to want to choose a device that can last a long time while maintaining quality usage.

Touch type and accuracy.What type of activities are you planning on using your device for? If it’s for extended outdoor use, then you should go with projected capacitive touch as this is more precise and accurate. Touch accuracy is important for industrial and commercial applications.

Image clarity.Some TFT displays feature infrared touchscreens, while others are layered. The former is preferable, especially in poor lighting conditions or for outdoor and industrial applications, because there’s no overlay and therefore no obstructions to light emittance.

The environmental conditions make a difference in operation and image clarity. When choosing a TFT for outdoor or industrial applications, be sure to choose one that can withstand various environmental elements like dust, wind, moisture, dirt, and even sunlight.

As a leading manufacturer and distributor of high-quality digital displays in North America, Nauticomp Inc. can provide custom TFT LCD monitor solutions that are suitable for a multitude of industrial and commercial indoor and outdoor applications. Contact us today to learn more.

The worlds of high-end Color LCD Modules are taken over. As our world evolved and embedded devices becoming more, and more sophisticated and prevalent, we tend to look at the art of design. Steve Jobs sums it up just right. “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” TFT LCD modules are a type of variant of an LCD which uses thin film, appliances such as: TV, computer monitors, kindles, mobile phone, and navigation system. The construction of a color LCD module or TFT LCD is quite extraordinary because of the circuit layout process; this form of layout is similar to the layout of a semiconductor product. Even though as we observe the TFT LCD display we came across few pros and cons which are most needed for this discussion. The advantages of TFT LCD are as follows: less energy consumption, visibility is sharper in other words has superb quality, physical design, response time, and less eye strain etc… With every great product there are few disadvantages associated, such as, cost and viewing angles.

TFT LCD displays are very convenient because of the energy consumption associate with this display, knowingly in today’s society saving energy is a number one priority to reduce greenhouse gas and ensure a better future generations. Due to the construction of TFT structures Pixel like materials does not consume much energy to begin with except this material consume far less power than a comparable CRT monitor. The images of a TFT display does not rely on the scanning of electron beams instead they are free from flicker and has a crisp image, with no geometric distortion. The physical design of TFT display are space savors which can be position anywhere in ones office, or house with a rotations mechanism in place for less constrains on space.

As mention before TFT LCD has few disadvantages, due to the nature of the design TFT LCD display may cost a little more than a regular monochrome display. Other disadvantages may arise when the viewing the display at the 6 0’clock direction but in fact the optimal viewing is at the 12’oclock direction this may also lead to inversion which or common in situation like this; however TFT displays are superior and will be in production for years to come.

TFT Liquid crystal display products are diversified, convenient and versatile, simple to keep up, upgrade, update, long service life, and have many alternative characteristics.

The display range covers the appliance range of all displays from one to forty inches and, therefore, the giant projection plane could be a large display terminal.

Display quality from the most straightforward monochrome character graphics to high resolution, high colour fidelity, high brightness, high contrast, the high response speed of various specifications of the video display models.

In particular, the emergence of TFT LCD electronic books and periodicals will bring humans into the era of paperless offices and paperless printing, triggering a revolution in the civilized way of human learning, dissemination, and recording.

It can be generally used in the temperature range from -20℃ to +50℃, and the temperature-hardened TFT LCD can operate at low temperatures up to -80 ℃. It can be used as a mobile terminal display or desktop terminal display and can be used as a large screen projection TV, which is a full-size video display terminal with excellent performance.

The manufacturing technology has a high degree of automation and sound characteristics of large-scale industrial production. TFT LCD industry technology is mature, with a more than 90% mass production rate.

It is an ideal combination of large-scale semiconductor integrated circuit technology and light source technology and has good potential for more development.

From the beginning of flat glass plates, its display effect is flat right angles, letting a person have a refreshing feeling. LCDs are simple to achieve high resolution on small screens.

IPS (In-Plane Switching) lcd is still a type of TFT LCD, IPS TFT is also called SFT LCD (supper fine tft ),different to regular tft in TN (Twisted Nematic) mode, theIPS LCD liquid crystal elements inside the tft lcd cell, they are arrayed in plane inside the lcd cell when power off, so the light can not transmit it via theIPS lcdwhen power off, When power on, the liquid crystal elements inside the IPS tft would switch in a small angle, then the light would go through the IPS lcd display, then the display on since light go through the IPS display, the switching angle is related to the input power, the switch angle is related to the input power value of IPS LCD, the more switch angle, the more light would transmit the IPS LCD, we call it negative display mode.

The regular tft lcd, it is a-si TN (Twisted Nematic) tft lcd, its liquid crystal elements are arrayed in vertical type, the light could transmit the regularTFT LCDwhen power off. When power on, the liquid crystal twist in some angle, then it block the light transmit the tft lcd, then make the display elements display on by this way, the liquid crystal twist angle is also related to the input power, the more twist angle, the more light would be blocked by the tft lcd, it is tft lcd working mode.

A TFT lcd display is vivid and colorful than a common monochrome lcd display. TFT refreshes more quickly response than a monochrome LCD display and shows motion more smoothly. TFT displays use more electricity in driving than monochrome LCD screens, so they not only cost more in the first place, but they are also more expensive to drive tft lcd screen.The two most common types of TFT LCDs are IPS and TN displays.

TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) we are talking here is TN (Twisted Nematic) type TFT displays which is align with the term in the TV and computer market. Now, TFT displays have taken over the majority of low-end color display market. They have wide applications in TV, computer monitors, medical, appliance, automotive, kiosk, POS terminals, low end mobile phones, marine, aerospace, industrial meters, smart homes, consumer electronic products etc. For more information about TFT displays, please visit our knowledge base.

Talking about Pros and Cons of TFT displays, we need to clarify which display they are compared to. To some displays, TFT displays might have advantages, but compared with another display, the same character might become the disadvantages of TFT displays. We will try our best to make clear as below.

Excellent physical design. TFT displays are very easy to design and integrated with other components, such as resistive and capacitive touch panels (RTP, CTP, PCAP) etc.

Minimum Eye Strain: Because TFT panel itself doesn’t emit light itself like CRT, LED, VFD. The light source is LED backlight which is filtered well with the TFT glass in front for the blue light.

More Energy Consumption: Compared with monochrome displays and OLED (PMOLED and AMOLED) display, which makes TFT displays less attractive in wearable device.

Poor response time and viewing angle: Compared with IPS LCD displays, AMOLED displays and recent micro-LED display. TFT displays still need to note viewing angle of 6 o’clock or 12 o’clock in the datasheet and still have the gray scale inversion issue.

High tooling cost: Depending on which generation production line to produce and also depending on its size. Building a TFT display fab normally need billions of dollars. For a big size display which needs high generation production line to produce. The NRE cost can be millions dollars.

Sunlight Readability: Because it is very expensive to produce transflective TFT LCD displays, in order to be readable under the sunlight, very bright LED backlight (> 1,000 nits) has to be used. The power needed is high and also need to deal with heat management. If used together with touch panel, expensive optical bonding (OCA or OCR) and surface treatment (AR, AF) technologies have to be used.

The tft (thin film transistor), a thin film field effect transistor, is one of the active matrix liquid crystal displays. It can “actively” control each individual pixel on the screen, which can greatly improve the response time. General tft response time is relatively fast, about 80 milliseconds, and the viewing angle is large, generally can reach about 130 degrees, mainly used in high-end products. The so-called thin film field effect transistor means that each liquid crystal pixel point on the LCD is driven by a thin film transistor integrated in the back. tft belongs to the active matrix LCD, which technically adopts the “active matrix” method to drive, by using the thin film technology to make the electrode of the transistor, and using the scanning method to “actively pull “The light source is first transmitted upward through the lower polarizing plate when irradiated, and the light is conducted by the liquid crystal molecules to achieve the purpose of display through shading and light transmission.

TFT in active matrix liquid crystal display, in the technology used zhuan active shu matrix way to drive, the method genus is the use of thin film technology made of electro crystal electrodes, the use of scanning method active pull control any one display point on and off, light source irradiation first through the lower polarizing plate upward transmission, with the help of liquid crystal molecules to conduct light, through shading and light transmission to achieve the purpose of the display.

TFT also improves the phenomenon that STN will flicker (water ripple) blur, effectively improving the ability to play dynamic images. Compared with STN TFT has excellent color saturation, reproduction ability and higher contrast ratio.

1, the use of TFT LCD module design products, pay attention to the perspective of the liquid crystal and the design of the product use consistent with.

2, to prevent damage to the LCD glass, falling or hard object impact will cause the LCD screen rupture or shatter, especially the corners of the part is particularly fragile.

3, the surface of the LCD polarizer has a surface layer to inhibit reflection, must not scratch the surface, it is best to use transparent plastic material on the surface of the LCD to protect the screen.

4, if the LCD module storage below the specified temperature below, the liquid crystal material will condense performance will also be weakened. If the LCD module is stored above the specified temperature, the molecular arrangement direction of the liquid crystal material will change to liquid state and may not be able to recover to the original state. Exceeding the temperature and humidity range will cause the polarizer to peel or blister. Therefore, liquid crystal modules should be stored in the specified temperature range.

This is a should be said to be a relatively simple fault, the general LCD display is divided into two kinds of power and equipment outside the power supply, equipment outside the more common some.

Regardless of that type of power supply, its construction is much simpler than the crt display power supply, vulnerable parts of the general is some small components, such as fuse tubes, keyed inductors, switching tubes, voltage regulator diodes, etc..

This type of problem is generally Kor voltage anomaly caused by the maintenance of the power circuit pose, in this case, the general LCD screen is displayed information, see the way is “eye squint”.

The bright line is generally the screen itself has gone electric, the above two kinds of problems are mostly to the device sentenced to death, no overhaul value, because the price of a screen is too high.

This problem, if the screen’s optocoupler circuit in the motherboard, then it should be the fault of the motherboard, if the screen’s optocoupler circuit in the LCD, the general condition of the screen should be changed, the risk of overhaul is quite large.

Impact: In different working modes, LCD monitors may have some impact, the vast majority is all normal conditions, there are very few are generated on the power supply circuit.

Due to, the unique production process of the LCD monitor, resulting in only in the standard working mode test to the difficulty can be counted as a fault.

Technology can be confusing because it evolves quickly, and there are complex acronyms for almost everything. If you are thinking ofbuildinga monitor or want to learn about the technology, you will encounter the term TFT Monitor at some point.

A lot goes on behind the glass surface, and we will look at this in comparison to other technologies to paint a clear picture of what TFT is and how it evolved.

TFT is an acronym for Thin Film Transistor, and it is a technology used in Liquid Crystal Display screens. It came about as an improvement to passive-matrix LCDs because it introduced a tiny, separate transistor for each pixel. The result? Such displays could keep up with quick-moving images, which passive-matrix LCDs could not do.

Also, because the transistors are tiny, they have a low power consumption and require a small charge to control each one. Therefore, it is easy to maintain a high refresh rate, resulting in quick image repainting, making a TFT screen the ideal gaming monitor.

The technology improved on the TN (Twisted Nematic) LCD monitor because the shifting pattern of the parallel, horizontal liquid crystals gives wide viewing angles. Therefore, IPS delivers color accuracy and consistency when viewed at different angles.

Both TFT and IPS monitors are active-matrix displays and utilize liquid crystals to paint the images. Technically, the two are intertwined because IPS is a type of TFT LCD. IPS is an improvement of the old TFT model (Twisted Nematic) and was a product of Hitachi displays, which introduced the technology in 1990.

The monitors can create several colors using the different brightness levels and on/off switches. But unlike OLED, both TFT and IPS do not emit light, so most have bright fluorescent lamps or LED backlights to illuminate the picture. Also, neither of them can produce color, so they have an RGB color filter layer.

Easy to Integrate and Update: By combining large-scale semiconductor IC and light source technology, TFTs have the potential for easy integration and updating/development.

Wide Application Range: TFTs are suitable for mobile, desktop screens, and large-screen TVs. Additionally, the technology can operate at a temperature range of -20°C to +50°C, while the temperature-hardened design can remain functional at temperatures not exceeding -80°C.

Impressive Display Effect: TFT displays use flat glass plates that create an effect of flat right angles. Combine this with the ability of LCDs to achieve high resolutions on small screen types, and you get a refreshing display quality.

Good Environmental Protection: The raw materials used to make TFT displays produce zero radiation and scintillation. Thus, the technology does not harm the user or the environment.

Mature Manufacturing Technology: TFT technology came into existence in the 60s. Over time, its manufacturing technology has matured to have a high degree of automation, leading to cheaper, large-scale industrial production.

Wide View Angle: One of the main advantages of IPS screens is their wide viewing angle due to the horizontal liquid crystals. They do not create halo effects, grayscale, or blurriness, but these are common flaws with TFTs.

Better Color Reproduction and Representation: The pixels in TFTs function perpendicularly after activation with the help of electrodes. However, IPS technology makes the pixels function while parallel horizontally. Thus, they reflect light better and create a more original and pristine image color.

Faster Frequency Transmittance: Compared to TFT, IPS screens transmit frequencies at about 25ms, which is 25x faster. This high speed is necessary to achieve wide viewing angles.

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) is a front panel display that utilizes liquid crystals held between two layers of polarized glass to adjust the amount of blocked light. The technology does not produce light on its own, so it needs fluorescent lamps or white LEDs.

As explained earlier, TFT improved on the passive-matrix LCD design because it introduces a thin film transistor for each pixel. The technology reducescrosstalkbetween the pixels because each one is independent and does not affect the adjacent pixels.

LED screens are like the new kids on the block in the display market, and they operate very differently from LCDs. Instead of blocking light, LEDs emit light and are thinner, provide a faster response rate, and are more energy-efficient.

Since IPS is a type of TFT, when comparing the two, we are essentially looking at the old Thin-Film Transistor technology (Twisted Nematic) vs. the new (IPS). Even though TN is relatively old, this digital display type has its advantages, a vital one being the fast refresh rate. This feature makes such screens the preferred option by competitive gamers. If you have any inquiries about the technology,contact usfor more information.

All displays work in a similar manner. In a very basic explanation, they all have many rows and columns of pixels driven by a controller that communicates with each pixel to emit the brightness and color needed to make up the transmitted image. In some devices, the pixels are diodes that light up when current flows (PMOLEDs and AMOLEDs), and in other electronics, the pixel acts as a shutter to let some of the light from a backlight visible. In all cases, a memory array stores the image information that travels to the display through an interface.

According to Wikipedia, "an interface is a shared boundary across which two separate components of a computer system exchange information. The exchange can be between software, computer hardware, peripheral devices, humans, and combinations of these. Some computer hardware devices such as a touchscreen can both send and receive data through the interface, while others such as a mouse or microphone may only provide an interface to send data to a given system.” In other words, an interface is something that facilitates communication between two objects. Although display interfaces serve a similar purpose, how that communication occurs varies widely.

Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a synchronous serial communication interface best-suited for short distances. It was developed by Motorola for components to share data such as flash memory, sensors, Real-Time Clocks, analog-to-digital converters, and more. Because there is no protocol overhead, the transmission runs at relatively high speeds. SPI runs on one master (the side that generates the clock) with one or more slaves, usually the devices outside the central processor. One drawback of SPI is the number of pins required between devices. Each slave added to the master/slave system needs an additional chip select I/O pin on the master. SPI is a great option for small, low-resolution displays including PMOLEDs and smaller LCDs.

Philips Semiconductors invented I2C (Inter-integrated Circuit) or I-squared-C in 1982. It utilizes a multi-master, multi-slave, single-ended, serial computer bus system. Engineers developed I2C for simple peripherals on PCs, like keyboards and mice to then later apply it to displays. Like SPI, it only works for short distances within a device and uses an asynchronous serial port. What sets I2C apart from SPI is that it can support up to 1008 slaves and only requires two wires, serial clock (SCL), and serial data (SDA). Like SPI, I2C also works well with PMOLEDs and smaller LCDs. Many display systems transfer the touch sensor data through I2C.

RGB is used to interface with large color displays. It sends 8 bits of data for each of the three colors, Red Green, and Blue every clock cycle. Since there are 24 bits of data transmitted every clock cycle, at clock rates up to 50 MHz, this interface can drive much larger displays at video frame rates of 60Hz and up.

Low-Voltage Differential Signaling (LVDS) was developed in 1994 and is a popular choice for large LCDs and peripherals in need of high bandwidth, like high-definition graphics and fast frame rates. It is a great solution because of its high speed of data transmission while using low voltage. Two wires carry the signal,  with one wire carrying the exact inverse of its companion. The electric field generated by one wire is neatly concealed by the other, creating much less interference to nearby wireless systems. At the receiver end, a circuit reads the difference (hence the "differential" in the name) in voltage between the wires. As a result, this scheme doesn’t generate noise or gets its signals scrambled by external noise. The interface consists of four, six, or eight pairs of wires, plus a pair carrying the clock and some ground wires. 24-bit color information at the transmitter end is converted to serial information, transmitted quickly over these pairs of cables, then converted back to 24-bit parallel in the receiver, resulting in an interface that is very fast to handle large displays and is very immune to interference.

Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) is a newer technology that is managed by the MIPI Alliance and has become a popular choice among wearable and mobile developers. MIPI uses similar differential signaling to LVDS by using a clock pair and one to eight pairs of data called lanes. MIPI supports a complex protocol that allows high speed and low power modes, as well as the ability to read data back from the display at lower rates. There are several versions of MIPI for different applications, MIPI DSI being the one for displays.

Display components stretch the limitations of bandwidth. For perspective, the most common internet bandwidth in a residential home runs on average at around 20 megabits per second or 20 billion 1s and 0s per second. Even small displays can require 4MB per second, which is a lot of data in what is often a tightly constrained physical space.

To give an example, a small monochrome PMOLED with a resolution of 128 x 128 contains 16,384 individual diodes. A still image of various diodes carrying current represents a frame. A frame rate is the number of times that a picture needs refreshing. Most videos have a frame rate of 60 fps (frames per second), which means that it is updated 60 times every second.

Take the same PMOLED display with the 128 x 128 resolution and 16,384 separate diodes; it requires information as to when and how brightly to illuminate each pixel. For a display with only 16 shades, it takes 4 bits of data. 128 x 128 x 4 = 65,536 bits for one frame. Now multiply it by the 60Hz, and you get a bandwidth of 4 megabits/second for a small monochrome display.

Improve your product design by adding the DT010ATFT: a small, simple 1” TFT LCD with IPS technology. This mini TFT display is perfect as a status indicator presenting graphic icons or simplified information. The IPS technology included in this display allows your content to be crisp and clear no matter what angle your user is viewing it from. The ST7735S driver IC provides on-chip storage and power system. This IC allows for fewer components and a simple design to easily integrate the DT010ATFT into your next product.

Since the announcement the other day, I"ve seen a lot of misinformation floating around about what a TFT-LCD is or is not. It"s time for everyone to get informed.

I"ll just get right to the point... Every LCD in every computer, phone, and television produced since the early 2000s has been some type of TFT-LCD. TFT stands for thin-film-transistor. Thin-film-transistors are used in all modern LCDs to enable active matrix addressing of pixels. No one makes non-TFT (passive matrix) LCDs anymore as it"s old, inferior technology!

Next, let me address this phrase that has been popping up everywhere lately: "IPS is better than TFT." No. Just no. This statement makes no sense because IPS (In-plane switching) displays are actually a type of TFT-LCD. There are many types of TFT-LCDs: IPS, TN, MVA, and PVA just to name a few. You wouldn"t say "a Great White is cooler than a shark", would you? Because a Greate White IS a shark! So stop saying "IPS is better than TFT."

So the bottom line is, we can"t tell how good the LCD in the Moto Style will be by looking at the spec sheet, because the spec sheet only tells us that the display is a TFT-LCD, as every modern LCD is, but it doesn"t tell us the important info... which type of TFT-LCD it is. It could be IPS. It could be TN. It could be some other technology. But if initial reports and reactions are anything to go by, it"s looking pretty damn good whatever it is.

In the past decade, LCD monitors have replaced CRT screens for all but the most specialist applications. Although liquid crystal displays boast perfect

A. The first thing to realise when buying a new screen is that you can’t always rely on quoted specifications. These are often exaggerated for marketing purposes, and are commonly based on different measurement techniques and varying benchmarks between each manufacturer. As a guide and general rule of thumb:

Resolution is an important consideration for various reasons. You need to consider the size of the screen, whether you will need to use operating system scaling or not (e.g. for Ultra HD or 4K resolutions) and whether your graphics card can support the resolution for your uses effectively (e.g. high demand on the system for gaming at 4K resolution). Read about resolution in more detail in our specs section.

The lower the response time the better. Be aware of ISO response time figures and grey to grey (G2G) transition figures as you will need to understand the difference. Screens with a G2G quoted response time use ‘Response Time Compensation’ (RTC) technologies, sometimes referred to as overdrive. These technologies are used to boost pixel response times and in practice can make quite a lot of difference. This is particularly important with non-TN Film panels (i.e. IPS, PVA, MVA etc)

The higher the contrast ratio, the better. This will also help indicate the black depth of the screen and how well the screen can handle differences between light and dark content. Be wary of dynamic contrast ratio figures being quoted nowadays and you will need to understand what the difference is between those and the ‘static contrast ratio’. Nowadays you will see static contrast ratio figures ranging up to ~5000:1 in some cases. DCR can range up in the millions:1 but are massively exaggerated. Make sure you understand which contrast ratio figure is being quoted in a spec and ideally read a review where it is really tested.

The wider the viewing angles the better. Be wary of how they calculate their figures. Sometimes they will try sneaking things like listed them when CR > 5 instead of when CR > 10 to inflate their numbers. Again real life performance might not match quoted specs. You will normally see TN Film panels listed with a 170/160 viewing angle (a classic indication that the screen is using TN Film technology by the way). IPS-type and VA-type panels will normally feature a 178/178 viewing angle spec, but in reality the performance does vary.

The higher the refresh rate, the better the screen would be for gaming generally. Refresh rate has a direct impact on motion clarity and frame rate support for the screen. Most high refresh rate panels are 120 or 144Hz natively which is a significant improvement over 60Hz standard refresh rate panels. Keep an eye out for “overclocked” refresh rates as well with some manufacturers boosting the natively supported refresh rate higher. Results of that overclock will vary so try and check out reviews before you assume it will offer further improvements.

We would really recommend reading further into the details about monitor specs before you make your purchase so you can understand what they infer about the monitors performance characteristics.

A. very important thing to consider is what panel technology the screen uses you are interested in buying. While specs may look similar on paper, performance may vary quite considerably between the models due to the underlying panel technology used. The most common technologies used in the desktop monitor market are TN Film, IPS-type (and similar variants like PLS and AHVA) and VA -type. These are all produced by a range of panel manufacturers and offer a variety of strengths and weaknesses. There is a reasonable amount of talk about panel technologies with many people quick to jump on a bandwagon and claim one is superior to another. To be honest, they all still have their place in the modern market, and due to their different characteristics, can play a key part in finding the right monitor for your use.

Dynamic contrast ratios – perhaps the most overly exaggerated specs in the modern market. You will see figures in the millions now, but these are largely meaningless. Dynamic contrast ratios involves controlling the backlight of the screen automatically, depending on the content shown on the screen. In bright images, the backlight is increased, and in darker images, it is decreased. There is no real need to have a DCR of over 10,000:1 as you just wouldn’t notice the difference in practice. The figures being quoted now are based on measurements of monitor states which would just never occur in real use. In fact modern DCR’s of LED backlit screens assume the “black” state is in fact when the backlighting is turned off, in which case DCR would effectively be tending towards infinity:1. Just ignore DCR figures are they are not a reliable spec. In practice you would never achieve the numbers quoted. Far more important really is how effective the mechanism is and whether it is smooth and at what speed changes are made. Also keep in mind many people don’t even like the technology at all!

Colour gamut – don’t assume that a higher colour gamut is better! The gamut represents the colour space that the backlighting unit of the monitor allows the screen to display. You need to understand that most normal content is based on a certain colour space (sRGB) and that there can be issues if you view this using a wide gamut screen. See here for more information.

Backlighting – LED backlighting is becoming increasingly common in modern screens with manufacturers making a lot of claims which aren’t necessarily true. You need to understand what different backlighting will actually offer you. In reality, LED backlighting in mainstream screens is based on White-LED (W-LED) backlight units and only really offers benefits in terms of power consumption, screen thickness, and in environmental considerations. See this article for more information.

A. Generally nowadays with all the ultra-low response time models available, ghosting caused by slow pixel response times is just not an issue for the majority of users. Performance has improved significantly over the years and blurring and ghosting has been largely eliminated on the faster displays. The use of RTC technologies (overdrive) significantly helps improve response times and speed up pixel transitions. This is particularly important on IPS/VA type displays which can be very slow where RTC is not used. Look out for response time specs quoted with a “G2G” (grey to grey) response time as that should indicate the use of overdrive technologies.

Nowadays screens supporting high refresh rates (120Hz+) input frequencies are becoming more and come common, and these can help reduce motion blur and ghosting and improve gaming performance considerably. They are also able to support higher frame rates than traditional 60Hz displays and some are also capable of supporting 3D stereoscopic content through active shutter glasses. Do be careful of assuming that a screen advertised as supporting 3D is in fact able to support 120Hz though, as some 3D models do not support this and instead use passive methods to produce the 3D effect (see here for more info on 3D technologies). Refresh rate of the panel does have a direct impact on motion clarity and for optimal gaming performance you will want to consider those high refresh rate displays above 60Hz.

Ghosting and motion blur perception may also depend on how susceptible you are as a user, as one person may see no ghosting, another may see lots on the same panel. The best bet is to try and see a TFT in action in a shop and see for yourself, if that’s not possible you will have to settle for the opinions of other users and take the plunge! Also be careful to get an idea of real life performance in practice, and don’t just rely on quoted specs. While they are often a good rough guide to the gaming performance, they are not always reliable.

One area which cannot be eliminated fully through response time improvements is perceived motion blur. This is related to how the human eye tracks movement on hold-type displays like LCD’s. In recent years several methods have been used to help provide improved motion blur for users. Models featuring LightBoost backlights for 3D gaming were found to be “hackable” to bring about motion blur benefits through the use of their strobed backlight system. Other displays have now introduced native strobed backlights to offer similar benefits. Look out for models with Motion Blur Reduction backlights like the BenQ XL2420Z / XL2720Z (Blur Reduction mode), Eizo Foris FG2421 (Turbo 240) and Asus ROG Swift PG278Q (ULMB) for instance. ULMB as a feature is common on NVIDIA G-sync enabled displays where high refresh rate is used.

Have a read here about response times if you are unsure about what specs mean or want more information. Generally modern TN Film panels will offer the fastest response times, and often also support 120Hz input frequencies for 3D support / extended frame rates. Look out for models with a quoted “G2G” response time indicating they also use overdrive which can really help in practice. Modern IPS-type panels can also be very fast where overdrive is applied well, so again look for “G2G” figures. High refresh rate IPS panels are also becoming more common which helps improve motion clarity further. Other technologies like PVA and MVA are unfortunately quite slow in practice by modern standards, even where overdrive or high refresh rates are used. Check reviews to be sure of an individual screens performance wherever possible.

A. As a rule of thumb, it would normally be best to use the digital video connection end to end to connect your device to your monitor. For a PC, this would commonly be DisplayPort, HDMI or DVI which offer a pure digital end to end connection between the graphics card and the monitor. DisplayPort is needed to run the high resolution/high refresh rate panels so you will need to ensure your graphics card has a DP output. Some screens or cards use Mini DP instead of the full size version, but that is simply a different size connection and can be easily inter-changed with “normal” DisplayPort. Cables which are DP at one end, and Mini DP at the other are common and simple to use.

HDMI and DisplayPort are also common digital connections now being offer, but unlike DVI are also capable of carrying audio as well as video. The picture quality should not be any different between DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort in theory as long as no additional video “enhancements” are applied when using one over the other. Bandwidth requirements will vary so this might influence which type you need to use depending on the screen resolution and refresh rate.

Converting between DVI and HDMI is easy and cables are readily available to offer that if needed (keeping in mind you will lose the sound transmission when it reaches the DVI). Converting between DVI/HDMI and DisplayPort is far more tricky and not simple to achieve. It is very hit and miss and working active adapters are expensive. We would advise avoiding the attempt to convert DP to HDMI/DVI if you can.

A. There is a lot of talk about colour depth on TFT screens, now more than ever with the emergence of 6-bit IPS and VA panels. At one time TN Film was the main 6-bit technology but today that is no longer the case. It’s important to put this into perspective though, and not jump on the bandwagon of 8-bit being much, much better than 6-bit. Or even 10-bit being much better than 8-bit.

An 8-bit display would offer a colour palette of 16.7 million colours. They offer a ‘true’ colour palette, and are generally the choice of manufacturers for colour critical displays over 6-bit panels. On the other hand modern 6-bit screens use a range of Frame Rate Control (FRC) technologies to extend the colour palette from 262,144 colours to around 16.7m. In fact on many modern panels these FRC are very good and in practice you’d be hard pressed to spot any real difference between a 6-bit + FRC display and a true 8-bit display. Colour range is good, screens show no obvious gradation of colours, and they show no FRC artefacts or glitches in normal everyday use. Most average users would never notice the difference and so it is more important to think about the panel technology and your individual uses than get bogged down worrying about 6-bit vs. 8-bit arguments.

Manufacturers use 6-bit panels (+FRC) to help keep costs lower. As a result, a modern range of IPS and VA panels is also now produced which use 6-bit colour depth (+FRC) instead of true 8-bit colour depths. At the other end of the scale there are also some panels which can offer support of 10-bit colour depth. Again these come in two flavours, being either a true 10-bit panel (quite rare and expensive) offering 1.07 billion colours or an 8-bit panel with an additional FRC stage added (1.07 billion colours produced through FRC). The 8-bit +FRC panels are of course more common and will often be used to offer “10-bit” support in desktop displays. With 10-bit colour though there is also an additional consideration which is whether you would ever even be able to use this in your work. You can also only make use of this 10-bit support if you have a full end-to-end 10-bit workflow, including a supporting software, graphics card and operating system which is still very rare and expensive for most users. So for many people the use of a 10-bit capable panel is rather meaningless.

A. Colour gamut or colour space refers to the range of colours which the screen is capable of showing, in relation to a reference colour space. The human eye can see a certain range of colours which is represented by a CIE Diagram. This shows the full range in reds, greens and blues which the eye can see. Within that massive range there are various reference colour spaces, the most common of these being the sRGB space. There are also other reference colour spaces such as the NTSC and Adobe RGB which are often used in specifications nowadays and may be used in certain workflows. These are larger colour spaces than sRGB, so manufacturers needed a way to quantify the changes they had made.

The colour space / gamut capability of a monitor is not determined by the panel technology, but rather by the backlight technology being used. Traditional screens used standard CCFL backlighting which (for simplicity of comparison here) offered a colour space covering the sRGB space almost exactly, which equates to about 72% of the now popular NTSC reference space. With backlighting technology changes and improvements, some screens then started to use WCG-CCFL (Wide Colour Gamut CCFL) backlighting which can offer an extended gamut covering commonly 92% – 102% of the NTSC reference space. Other backlighting technologies like W-LED (White LED) are also becoming very common, and at the moment cover the sRGB space (~68 – 72% NTSC). Some other LED backlights using RGB LED can cover >100% of the NTSC space as well but are prohibitively expensive and rarely used.

While a larger colour space might sound like a good idea, it’s not always for everyone. You need to keep in mind what content you will be viewing on the screen, and what colour space that content is based on. Since sRGB is very common and the standard for many things like Windows and the internet, viewing sRGB content on an extended gamut screen can cause oversaturation of colours and an unrealistic ‘stretching’ of the colours. Reds and greens in particular can appear quite ‘neon’ and some users do not like this. The smaller colour space of the content is, as a very crude description, ‘stretched’ over the larger colour space of the monitor. On the other hand, some applications are colour space aware (e.g. Adobe Photoshop) and so if you are working with extended gamut content, you will prefer an extended gamut screen. I’d certainly recommend reading more into this as it is only a brief summary here. Where a screen has an extended gamut, they sometimes provide an sRGB emulation mode which work to varying degrees. Handy if you might need to use it, but make sure the screen offers a decent performance when in this mode and that it works. At the end of the day, the choice of monitor might very well depend on the colour space you want to work with. For most average users a standard CCFL or W-LED backlit display with a standard sRGB gamut would probably be preferred.

A. The simplest and cheapest way to clean a TFT screen is with a slightly damp cloth; wipe off the left behind water with a towel or similar then smooth/dry completely with a yellow polishing cloth. Be careful not to use products such as toilet paper and kitchen roll as they contain lint and can leave scratches on your beloved screen! Cleaning solution from opticians and lint free clothes for lens cleaning are also very good.

A. Unfortunately dead pixels can be an issue on TFT screens as they are often developed during the manufacturing stage. For retail costs to be kept low the companies cannot afford to make all screens defect-free and check for dead pixels all the time. Pixels can be described in the following ways:

Lazy – stuck on a colour, but sometimes can change. If the pixels are only lazy, there may be hope of reviving them. If they are fully dead, they will stay that way.

Dead pixels very rarely develop during use, unless you have a habit of poking the screen. If you are careful with the screen, hopefully you shouldn’t develop any further pixel problems.

To test for dead pixels, there is “Dead Pixel Buddy” program available. You can manually cycle through different full screen colours (black/white/red/green/blue) to check for dead or lazy pixels or rapidly cycle through all of the colours automatically to try and coax lazy sub-pixels back to life. Leave it running for half an hour, if you’re lucky it can work!

If you want to ensure that you receive a pixel perfect screen (and who wouldn’t at the kind of prices you are paying for the TFT!?!) then you can often pay for pixel checks from some online retailers. Beware though! Never buy a TFT from retailers who offer the pixel check without having the check done as you can be sure the screens they find to be non-perfect will be winging their way to the customers who don’t have the check! The only other option to ensure you get a pixel perfect screen is to check out the panel in a shop in person, then you can see for yourself…..

If you find you have a dead pixel there is not a lot you can do unfortunately. If you have a certain number of dead pixels (usually at least 3 or a certain number centrally on the panel) then the manufacturer will replace the TFT for you, but the number of dead pixels needed before this happens varies between each manufacturer, so check with them before you order if you’re concerned.

If you still have a dead pixel problem, can’t bring it back to life and can’t RMA it under warranty then you can sometimes return it to the stockist if you purchased it online. If you bought online you can take advantage of the “Distance Selling Act” which entitles you to return any item within 7 days as you were not present at the time of purchase. If you are not happy with your TFT you can return it at your cost of postage and often claim a refund or exchange. However, be aware that a lot of places will try and charge you restocking fees and they will almost certainly specify the goods must be packaged and in the same condition as when you received it, so be careful to package it back up nicely. Legally, if the stocker accepts the TFT back as a return governed by the Distance Selling Act, then they are NOT allowed to charge you a restocking fee as covered in the Government Regulations. This selling act is not widely advertised by retailers, but does exist if you really need to use it. You should only have to pay for postage to send it back to them.