Can someone help explain the most important specs of a monitor? I know the dot pitch is the sharpness and im guessing the bandwith would be the depth of the color. Someone please explain this to me.
Dot pitch is the distance between the phosphor dots of the same color. The smaller the number the better. On a 17" monitor that is a Dot-mask-based anything below 0.28mm is good. For a 17" monitor that is an Aperature grille design...look for equal or less than 0.26mm.
Aperature or Dot type shadow mask? Typically aperature grille monitors may be perceived as brighter and more saturated. Dot mask design may appear "crisper". Neither is better...just depnds on what your preference is.
Look for a monitor that also can support higher refresh rates at higher resolutions. A monitor that can only support 60 KHz at 1024x768 is not very good. The greater the KHz number at any given resolution means less of that "flicker" that may be seen and can sometimes bother your eyes after a while. A monitor that can turn out 1600x1200 at 85 KHz at a high end is pretty good. 75 KHz or 85 KHz is typically what people set their monitors to.
The monitor should have a variety of ways to tune it EG: Color temperature, RGB values, Convergence, Moire...all these settings allow you to "tune" your monitor to the room you are in and how you typically spend your time. (In the dark or in the daylight). This ambient lighting affects how the color of your monitor may appear and it's a good option to make "whites look white, reds look red, etc" in the room you are in.
LCD monitor may look more saturated than CRT. CRT monitors typically have a crisper picture compared to LCD.
With LCD monitors look for a lower Pixel Response Time. 25ms (milliseconds) is typical...try to aim for 20-15 for gaming. A high pixel response time can translate to lag of images in games.
With LCD greater or equal to 160 degrees and aim for a contrast ration greater or equal to 350:1.
LCD monitors also do not "flicker" like CRT.
Hope this helps...just get out there and shop around.
One thing to watch out for is LCD's with a 10/15ms response time, as they actually only run ~256k colours to achieve a faster response time, so you actually lose lots of colours for the sake of a faster response time.
What you have to do is first think of the resolution you are actually going to be using, say 1600x1200. Then you need to go out and find the best monitor with the best inner and outer DPI (as some are good in the center, but fuzzy on the outside) and best refresh rate at the resolution. Though you don't really need anything over 85hz for normal use, you need 100 or 120 to use 3D Glasses without having to use interlacing (looks crap, only draws every other line on the screen).
Comments
max refresh rate
dot pitch
A flat tube(for CRTs)
and of course price
But i usually search around the web and read some reviews if i find a moniter that i like.
Aperature or Dot type shadow mask? Typically aperature grille monitors may be perceived as brighter and more saturated. Dot mask design may appear "crisper". Neither is better...just depnds on what your preference is.
Look for a monitor that also can support higher refresh rates at higher resolutions. A monitor that can only support 60 KHz at 1024x768 is not very good. The greater the KHz number at any given resolution means less of that "flicker" that may be seen and can sometimes bother your eyes after a while. A monitor that can turn out 1600x1200 at 85 KHz at a high end is pretty good. 75 KHz or 85 KHz is typically what people set their monitors to.
The monitor should have a variety of ways to tune it EG: Color temperature, RGB values, Convergence, Moire...all these settings allow you to "tune" your monitor to the room you are in and how you typically spend your time. (In the dark or in the daylight). This ambient lighting affects how the color of your monitor may appear and it's a good option to make "whites look white, reds look red, etc" in the room you are in.
LCD monitor may look more saturated than CRT. CRT monitors typically have a crisper picture compared to LCD.
With LCD monitors look for a lower Pixel Response Time. 25ms (milliseconds) is typical...try to aim for 20-15 for gaming. A high pixel response time can translate to lag of images in games.
With LCD greater or equal to 160 degrees and aim for a contrast ration greater or equal to 350:1.
LCD monitors also do not "flicker" like CRT.
Hope this helps...just get out there and shop around.
What you have to do is first think of the resolution you are actually going to be using, say 1600x1200. Then you need to go out and find the best monitor with the best inner and outer DPI (as some are good in the center, but fuzzy on the outside) and best refresh rate at the resolution. Though you don't really need anything over 85hz for normal use, you need 100 or 120 to use 3D Glasses without having to use interlacing (looks crap, only draws every other line on the screen).
NS