logitech keyboard lcd screen free sample

Anyone who has paid attention to what Logitech has provided in keyboards over the years has always had an eye on their boards that come with an LCD screen. I remember when they first came out - even the idea of being able to see what the PC was doing, live right on your keyboard, always seemed like a great concept, even if the LCD technology then wasn"t exactly great. As the years went by, many users started developing add on applications to allow things like VOIP servers to show information, AID64 always had an app, as well as just about anything any gamer would think they could possibly need.

The one thing that had been holding back this whole idea with me was that the LCD screens were so limited. You could make bmp, logos and add them, or have information displayed on what looked like a large 1980"s wrist watch, but I was looking for something a little more. Well, technology has finally caught up with the designers, and let me say, the capabilities of the screen on the new G series keyboards from Logitech are really top notch. In the age of phones being capable of high definition video playback, it was just a matter of time before the LCD on these keyboards would be something to blow your mind.

Not only are you getting a proven gaming keyboard from a manufacturer that is in every store, and I would guess in almost every home, you are getting all of the perks that come along with the G series from Logitech. The one thing that sets the new Logitech G19s gaming keyboard apart from others in the G series that I have reviewed before is the LCD screen. It"s capable of displaying images, playing movies, updating RSS or POP3 email accounts, showing PC usage, and even a pizza timer and stopwatch to make sure your lap times are good and that you don"t burn dinner, all at the same time.

If this sort of tech all packed into a keyboard hasn"t piqued your interest in the slightest, you better check for a pulse, the Logitech G19s that we are about to see is just that cool.

The specifications given from Logitech are minimal at best. They cover the part number of the G19s, being 920-004985, but I found no issues with searching by its G19s naming. It then moves on to the limited three year warranty and then jumps right into the Windows compatibilities, the fact you need a free Hi-Speed USB port (USB 2.0+), and that you will need access to the Internet to obtain the drivers. On the right side it covers what you will find inside the box, and those are the keyboard, a palm rest, user documentation and the AC power adapter.

What they don"t tell you about the G19s is more of the important bits that I think buyers would want to know. Things like that it is made mostly of plastic, and has some accent components made of aluminum, or even the fact that the top of this keyboard is surrounded with metallic blue to dress up the keyboard a bit. They also don"t say a word about the rubber dome switches, or the fact that it offers wire management trails under the keyboard. The do not mention that this keyboard offers anti-ghosting with the 6-key rollover. The last thing I think should have been covered besides a mention of the obvious, the 50mm by 38mm LCD screen, is that the G19s also has a pair of pass-through USB 2.0 ports on the back.

What is going to freak a lot of potential buyers out right away is the pricing of the G19s. I know technology isn"t cheap, nor is the time you have to pay the programmers to make the LCD screen this functional. Currently it seems that even for the G510 the cost bottoms out to enter the G series at around $100, just to give a bit of perspective before I drop the bomb on you. I see listings at a few locations, as well as the ability to by direct from Logitech, but all of the pricing is set the same to a $199.99 price tag, when stock is ready to ship on May 7.

Already, I know $200 for a rubber dome switch keyboard is going to be hard for many to swallow, but hang tight as we delve deeper into what the G19s offers, before we make any final decisions.

All black is what Logitech colors the exterior of the packaging with. This allows for the naming to pop off the background on the left, and also is a nice backdrop for the split image of the keyboard.

The long thin edge the box was just propped up on has only the naming on one end and an image of the G19s with the screen working and the keys backlit.

Both of the smaller ends of the box look like this in the image above. Just like with all the other panels, you have the manufacturer and keyboard naming, but on the ends there is a QR code box if you want to get more information on this at the point of purchase.

On the back of the packaging, this is where you get introduced to the features of the G19s keyboard. They point out the game mode switch, macro keys, custom colors of the back lighting, and of course the LCD screen at the top of the keyboard.

Cutting a pair of anti-tamper stickers on the side, you can then open the box to see the bold blue used to surround the keyboard inside. As an added layer of protection, Logitech simply surrounds the board with a plastic liner to keep dust and scratches off the various plastic surfaces.

Fresh out of the box, there are quite a few things to notice. You get a good assortment of G-keys, there is a large adjustable angle LCD at the top, there is a nice blue surround on the keys, a full set of multimedia keys, and some styling that makes this board look really good at a glance.

On the left side of the keyboard, with white painted accents surrounding the right side of them, Logitech offers 12 G-keys for adding macros to your gaming sessions.

At the top edge of this keyboard you will find the M-keys for the three profiles and the MR-key for on the fly macro recording. There is the Game Mode switch followed by a D-pad, menu key, back button, and settings button for the LCD screen.

Moving further to the right at the top of the keyboard you run into the stylishly shaped LCD screen and its housing. Anything past the edges of the screen blends in nicely with the black behind the clear plastic covering.

Finishing off what is found on the top of the keyboard, we are now running into the right edge. Here we should cover the lighting button that controls both the LCD and the backlighting. As you pass the key lock LEDs, you run into the set of multi-media keys and the volume scroll wheel.

The 74 keys on the left two-thirds of the keyboard covers the F-keys and the QWERTY layout of the keycaps that are hovering over rubber dome switches. You will notice that the WASD keys will be easier to find since their grey color stands out well against the other black keys.

Looking at the G19s from the side, you can see that the front edge of the keyboard is taller than the back of the keyboard, and leaves the key caps falling away from the rows in front of them.

In the back of the keyboard near where the dual cable comes out of the G19s, there are a pair of USB 2.0 ports to plug in your mouse and headset all right here so you have access to them, maybe even a great place to use a thumb drive, so you don"t have to reach to the PC.

From the back of the screen, you can see the LCD panel pivots on the aluminum bar, which runs from one side of the keyboard to the other here. With the G in the aluminum badge under the right ALT key, this aluminum carries the idea into a more finished look, and less of just a badge in aluminum.

Once you flip the supports out at the back of the keyboard, you do get a bit of a better look at the keys, as far as your fingertips are concerned. Now the keys in successive rows are higher than the previous rows, so along with an ergonomic angle now, you fingers will feel like they reach less in this position.

The two meter, thick rubber cable that came out of the back of the G19s is bundled up in this image. At the ends of this dual cable there is a jack for AC power, along with the USB 2.0 connection, with a tag on it showing to install the drivers prior to connecting the keyboard.

This is the other half of the AC power plug. Here is the US plug ended Nalin power adapter to give the keyboard enough power for the LCD screen as well as helping to power the pair of pass-through USB 2.0 ports on the back.

On the underside of the keyboard you can see that Logitech offers plenty of cable management. There are two ways to enter the trails at the back of the board - they can cross to the center, and then be run through the various trails near the front edge.

At the back of the keyboard, if you wish to increase the angle of the keyboard, you can flip out the plastic feet that offer no rubber padding to grip onto the desk.

The front edge of the keyboard, near where the palm rest is to clip in, you do get a pair of rubber pads to keep the keyboard from sliding around on the desk.

Grabbing the palm rest that was shipped under the keyboard and clipping it into the keyboard shows that it not only clips in, but also has tabs to help support it. There are also three additional rubber pads to keep the keyboard in place since most of the weight will be here anyways.

When the software is installed and loaded up, you are dropped into the home screen. Here the G-keys, M-keys, and the LCD screen flashes to show you can click from here to jump to those programming sections, or you can use the tabs at the bottom.

The LCD tab allows you to browse through a list of default applications that can be run, and you can download custom ones and they will then show in this list to allow users to turn them on and off from the menu on the keyboards screen.

The lighting tab is pretty self-explanatory, here you can set the three profiles to various colors. You can either spin the wheel at the top, you can use an RGB code with the sliders, or even pick from one of the 22 preset color choices. This set the backlighting of everything on the board, but the M-keys and LCD controls, they remain amber no matter what color is chosen for the other keys.

The tab with an icon of a memory IC is the way that the G series allows users to store and swap profiles for various games. So, basically if you fill the three profiles with various game settings, if you change games, you can go here and drag in the appropriate profile and drop it in the onboard memory of the keyboard.

If you click on the gear at the bottom it will bring up a settings window. Here you can allow or turn off various features, check the software version of the keyboard, and you can also change some settings on how the profile selection works.

If you need some advanced help when trying to set things up, you can click on the "?" icon. Here you can look up just about everything that may be a question you need answered, while trying to figure out how to get images or videos playing on the LCD.

When the G19s is first plugged in, the LCD screen will show the above pair of logos, along with the Logitech name for about three seconds, as the system boots up.

Since the drivers are in prior to booting the keyboard, the first thing that shows up is that same list of applications you saw in the software, just displayed on the screen so that you can use the D-pad and cycle through the options.

The video feed stems from the Videos section of the C drive by default, at the time I took the images, I didn"t have any in that folder, but I was able to play episodes of Tron Uprising as well as Big Bang Theory, and they looked really good while playing on the small LCD screen.

The last of the apps that come on the keyboard is the performance graphs. With the dual-core system I plugged into for images, I get two CPU graphs above the single memory usage bar. As I went to my i7 rig, I only get one CPU graph for all four cores and HT.

Everything about the G19s is better than average on most of the features and outstanding with some. There are a couple, maybe a few reasons, that I wouldn"t find myself using this keyboard on a regular basis. After quite a bit of writing on this keyboard, the keys are laborious to use, even compared to my Cherry MX Green switches, it just wasn"t very pleasurable to use long term, as a typist first and gamer second. There is just an odd feeling to these keys, and I could almost hear my fingertips cry a little with every keystroke. The second thing I didn"t care for was the limited brightness of the backlighting of the keys. When using something like white or light blue, the room has to be pitch black to tell the difference between what appears to be light glowing from under them. The last thing that was sort of a pain was all of the cabling used with the G19s. The thick cable is hard to stay bent and out of the way, and you always need to consider the location of an extra power outlet at your desk to make everything work.

With my personal gripes out of the way, let us now move to the positives. Even if a bit dim, there is a fully customizable backlighting for the keys. There are plenty of G-keys to get you into trouble remembering what they all do. The keyboard offers three profiles, has onboard memory, and via the software, everything is pretty easy to use and figure out with just a few seconds of use. The bottom line with this keyboard is that to get basically the same without the LCD is going to cost you near $100 for a Logitech solution in the same G series. I realize technology is going to cost those who want access to it first, and with the G19s, what it offers including the LCD screen, the pricing is justified at $199.99, even if based on rubber dome switches.

I really do wish that Logitech will take this concept and design one step further, and I would go right out to a store and buy my own with my hard earned cash. Everything about the G19s is so high-end, not only with the basic features and software, but to actually be able to play movies, set timers, tap into YouTube for game tutorials. The only thing missing from this design to sell me on it whole heartedly is if it were to be based off the G710+, and I think in today"s market, a mechanical version is justified even if it were to cost a bit more.

I am really torn at the end of all of this. The features like the LCD screen, 6-key rollover, backlighting, multi-media keys, all of it I really like, and the software ease just adds to that. It is just that my fingers are still complaining as I finish this, and I don"t think this keyboard will spend much more time on my desk than it already has. I would imagine this is a perfect solution for those with deep pockets who haven"t been blessed by mechanical keyboards in the past, but to spend this sort of money, it is almost ludicrous that a $200 keyboard doesn"t include them.

For the last fifteen years or so, custom mechanical keyboards have been getting more and more wild. From artisan keycaps to super-specific switches to 3D-printed cases, we’ve seen it all. Well, we thought we had, until we saw this. The Finalmouse Centerpiece Keyboard features completely transparent mechanical keycaps and switches, resting on top of a fully-functional LCD screen. Why? Why the hell not?

The keyboard’s pre-loaded video skins react to the user’s typing, very much like a gaming keyboard, but the CG videos underneath can dynamically shift in real-time as they’re built in the Unreal game engine. New skins (free and paid) will be made available via a Steam app. The screen and video run on a CPU and GPU internal to the keyboard itself, with no resources taken from the attached PC. Up to three videos can be loaded and selected on the hardware.

How does it work? Finalmouse says that the screen uses a “Laminated DisplayCircuit Glass Stack.” What it looks like is a super-thin, transparent membrane beneath the switches that house hair-like electrical wiring, establishing the matrix circuit required for the keypresses to register. It’s a remarkable redesign of some fairly basic keyboard components, all sitting on top of the LCD screen.

The 65-percent board is housed in a customized CNC-milled case, with controls for the screen embedded in the side. The keys and screen itself are gasket-mounted, with linear switches based on the BlackInk design. Finalmouse says the board is “completely gamer-proof and able to withstand intense abuse,” though exactly what that means isn’t mentioned.

Shockingly, Finalmouse’s video says the keyboard will cost $349 when it goes on sale early next year. That’s a lot for a standard mechanical keyboard, but it’s less than the price of a lot of custom, boutique builds — a GMMK Pro with all the trimmings comes in at the same price, for example. Note that in order to get that mesmerizing screen, you’ll have to give up a few of the premiums associated with high-end boards, like a dedicated knob, wireless options, and swappable switches.

But who cares? If you want to get those upvotes on /r/battlestations, you’ll need the coolest, most ridiculous keyboard around. And as of 2023, that’ll be the Centerpiece. Until someone finds a way to let you literally type on water, I suppose.

Glass substrate with ITO electrodes. The shapes of these electrodes will determine the shapes that will appear when the LCD is switched ON. Vertical ridges etched on the surface are smooth.

A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directlybacklight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome.seven-segment displays, as in a digital clock, are all good examples of devices with these displays. They use the same basic technology, except that arbitrary images are made from a matrix of small pixels, while other displays have larger elements. LCDs can either be normally on (positive) or off (negative), depending on the polarizer arrangement. For example, a character positive LCD with a backlight will have black lettering on a background that is the color of the backlight, and a character negative LCD will have a black background with the letters being of the same color as the backlight. Optical filters are added to white on blue LCDs to give them their characteristic appearance.

LCDs are used in a wide range of applications, including LCD televisions, computer monitors, instrument panels, aircraft cockpit displays, and indoor and outdoor signage. Small LCD screens are common in LCD projectors and portable consumer devices such as digital cameras, watches, calculators, and mobile telephones, including smartphones. LCD screens have replaced heavy, bulky and less energy-efficient cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays in nearly all applications. The phosphors used in CRTs make them vulnerable to image burn-in when a static image is displayed on a screen for a long time, e.g., the table frame for an airline flight schedule on an indoor sign. LCDs do not have this weakness, but are still susceptible to image persistence.

Each pixel of an LCD typically consists of a layer of molecules aligned between two transparent electrodes, often made of Indium-Tin oxide (ITO) and two polarizing filters (parallel and perpendicular polarizers), the axes of transmission of which are (in most of the cases) perpendicular to each other. Without the liquid crystal between the polarizing filters, light passing through the first filter would be blocked by the second (crossed) polarizer. Before an electric field is applied, the orientation of the liquid-crystal molecules is determined by the alignment at the surfaces of electrodes. In a twisted nematic (TN) device, the surface alignment directions at the two electrodes are perpendicular to each other, and so the molecules arrange themselves in a helical structure, or twist. This induces the rotation of the polarization of the incident light, and the device appears gray. If the applied voltage is large enough, the liquid crystal molecules in the center of the layer are almost completely untwisted and the polarization of the incident light is not rotated as it passes through the liquid crystal layer. This light will then be mainly polarized perpendicular to the second filter, and thus be blocked and the pixel will appear black. By controlling the voltage applied across the liquid crystal layer in each pixel, light can be allowed to pass through in varying amounts thus constituting different levels of gray.

The chemical formula of the liquid crystals used in LCDs may vary. Formulas may be patented.Sharp Corporation. The patent that covered that specific mixture expired.

Most color LCD systems use the same technique, with color filters used to generate red, green, and blue subpixels. The LCD color filters are made with a photolithography process on large glass sheets that are later glued with other glass sheets containing a TFT array, spacers and liquid crystal, creating several color LCDs that are then cut from one another and laminated with polarizer sheets. Red, green, blue and black photoresists (resists) are used. All resists contain a finely ground powdered pigment, with particles being just 40 nanometers across. The black resist is the first to be applied; this will create a black grid (known in the industry as a black matrix) that will separate red, green and blue subpixels from one another, increasing contrast ratios and preventing light from leaking from one subpixel onto other surrounding subpixels.Super-twisted nematic LCD, where the variable twist between tighter-spaced plates causes a varying double refraction birefringence, thus changing the hue.

LCD in a Texas Instruments calculator with top polarizer removed from device and placed on top, such that the top and bottom polarizers are perpendicular. As a result, the colors are inverted.

The optical effect of a TN device in the voltage-on state is far less dependent on variations in the device thickness than that in the voltage-off state. Because of this, TN displays with low information content and no backlighting are usually operated between crossed polarizers such that they appear bright with no voltage (the eye is much more sensitive to variations in the dark state than the bright state). As most of 2010-era LCDs are used in television sets, monitors and smartphones, they have high-resolution matrix arrays of pixels to display arbitrary images using backlighting with a dark background. When no image is displayed, different arrangements are used. For this purpose, TN LCDs are operated between parallel polarizers, whereas IPS LCDs feature crossed polarizers. In many applications IPS LCDs have replaced TN LCDs, particularly in smartphones. Both the liquid crystal material and the alignment layer material contain ionic compounds. If an electric field of one particular polarity is applied for a long period of time, this ionic material is attracted to the surfaces and degrades the device performance. This is avoided either by applying an alternating current or by reversing the polarity of the electric field as the device is addressed (the response of the liquid crystal layer is identical, regardless of the polarity of the applied field).

Displays for a small number of individual digits or fixed symbols (as in digital watches and pocket calculators) can be implemented with independent electrodes for each segment.alphanumeric or variable graphics displays are usually implemented with pixels arranged as a matrix consisting of electrically connected rows on one side of the LC layer and columns on the other side, which makes it possible to address each pixel at the intersections. The general method of matrix addressing consists of sequentially addressing one side of the matrix, for example by selecting the rows one-by-one and applying the picture information on the other side at the columns row-by-row. For details on the various matrix addressing schemes see passive-matrix and active-matrix addressed LCDs.

LCDs are manufactured in cleanrooms borrowing techniques from semiconductor manufacturing and using large sheets of glass whose size has increased over time. Several displays are manufactured at the same time, and then cut from the sheet of glass, also known as the mother glass or LCD glass substrate. The increase in size allows more displays or larger displays to be made, just like with increasing wafer sizes in semiconductor manufacturing. The glass sizes are as follows:

Until Gen 8, manufacturers would not agree on a single mother glass size and as a result, different manufacturers would use slightly different glass sizes for the same generation. Some manufacturers have adopted Gen 8.6 mother glass sheets which are only slightly larger than Gen 8.5, allowing for more 50 and 58 inch LCDs to be made per mother glass, specially 58 inch LCDs, in which case 6 can be produced on a Gen 8.6 mother glass vs only 3 on a Gen 8.5 mother glass, significantly reducing waste.AGC Inc., Corning Inc., and Nippon Electric Glass.

In 1922, Georges Friedel described the structure and properties of liquid crystals and classified them in three types (nematics, smectics and cholesterics). In 1927, Vsevolod Frederiks devised the electrically switched light valve, called the Fréedericksz transition, the essential effect of all LCD technology. In 1936, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph company patented the first practical application of the technology, "The Liquid Crystal Light Valve". In 1962, the first major English language publication Molecular Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals was published by Dr. George W. Gray.RCA found that liquid crystals had some interesting electro-optic characteristics and he realized an electro-optical effect by generating stripe-patterns in a thin layer of liquid crystal material by the application of a voltage. This effect is based on an electro-hydrodynamic instability forming what are now called "Williams domains" inside the liquid crystal.

In the late 1960s, pioneering work on liquid crystals was undertaken by the UK"s Royal Radar Establishment at Malvern, England. The team at RRE supported ongoing work by George William Gray and his team at the University of Hull who ultimately discovered the cyanobiphenyl liquid crystals, which had correct stability and temperature properties for application in LCDs.

The idea of a TFT-based liquid-crystal display (LCD) was conceived by Bernard Lechner of RCA Laboratories in 1968.dynamic scattering mode (DSM) LCD that used standard discrete MOSFETs.

On December 4, 1970, the twisted nematic field effect (TN) in liquid crystals was filed for patent by Hoffmann-LaRoche in Switzerland, (Swiss patent No. 532 261) with Wolfgang Helfrich and Martin Schadt (then working for the Central Research Laboratories) listed as inventors.Brown, Boveri & Cie, its joint venture partner at that time, which produced TN displays for wristwatches and other applications during the 1970s for the international markets including the Japanese electronics industry, which soon produced the first digital quartz wristwatches with TN-LCDs and numerous other products. James Fergason, while working with Sardari Arora and Alfred Saupe at Kent State University Liquid Crystal Institute, filed an identical patent in the United States on April 22, 1971.ILIXCO (now LXD Incorporated), produced LCDs based on the TN-effect, which soon superseded the poor-quality DSM types due to improvements of lower operating voltages and lower power consumption. Tetsuro Hama and Izuhiko Nishimura of Seiko received a US patent dated February 1971, for an electronic wristwatch incorporating a TN-LCD.

In 1972, the concept of the active-matrix thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid-crystal display panel was prototyped in the United States by T. Peter Brody"s team at Westinghouse, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Westinghouse Research Laboratories demonstrated the first thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD).high-resolution and high-quality electronic visual display devices use TFT-based active matrix displays.active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AM LCD) in 1974, and then Brody coined the term "active matrix" in 1975.

In 1972 North American Rockwell Microelectronics Corp introduced the use of DSM LCDs for calculators for marketing by Lloyds Electronics Inc, though these required an internal light source for illumination.Sharp Corporation followed with DSM LCDs for pocket-sized calculators in 1973Seiko and its first 6-digit TN-LCD quartz wristwatch, and Casio"s "Casiotron". Color LCDs based on Guest-Host interaction were invented by a team at RCA in 1968.TFT LCDs similar to the prototypes developed by a Westinghouse team in 1972 were patented in 1976 by a team at Sharp consisting of Fumiaki Funada, Masataka Matsuura, and Tomio Wada,

In 1983, researchers at Brown, Boveri & Cie (BBC) Research Center, Switzerland, invented the passive matrix-addressed LCDs. H. Amstutz et al. were listed as inventors in the corresponding patent applications filed in Switzerland on July 7, 1983, and October 28, 1983. Patents were granted in Switzerland CH 665491, Europe EP 0131216,

The first color LCD televisions were developed as handheld televisions in Japan. In 1980, Hattori Seiko"s R&D group began development on color LCD pocket televisions.Seiko Epson released the first LCD television, the Epson TV Watch, a wristwatch equipped with a small active-matrix LCD television.dot matrix TN-LCD in 1983.Citizen Watch,TFT LCD.computer monitors and LCD televisions.3LCD projection technology in the 1980s, and licensed it for use in projectors in 1988.compact, full-color LCD projector.

In 1990, under different titles, inventors conceived electro optical effects as alternatives to twisted nematic field effect LCDs (TN- and STN- LCDs). One approach was to use interdigital electrodes on one glass substrate only to produce an electric field essentially parallel to the glass substrates.Germany by Guenter Baur et al. and patented in various countries.Hitachi work out various practical details of the IPS technology to interconnect the thin-film transistor array as a matrix and to avoid undesirable stray fields in between pixels.

Hitachi also improved the viewing angle dependence further by optimizing the shape of the electrodes (Super IPS). NEC and Hitachi become early manufacturers of active-matrix addressed LCDs based on the IPS technology. This is a milestone for implementing large-screen LCDs having acceptable visual performance for flat-panel computer monitors and television screens. In 1996, Samsung developed the optical patterning technique that enables multi-domain LCD. Multi-domain and In Plane Switching subsequently remain the dominant LCD designs through 2006.South Korea and Taiwan,

In 2007 the image quality of LCD televisions surpassed the image quality of cathode-ray-tube-based (CRT) TVs.LCD TVs were projected to account 50% of the 200 million TVs to be shipped globally in 2006, according to Displaybank.Toshiba announced 2560 × 1600 pixels on a 6.1-inch (155 mm) LCD panel, suitable for use in a tablet computer,

In 2016, Panasonic developed IPS LCDs with a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, rivaling OLEDs. This technology was later put into mass production as dual layer, dual panel or LMCL (Light Modulating Cell Layer) LCDs. The technology uses 2 liquid crystal layers instead of one, and may be used along with a mini-LED backlight and quantum dot sheets.

Since LCDs produce no light of their own, they require external light to produce a visible image.backlight. Active-matrix LCDs are almost always backlit.Transflective LCDs combine the features of a backlit transmissive display and a reflective display.

CCFL: The LCD panel is lit either by two cold cathode fluorescent lamps placed at opposite edges of the display or an array of parallel CCFLs behind larger displays. A diffuser (made of PMMA acrylic plastic, also known as a wave or light guide/guiding plateinverter to convert whatever DC voltage the device uses (usually 5 or 12 V) to ≈1000 V needed to light a CCFL.

EL-WLED: The LCD panel is lit by a row of white LEDs placed at one or more edges of the screen. A light diffuser (light guide plate, LGP) is then used to spread the light evenly across the whole display, similarly to edge-lit CCFL LCD backlights. The diffuser is made out of either PMMA plastic or special glass, PMMA is used in most cases because it is rugged, while special glass is used when the thickness of the LCD is of primary concern, because it doesn"t expand as much when heated or exposed to moisture, which allows LCDs to be just 5mm thick. Quantum dots may be placed on top of the diffuser as a quantum dot enhancement film (QDEF, in which case they need a layer to be protected from heat and humidity) or on the color filter of the LCD, replacing the resists that are normally used.

WLED array: The LCD panel is lit by a full array of white LEDs placed behind a diffuser behind the panel. LCDs that use this implementation will usually have the ability to dim or completely turn off the LEDs in the dark areas of the image being displayed, effectively increasing the contrast ratio of the display. The precision with which this can be done will depend on the number of dimming zones of the display. The more dimming zones, the more precise the dimming, with less obvious blooming artifacts which are visible as dark grey patches surrounded by the unlit areas of the LCD. As of 2012, this design gets most of its use from upscale, larger-screen LCD televisions.

RGB-LED array: Similar to the WLED array, except the panel is lit by a full array of RGB LEDs. While displays lit with white LEDs usually have a poorer color gamut than CCFL lit displays, panels lit with RGB LEDs have very wide color gamuts. This implementation is most popular on professional graphics editing LCDs. As of 2012, LCDs in this category usually cost more than $1000. As of 2016 the cost of this category has drastically reduced and such LCD televisions obtained same price levels as the former 28" (71 cm) CRT based categories.

Monochrome LEDs: such as red, green, yellow or blue LEDs are used in the small passive monochrome LCDs typically used in clocks, watches and small appliances.

Today, most LCD screens are being designed with an LED backlight instead of the traditional CCFL backlight, while that backlight is dynamically controlled with the video information (dynamic backlight control). The combination with the dynamic backlight control, invented by Philips researchers Douglas Stanton, Martinus Stroomer and Adrianus de Vaan, simultaneously increases the dynamic range of the display system (also marketed as HDR, high dynamic range television or FLAD, full-area local area dimming).

The LCD backlight systems are made highly efficient by applying optical films such as prismatic structure (prism sheet) to gain the light into the desired viewer directions and reflective polarizing films that recycle the polarized light that was formerly absorbed by the first polarizer of the LCD (invented by Philips researchers Adrianus de Vaan and Paulus Schaareman),

A pink elastomeric connector mating an LCD panel to circuit board traces, shown next to a centimeter-scale ruler. The conductive and insulating layers in the black stripe are very small.

A standard television receiver screen, a modern LCD panel, has over six million pixels, and they are all individually powered by a wire network embedded in the screen. The fine wires, or pathways, form a grid with vertical wires across the whole screen on one side of the screen and horizontal wires across the whole screen on the other side of the screen. To this grid each pixel has a positive connection on one side and a negative connection on the other side. So the total amount of wires needed for a 1080p display is 3 x 1920 going vertically and 1080 going horizontally for a total of 6840 wires horizontally and vertically. That"s three for red, green and blue and 1920 columns of pixels for each color for a total of 5760 wires going vertically and 1080 rows of wires going horizontally. For a panel that is 28.8 inches (73 centimeters) wide, that means a wire density of 200 wires per inch along the horizontal edge.

The LCD panel is powered by LCD drivers that are carefully matched up with the edge of the LCD panel at the factory level. The drivers may be installed using several methods, the most common of which are COG (Chip-On-Glass) and TAB (Tape-automated bonding) These same principles apply also for smartphone screens that are much smaller than TV screens.anisotropic conductive film or, for lower densities, elastomeric connectors.

Monochrome and later color passive-matrix LCDs were standard in most early laptops (although a few used plasma displaysGame Boyactive-matrix became standard on all laptops. The commercially unsuccessful Macintosh Portable (released in 1989) was one of the first to use an active-matrix display (though still monochrome). Passive-matrix LCDs are still used in the 2010s for applications less demanding than laptop computers and TVs, such as inexpensive calculators. In particular, these are used on portable devices where less information content needs to be displayed, lowest power consumption (no backlight) and low cost are desired or readability in direct sunlight is needed.

A comparison between a blank passive-matrix display (top) and a blank active-matrix display (bottom). A passive-matrix display can be identified when the blank background is more grey in appearance than the crisper active-matrix display, fog appears on all edges of the screen, and while pictures appear to be fading on the screen.

STN LCDs have to be continuously refreshed by alternating pulsed voltages of one polarity during one frame and pulses of opposite polarity during the next frame. Individual pixels are addressed by the corresponding row and column circuits. This type of display is called response times and poor contrast are typical of passive-matrix addressed LCDs with too many pixels and driven according to the "Alt & Pleshko" drive scheme. Welzen and de Vaan also invented a non RMS drive scheme enabling to drive STN displays with video rates and enabling to show smooth moving video images on an STN display.

Bistable LCDs do not require continuous refreshing. Rewriting is only required for picture information changes. In 1984 HA van Sprang and AJSM de Vaan invented an STN type display that could be operated in a bistable mode, enabling extremely high resolution images up to 4000 lines or more using only low voltages.

High-resolution color displays, such as modern LCD computer monitors and televisions, use an active-matrix structure. A matrix of thin-film transistors (TFTs) is added to the electrodes in contact with the LC layer. Each pixel has its own dedicated transistor, allowing each column line to access one pixel. When a row line is selected, all of the column lines are connected to a row of pixels and voltages corresponding to the picture information are driven onto all of the column lines. The row line is then deactivated and the next row line is selected. All of the row lines are selected in sequence during a refresh operation. Active-matrix addressed displays look brighter and sharper than passive-matrix addressed displays of the same size, and generally have quicker response times, producing much better images. Sharp produces bistable reflective LCDs with a 1-bit SRAM cell per pixel that only requires small amounts of power to maintain an image.

Segment LCDs can also have color by using Field Sequential Color (FSC LCD). This kind of displays have a high speed passive segment LCD panel with an RGB backlight. The backlight quickly changes color, making it appear white to the naked eye. The LCD panel is synchronized with the backlight. For example, to make a segment appear red, the segment is only turned ON when the backlight is red, and to make a segment appear magenta, the segment is turned ON when the backlight is blue, and it continues to be ON while the backlight becomes red, and it turns OFF when the backlight becomes green. To make a segment appear black, the segment is always turned ON. An FSC LCD divides a color image into 3 images (one Red, one Green and one Blue) and it displays them in order. Due to persistence of vision, the 3 monochromatic images appear as one color image. An FSC LCD needs an LCD panel with a refresh rate of 180 Hz, and the response time is reduced to just 5 milliseconds when compared with normal STN LCD panels which have a response time of 16 milliseconds.

Samsung introduced UFB (Ultra Fine & Bright) displays back in 2002, utilized the super-birefringent effect. It has the luminance, color gamut, and most of the contrast of a TFT-LCD, but only consumes as much power as an STN display, according to Samsung. It was being used in a variety of Samsung cellular-telephone models produced until late 2006, when Samsung stopped producing UFB displays. UFB displays were also used in certain models of LG mobile phones.

In-plane switching is an LCD technology that aligns the liquid crystals in a plane parallel to the glass substrates. In this method, the electrical field is applied through opposite electrodes on the same glass substrate, so that the liquid crystals can be reoriented (switched) essentially in the same plane, although fringe fields inhibit a homogeneous reorientation. This requires two transistors for each pixel instead of the single transistor needed for a standard thin-film transistor (TFT) display. The IPS technology is used in everything from televisions, computer monitors, and even wearable devices, especially almost all LCD smartphone panels are IPS/FFS mode. IPS displays belong to the LCD panel family screen types. The other two types are VA and TN. Before LG Enhanced IPS was introduced in 2001 by Hitachi as 17" monitor in Market, the additional transistors resulted in blocking more transmission area, thus requiring a brighter backlight and consuming more power, making this type of display less desirable for notebook computers. Panasonic Himeji G8.5 was using an enhanced version of IPS, also LGD in Korea, then currently the world biggest LCD panel manufacture BOE in China is also IPS/FFS mode TV panel.

In 2011, LG claimed the smartphone LG Optimus Black (IPS LCD (LCD NOVA)) has the brightness up to 700 nits, while the competitor has only IPS LCD with 518 nits and double an active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display with 305 nits. LG also claimed the NOVA display to be 50 percent more efficient than regular LCDs and to consume only 50 percent of the power of AMOLED displays when producing white on screen.

This pixel-layout is found in S-IPS LCDs. A chevron shape is used to widen the viewing cone (range of viewing directions with good contrast and low color shift).

Vertical-alignment displays are a form of LCDs in which the liquid crystals naturally align vertically to the glass substrates. When no voltage is applied, the liquid crystals remain perpendicular to the substrate, creating a black display between crossed polarizers. When voltage is applied, the liquid crystals shift to a tilted position, allowing light to pass through and create a gray-scale display depending on the amount of tilt generated by the electric field. It has a deeper-black background, a higher contrast ratio, a wider viewing angle, and better image quality at extreme temperatures than traditional twisted-nematic displays.

Blue phase mode LCDs have been shown as engineering samples early in 2008, but they are not in mass-production. The physics of blue phase mode LCDs suggest that very short switching times (≈1 ms) can be achieved, so time sequential color control can possibly be realized and expensive color filters would be obsolete.

Some LCD panels have defective transistors, causing permanently lit or unlit pixels which are commonly referred to as stuck pixels or dead pixels respectively. Unlike integrated circuits (ICs), LCD panels with a few defective transistors are usually still usable. Manufacturers" policies for the acceptable number of defective pixels vary greatly. At one point, Samsung held a zero-tolerance policy for LCD monitors sold in Korea.ISO 13406-2 standard.

Dead pixel policies are often hotly debated between manufacturers and customers. To regulate the acceptability of defects and to protect the end user, ISO released the ISO 13406-2 standard,ISO 9241, specifically ISO-9241-302, 303, 305, 307:2008 pixel defects. However, not every LCD manufacturer conforms to the ISO standard and the ISO standard is quite often interpreted in different ways. LCD panels are more likely to have defects than most ICs due to their larger size. For example, a 300 mm SVGA LCD has 8 defects and a 150 mm wafer has only 3 defects. However, 134 of the 137 dies on the wafer will be acceptable, whereas rejection of the whole LCD panel would be a 0% yield. In recent years, quality control has been improved. An SVGA LCD panel with 4 defective pixels is usually considered defective and customers can request an exchange for a new one.

Some manufacturers, notably in South Korea where some of the largest LCD panel manufacturers, such as LG, are located, now have a zero-defective-pixel guarantee, which is an extra screening process which can then determine "A"- and "B"-grade panels.clouding (or less commonly mura), which describes the uneven patches of changes in luminance. It is most visible in dark or black areas of displayed scenes.

The zenithal bistable device (ZBD), developed by Qinetiq (formerly DERA), can retain an image without power. The crystals may exist in one of two stable orientations ("black" and "white") and power is only required to change the image. ZBD Displays is a spin-off company from QinetiQ who manufactured both grayscale and color ZBD devices. Kent Displays has also developed a "no-power" display that uses polymer stabilized cholesteric liquid crystal (ChLCD). In 2009 Kent demonstrated the use of a ChLCD to cover the entire surface of a mobile phone, allowing it to change colors, and keep that color even when power is removed.

In 2004, researchers at the University of Oxford demonstrated two new types of zero-power bistable LCDs based on Zenithal bistable techniques.e.g., BiNem technology, are based mainly on the surface properties and need specific weak anchoring materials.

Resolution The resolution of an LCD is expressed by the number of columns and rows of pixels (e.g., 1024×768). Each pixel is usually composed 3 sub-pixels, a red, a green, and a blue one. This had been one of the few features of LCD performance that remained uniform among different designs. However, there are newer designs that share sub-pixels among pixels and add Quattron which attempt to efficiently increase the perceived resolution of a display without increasing the actual resolution, to mixed results.

Spatial performance: For a computer monitor or some other display that is being viewed from a very close distance, resolution is often expressed in terms of dot pitch or pixels per inch, which is consistent with the printing industry. Display density varies per application, with televisions generally having a low density for long-distance viewing and portable devices having a high density for close-range detail. The Viewing Angle of an LCD may be important depending on the display and its usage, the limitations of certain display technologies mean the display only displays accurately at certain angles.

Temporal performance: the temporal resolution of an LCD is how well it can display changing images, or the accuracy and the number of times per second the display draws the data it is being given. LCD pixels do not flash on/off between frames, so LCD monitors exhibit no refresh-induced flicker no matter how low the refresh rate.

Color performance: There are multiple terms to describe different aspects of color performance of a display. Color gamut is the range of colors that can be displayed, and color depth, which is the fineness with which the color range is divided. Color gamut is a relatively straight forward feature, but it is rarely discussed in marketing materials except at the professional level. Having a color range that exceeds the content being shown on the screen has no benefits, so displays are only made to perform within or below the range of a certain specification.white point and gamma correction, which describe what color white is and how the other colors are displayed relative to white.

Brightness and contrast ratio: Contrast ratio is the ratio of the brightness of a full-on pixel to a full-off pixel. The LCD itself is only a light valve and does not generate light; the light comes from a backlight that is either fluorescent or a set of LEDs. Brightness is usually stated as the maximum light output of the LCD, which can vary greatly based on the transparency of the LCD and the brightness of the backlight. Brighter backlight allows stronger contrast and higher dynamic range (HDR displays are graded in peak luminance), but there is always a trade-off between brightness and power consumption.

Usually no refresh-rate flicker, because the LCD pixels hold their state between refreshes (which are usually done at 200 Hz or faster, regardless of the input refresh rate).

No theoretical resolution limit. When multiple LCD panels are used together to create a single canvas, each additional panel increases the total resolution of the display, which is commonly called stacked resolution.

LCDs can be made transparent and flexible, but they cannot emit light without a backlight like OLED and microLED, which are other technologies that can also be made flexible and transparent.

As an inherently digital device, the LCD can natively display digital data from a DVI or HDMI connection without requiring conversion to analog. Some LCD panels have native fiber optic inputs in addition to DVI and HDMI.

Limited viewing angle in some older or cheaper monitors, causing color, saturation, contrast and brightness to vary with user position, even within the intended viewing angle. Special films can be used to increase the viewing angles of LCDs.

As of 2012, most implementations of LCD backlighting use pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim the display,CRT monitor at 85 Hz refresh rate would (this is because the entire screen is strobing on and off rather than a CRT"s phosphor sustained dot which continually scans across the display, leaving some part of the display always lit), causing severe eye-strain for some people.LED-backlit monitors, because the LEDs switch on and off faster than a CCFL lamp.

Only one native resolution. Displaying any other resolution either requires a video scaler, causing blurriness and jagged edges, or running the display at native resolution using 1:1 pixel mapping, causing the image either not to fill the screen (letterboxed display), or to run off the lower or right edges of the screen.

Fixed bit depth (also called color depth). Many cheaper LCDs are only able to display 262144 (218) colors. 8-bit S-IPS panels can display 16 million (224) colors and have significantly better black level, but are expensive and have slower response time.

Input lag, because the LCD"s A/D converter waits for each frame to be completely been output before drawing it to the LCD panel. Many LCD monitors do post-processing before displaying the image in an attempt to compensate for poor color fidelity, which adds an additional lag. Further, a video scaler must be used when displaying non-native resolutions, which adds yet more time lag. Scaling and post processing are usually done in a single chip on modern monitors, but each function that chip performs adds some delay. Some displays have a video gaming mode which disables all or most processing to reduce perceivable input lag.

Dead or stuck pixels may occur during manufacturing or after a period of use. A stuck pixel will glow with color even on an all-black screen, while a dead one will always remain black.

In a constant-on situation, thermalization may occur in case of bad thermal management, in which part of the screen has overheated and looks discolored compared to the rest of the screen.

Loss of brightness and much slower response times in low temperature environments. In sub-zero environments, LCD screens may cease to function without the use of supplemental heating.

The production of LCD screens uses nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) as an etching fluid during the production of the thin-film components. NF3 is a potent greenhouse gas, and its relatively long half-life may make it a potentially harmful contributor to global warming. A report in Geophysical Research Letters suggested that its effects were theoretically much greater than better-known sources of greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide. As NF3 was not in widespread use at the time, it was not made part of the Kyoto Protocols and has been deemed "the missing greenhouse gas".

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The best gaming keyboard does more than produce satisfying clickety-clacks. The right keyboard can supercharge your fingertips as you type out your next great Tweet or that sassy email to your colleague that probably should have stayed in drafts. What makes the best gaming keyboard special is its response, features, and price.

Not all gaming keyboards are created equal and there are tons of different features you need to consider when shopping for one. Do you want media controls or volume wheels? What kind of keycaps do you like? Oh, and we haven"t even gotten to keyboard switches yet. Thankfully, we have a handle glossary at the bottom of the page that"ll explain the most common keyboard terms. However, you should read up on the best mechanical keyboard switches(opens in new tab) if you"re feeling like a deep dive, but it basically boils down to three types: linear, clicky, and tactile.

The other thing to consider is the keyboard size. The option of a 60% gaming keyboard or going tenkeyless (TKL) will give you more room for larger mouse swipes if you play competitive games online while also clearing up some desk real estate as well. A full-sized keyboard is more likely to come packed with more bells and whistles like media controls and cool little LED displays.

Below we put together a list of the best gaming keyboards for every kind of PC gamer. We have tested them vigorously in our home and work life; our Alan"s key presses alone are tough enough to check a board"s integrity. And we"ve also tested out the best cheap gaming keyboards(opens in new tab) for anyone on a budget looking for further options than those budget boards listed below.

The Wooting Two HE looks decent, but it doesn"t appear all too different from the mechanical gaming keyboards we"ve come to know. In fact, it"s a little more boring than most in appearance, with some nowadays taking "extra" to a whole new level.

Wooting helped usher in the analog age of gaming keyboards, and it"s still ruling the roost with every new keyboard it designs. The latest, the Wooting Two HE, uses magnets and the Hall effect to achieve what is an incredibly accurate analog movement across every key on the keyboard. And because every key is analog, you can use the analog functionality to your advantage in heaps of interesting ways.

Of all the peripheral-specific applications out there, and boy are there a lot of them, I don"t mind the Wootility one bit, either. It"s simple, well put together, and has only improved since I last used it. It puts some other larger manufacturers to shame with how easy and smart-looking it is, in fact.If you want heaps of customisability, this is the gaming keyboard for you.

The keyboard is solid, well-built, and comes with a two-year warranty. If a switch breaks, you can swap it out, as the board itself is hot-swappable. That"s one benefit of there not really being all that many mechanical moving parts with a magnetic Lekker switch, and another is that there"s less to break in the first place.

The Wooting Two HE is analog at its very best, and if you want heaps of customisability, this is the gaming keyboard for you. There"s also the superb Wooting HE60(opens in new tab), which we"re big fans of but it is admittedly not for everyone due to its compact size.

I don"t like 60% keyboards. That"s the sort of admission so early in a review of a new 60% keyboard that might have you questioning my suitability for said review. Plus I"m aware you will have already seen the high score, the award badge, and may now be finding this whole opening spiel somewhat ludicrous. But while every other 60% keyboard I"ve ever used has been admittedly adorable, they"ve been utterly unsuitable for actual day-to-day use.

The Mountain Everest 60(opens in new tab), however, is just as ickle as the competition, just as cute, and has all the enthusiast keyboard extras you could want, but crucially has the total utility to be your daily driver of a keeb.

Mountain isn"t the first to create modular keyboards—Asus even made its own years back—but it"s the first to get it right. Offering a solid, secure fit for the modular components, as well as multiple mounting options, makes the whole setup actually useful and not just some marketing gimmick. On its own, though, the Everest 60 isn"t modular, but there is a dedicated numpad that can be purchased separately, and it"s hot-swappable. Crucially, for me, it will also attach to either side of the board.

If you"re still rocking a numpad on the right-hand side of your gaming keyboard then you"re just plain doing it wrong. The key benefit of a smaller keeb is that your mouse and WSAD hands are closer together, and switching the numpad to the left means you still get to use the extra buttons and the extra desktop real estate for your gaming rodent.

The tiny right shift key does take some getting used to, but the addition of the cursor keys makes a huge difference to the overall utility of the Everest 60. But that"s not the only reason I"ve fallen in love with the board, however: this thing just oozes quality.If you"re still rocking a numpad on the right-hand side of your gaming keyboard then you"re just plain doing it wrong.

The base of the keyboard has a layer of silicone inside it, to add weight and dampen the sound, but then there are also two layers of foam, on either side of the PCB, to again improve the aural experience. Mountain has used genuine Cherry stabilisers on the board, too, but has made sure they"re fitted and lubed properly for the Everest 60 to ensure there"s no rattle on even the broad spacebar.

And I"m impressed with the Mountain mechanical keyboard switches the company is shipping inside the Everest 60 for the first time. Mountain is also selling them separately, in Tactile 55 (denoting the 55cN force needed for actuation), Linear 45, and Linear 45 Speed (which have a shorter travel and actuation point). I"ve been using the Tactile 55 in my sample, and they feel great. Really stable, responsive, and factory lubed so there"s none of the grittiness you can sometimes get from a tactile switch.

I guess that"s enthusiast keyboards right now, and honestly, there is a feeling of quality to the design and manufacturing of every part of this package—the base, the switches, the numpad, the connections, the keycaps—that makes the pricing almost understandable.

While you might not have heard of Mountain(opens in new tab), a fresh-faced upstart in the cutthroat world of PC peripherals—it"s maybe not the most memorable of names for a keyboard and mouse manufacturer—we"ve been impressed with the products it"s produced so far. The Everest Max is just as excellent, too.

If you"ve got your heart set on a wireless keyboard, then the Logitech G915 is a great example of the genre. It"s not a peripheral we believe requires wireless functionality; we much prefer a wireless gaming mouse(opens in new tab) or wireless gaming headset(opens in new tab). But there are a few moments when a wireless keyboard is helpful, like gaming on the couch or if you regularly move your keyboard between devices and locations.There"s a reason that I use this keyboard most days when I"m working from home.

You"ll be required to spend that little bit more for wireless functionality than what we tend to see for wired mechanical keyboards with similar features—the Logitech G915 is $250 (£210). There"s a slightly cheaper TKL version, but not so much so that we"d instantly recommend it over the full-size model.

What you get for that significant cash investment is a sleek and sturdy board plated in brushed aluminum. There are some smart media controls in the upper right-hand corner of the board, including a volume wheel that feels great to twizzle, and there"s a handful of macro keys down the left side of the keyboard. These can be programmed to whatever you see fit on a per-app or per-game basis within the Logitech G software.

Macro functionality has been shifted to a secondary program of the Function keys, can be flipped via the Logitech G gaming software in order to prioritise macro functionality in which case the Fn key will revert F1-12 back to the original input.

Yet there"s a reason that I use this keyboard most days when I"m working from home. It feels great to type on over the c