New monitors coming.

[digitalwanderer]

Yup. I had to order some new parts in my continuing attempt to fix the kids PCs; and after getting the power supplies and new case ordered my wife asked me in a quiet little voice, "do they have those flat monitors there too?".

I was at Newegg.com...

We ended up picking out the BenQ FP93GX Black 19" 2ms LCD for her. Much more than she was originally looking for, but then again I don't know much about LCDs 'cept low response time is bad and go for a higher contrast.

Did I screw up?

Oh, and in a fit of jealousy about an hour later I ordered a refurbed 19" Dell M922 for $119 shipped. Guaranteed no scratches or blemishs on the screen and a good picture, but I'm a tad nervous.

I heard it wasn't a bad CRT, and the price was right....did I screw up there too?

 

[Skrying]

Looks good, but its so hard to tell from specifications. I trust you did some good amount of research?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Yeah, it was one of them fun 2 hour "comparative shopping with your wife directing over your shoulder whilst you try and figure out what the what is" kind of groggy/pleasant evenings.

 

[ANova]

Much more than she was originally looking for, but then again I don't know much about LCDs 'cept low response time is bad and go for a higher contrast.

You're half right, except the lower the response time the better.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Doh! That's what I meant.

See? I suck at monitors!

 

[Moloch]

6 bit lcd= weak sauce...
I wouldn't be jealous given reviews saw it has uneven backlight lighting as well as backlight bleeding.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Where do you go for monitor reviews? Google is all but useless for them thanks to all the shopping places.

 

[_xxx_]

http://www.anandtech.com/displays/ for example. Not much, but at least something.

 

[pascal]

2ms ? This is fast! Hard to believe.

I am waiting for your review

 

[digitalwanderer]

2ms ? This is fast! Hard to believe.

That's misleading, it's really 2ms grey-to-grey response time...color is around 6ms.

It's a PR-thing, but it is supposed to be an amazingly quick refreshing monitor.

 

[London Geezer]

2ms LCD screen?! I'll believe it when i see it, under what conditions did they get a figure like that? Probably the same way Samsung get their contrast ratio figures...

 

[digitalwanderer]

To reach the low response times the BenQ FP93GX uses something called Advanced Motion Accelerator, which is designed to speed up the crystals twisting by increasing the voltage. However, let’s clear this up straight away. The quoted 2ms time is something of a misnomer. BenQ is stating the grey-to-grey time, as opposed to the full pixel on/off time. However, it’s not clearly defined from what and to what stage of grey this actually is. The manual tacitly admits this, giving the actual response time for on/off as 6ms.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=2617

I said I knew that bit was PR, but my wife picked it out and the PR worked on her.

 

[Moloch]

Where do you go for monitor reviews? Google is all but useless for them thanks to all the shopping places.

actually just people from newegg :smile:

 

[Nite_Hawk]

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=2617

I said I knew that bit was PR, but my wife picked it out and the PR worked on her.

I wouldn't worry about it. Look at it this way. If the maximum pixel response time is *really* 6ms going from one shade to another, that means that you can have:

1000ms per second /6ms per transition = 166.67 transitions per second.

Now, usually their tolerances are sloppy, so they count a 'transition' as getting within like 80% or 90% of the actual requested value. Still, a display with a *real* 6ms maximum transition time should be quite crisp in motion. Anything faster than that is icing on the cake.

The reason why this is all so confusing is that manufacturers like to play with thier numbers and never tell you about the worst-case response times. It's kind of like a videocard manufacturer only giving you the maximum framerates for a game, but never telling you how bad the minimum framerates are. Displays that are advertised as having "8ms response times!" might actually have a worst-case response time of 25ms or more in certain situations.

Anything with a worst-case response time of 16ms or better (and not cheating on their tolerances) should look pretty decent.

Nite_Hawk

 

[kyleb]

I wouldn't worry about it. Look at it this way. If the maximum pixel response time is *really* 6ms going from one shade to another, that means that you can have:

1000ms per second /6ms per transition = 166.67 transitions per second.

Not exactly. The "transitions per second" comes down to the refresh rate, while the maxium pixel response time is a mesure of how long after each refresh it can take for that change to be acomplished.

 

[karlotta]

Anything with a worst-case response time of 16ms or better (and not cheating on their tolerances) should look pretty decent.

Nite_Hawk

And you have 15 days to return? just not a good deadpixel return: 7 dead?

 

[Nite_Hawk]

Not exactly. The "transitions per second" comes down to the refresh rate, while the maxium pixel response time is a mesure of how long after each refresh it can take for that change to be acomplished.

The refresh rate is pretty much meaningless if the pixel response time is too slow. You can tell the LCD to update at 30Hz, or 60Hz, or 200Hz, but you are still limited by how quickly the elements can make transitions.

Say for instance that you want to go from 20% grey to 70% grey and back at a refresh of 100Hz. A pixel response time greater than 10ms for each transition would mean you would never actually reach the desired grey levels before making the next transition. Thus you end up settling for an aproximation of the grey level. You might only reach a grey level of 60% before you need to transition back to 20% again.

The point that I was making earlier is that a pixel response time of 16ms actually lets you complete a transition within 1/60th of a second, so you can complete transitions in time for the next frame at 60fps. Of course you might say that 16ms isn't good enough because you want to spend the majority of your time at the desired gray level rather than only reaching it immediately before you need to make your next transition.

Nite_Hawk

 

[kyleb]

The refresh rate is pretty much meaningless if the pixel response time is too slow.

Regardless of how slow the response time is, the refresh rate is still what dictates the "transitions per second." Slow response time just means the pixel many never complete the transition before being instructed to transtion to something else on the next refresh.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

Regardless of how slow the response time is, the refresh rate is still what dictates the "transitions per second." Slow response time just means the pixel many never complete the transition before being instructed to transtion to something else on the next refresh.

re-read what I said:

I wouldn't worry about it. Look at it this way. If the maximum pixel response time is *really* 6ms going from one shade to another, that means that you can have:

1000ms per second /6ms per transition = 166.67 transitions per second.

You *can* have more than 166.67 transitions per second (you can have any number you want), but with a 6ms response time you can not have more than 166.67 transitions per second where they all complete. I figured that distinction would be apparent given the context.

Nite_Hawk

 

[kyleb]

You *can* have more than 166.67 transitions per second..

You are doing your math right, but you have the meanings of the numbers confused. The monitors max refresh is 76hz. While I have seen many LCDs that support a bit higher, I have never seen one that goes anywhere close to 166.67 hz. But again that isn't the issue as refresh rate is the "transitions per second", while response time is how long the ghosting can last after each refresh.