Which LCD description should i be going for?

[intuition]

I would like to ask if anyone has an idea of which is the best LCD that has a good resolution and will be used for an artist, I mean I’ve been told that HDTV doesn't shows the right colors and resolution once you are using it with drawings and as graphic designer, i was about to buy one with 26" HDTV and I think it was LG brand, but one guy told me that HDTV doesn't shows a real good colors as the one that designed to be for PC, so I canceled the purchase. The main thing is that I want to use it with wacom intuos4 tablet (design things, drawing tablet), Photoshop, Corel, and few other 3d software. furthermore, I’ve been told that the aspect ratio 16:10 is better than 16:9 for such LCD to have good resolution and good colors. Any idea which is good? And which brand? And to be more clear I’m gonna buy the best so I’m stepping the price aside where it doesn’t effect a thing in choosing which.

[Steamer]

I would like to ask if anyone has an idea of which is the best LCD that has a good resolution and will be used for an artist, I mean I’ve been told that HDTV doesn't shows the right colors and resolution once you are using it with drawings and as graphic designer, i was about to buy one with 26" HDTV and I think it was LG brand, but one guy told me that HDTV doesn't shows a real good colors as the one that designed to be for PC, so I canceled the purchase. The main thing is that I want to use it with wacom intuos4 tablet (design things, drawing tablet), Photoshop, Corel, and few other 3d software. furthermore, I’ve been told that the aspect ratio 16:10 is better than 16:9 for such LCD to have good resolution and good colors. Any idea which is good? And which brand? And to be more clear I’m gonna buy the best so I’m stepping the price aside where it doesn’t effect a thing in choosing which.

Take a look at the Dell UntraSharp series of monitors. There are different screen sizes of course. Worth considering. Not cheap.

http://reviews.cnet.com/lcd-monitors...lso#cnetReview

[Windrunner]

Welcome to PCper!

Okay, the technical reason behind it is this:

LCD pixels have 3 subpixels, red, green, and blue. They display colors by zapping each one of the subpixels with different amounts of electricity, depending on how they zap them the subpixels filter more or less light.

Technically there should be 255 different levels of opacity ( is that the right word? ) for each subpixel. ( Like when you pick a color in photoshop, the RGB value ).

( This is non-technical and unofficial )
But LCDs aren't perfect, a lot of cheaper, consumer ones approximate. Say your computer says "Display red 126", your monitor might only be able to do red 124 or red 128, so it uses one of those to approximate red 126.

So, back to official. If money is no object, these are the monitors photo editors are recommending: http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/756418 . Most of them start at 1000 dollars, with one of them at $2100

I don't think you mean to go that high, so another option is: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824176104

Going into the consumer end, I like Samsung. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...e=3098%3A22582 I have NEC in there as they appear to be one of the best professional monitor makers.

When I said 16:10 was better, I meant in size and for computers, not necessarily quality.


You can also try to buy a calibrator for your HDTV, though it probably will not work. I don't know anything about calibrators, other than the ones that actually work start at about $250 .

[intuition]

thanx guys for the reply.

Steamer:
i have check the DELL LCDs although you are the first one who talks about DELL in this field, i mean it's fairly good but the customer's review isn't that good (i already own one and it's find although the service after sale is too bad) but still it's HDMI and according to windrunner HDMI don't give a real good colors though.

Winrunner:
thanx for the welcom.
i've checked the URL you gave me, the CG are too expensive so i better buy a8 core apple rather than a single LCD. and appearantly NEC line are the best and the rest are fairly good but i might not find these products near and buying them over the web will coast me more cause i am living FAR AWAY, what i need to know is "what are the things that i should be searching in an LCD?or maybe the limits; like which brand is better, what the resolution should be, what respond rate should be, the contrast ration, what color schema or range, the connectivity should be...?? you these things varies from one manufactor to another and knowing these things helps alot. so do you have any idea??

[Brandito]

if you require color accuracy get a colorimeter. xrite and spider make some fairly cheap ones that will work great with a computer.

also stay away from tn panels i accuracy is key. they won't be able to produce all the colors you may need.

no matter what monitor technology you buy, chances are it will need calibrating to be accurate. that's where the colorimeter comes in.

[intuition]

Hey Brandito;
thank you for your reply. as i know nothing about these colorimeter! i search alittle here and there, but one main question: this colorimeter should be used all the time? i mean it'll do it work as a one time installation and then stop using it? or it will be used from time to time? or should be used all the time? because if i'm gonna use it all the time and it will be hangged like that then it'll be a bad thing to have. beside that most of you guys are talking about calibrating (honestly i don't know about this too?) what's it's about? and why should i be aware of it? and regarding the '"also stay away from tn panels i accuracy is key"' sorry but i'm not following? what do you mean with it?
and about the brand and which technology, the manufacturers differs in the way they look to colors and varies from one vision to another, this sentince i always hear it from the artists and i don't know wither it's true or not. but you know as long as there are people whom is in the same field and like a certain brand LCDs besides finding it reliable and do the job perfectly is better than for normal use. what do you think?

[Brandito]

it doesn't hang on the monitor all the time. it throws up some patterns, makes a monitor profile that loads at startup and then it's done. to keep things accurate they do recommend regular recalibrations. as the lcd ages colors will shift over time. depending how important accuracy is you may want to do it weekly, once a year, or something in between.

[intuition]

oh it's nice then as i thought, needs calibrating from time to another.

ok do you have any idea what are the standars or limitation that i should be searching in an LCD like what i mention before?

[Windrunner]

The specifications the manufacturer lists can be made to lie. Avoid TN panels ( TN-LCD, TFT is another phrasing, if I remember right ), do not worry about contrast ratio or response time. They can lie about it by using different testing methods. The best measure of an LCD are its reviews by professional end users, in my opinion.

Price is a relatively good indicator as well, similar to tablets.

[intuition]

winrunner:
how come? i mean TFT, TN-LCD, and TN panels are included in each LCD i search on the web? like this for instance:

http://reviews.cnet.com/1990-3173_7-...?tag=bg%3bbg_l

regarding the price issue, what do you mean with "Price is a relatively good indicator as well, similar to tablets." do you mean the higer the better?

[3dfxrain]

:/ should be good value for monies

[Windrunner]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_...x_technologies

That list is from 2006. Moore's law is "Double your fun for the same amount of money every 18 months" to put it simply, meaning the monitors listed, for the same price you could get them in 2005/2006, you can get quadruple the monitor.

You do not want a TN panel for accurate color reproduction if you're spending a lot of money.

IPS/S-IPS are the ones you want.

[Prime2515102]

TN Panels are 6-bit (6-bits per color, 18-bit color total). Dithering is used to simulate 24-bit "true" color (16.7 million colors). This results in color "banding" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_banding

Most IPS panels are 8-bit (24-bit color), and some are 10-bit (30-bit, over a billion colors).

By the way, TFT (thin film transistor) is the technology used in all TN and IPS LCD's on the market today (see the link Windrunner posted).

Note that sometimes the type of panel will not be listed with a monitor. The quickest way to determine if you're getting an IPS (or PVA/MVA) is to check the viewing angles. TN is usually rated 160 or 170 degrees, the others are either 176 or 178 (usually 178).

As for other specs (like contrast ratio, response time) you can pretty much ignore them when comparing one monitor to the next as there is no standard in use. Your best bet is to rely on your eyes.

[intuition]

windrunner;
as always fascinating information that made me work on a research of 8 hours continuously to search for the best results and to be known of the subject that made me realizing the best monitor to go for.

Prime2515102;
You’re the man:
as i got near and realized the results, i reached to a question just 2 minutes ago and WAS about to ask in here & that was "how to know that this monitor is IPS, PVA/MVA because NONE or maybe 3% of manufacturers writes it in the specs.?" then Prime2515102 goes explaining. thanx man.

Regarding my research; i reached to one Final solution that can help all of us to find which is good and which has this technology (monitors i mean), this was explained by one member on other forum as follows:

TN - These panels are cheap to produce but are 6-bit color instead of 8-bit. Vertical viewing angles are atrocious but horizontal angles are pretty good. The majority of the monitor market is made up of this type, including models like the 245B and pretty much every 22"

S-PVA/P-MVA - Full 8-bit panels with horizontal viewing angles almost as good as a TN and decent vertical viewing angles. They do suffer for a greater or lesser extent from black crush when viewed straight on though, search for 'color shifting' on youtube for examples (sorry, forum won't let me post a link). This type is used for most of the premium monitors like the Dell 2408WFP, Samsung 245T, Samsung XL24, BenQ FP241W, NEC LCD2470WNX as well as several Eizos.

S-IPS/H-IPS - Almost perfect viewing angles, but under 30" there aren't many about. Perhaps the most common one in shops is the 24" iMac (the 20" is TN) and the only standalone IPS 1920x1200 monitors available at in the UK that I know of are the NEC LCD2690WUXi (a bit expensive), the Apple Cinema 23" (which is a few years old now) and the new Hazro range (at the moment only OcUK are selling these monitors but you could ask your preferred shop to look into it if you don't like them).

the phenomenal Link was (i guess 4 UK): http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/
What you have to do is writing down the panel you need and it will list the monitors.

by the way Prime2515102, the 24bit monitors, which are the main brands that makes this, and what about Mac cinema LED? Most of people are saying too expensive with less features besides to calibrating can be done with it using colorimeter! the worst thing is NONE of the big IPS and the rest are available in here, only the Mac is available and I really don't think it worth it cause if I reached that price I can add few more and get MUCH better than that. What do you think guys?

[Prime2515102]

Have you seen the HP LP2475w? It's an H-IPS panel and about $350 less than the Apple (although I don't think it has LED backlighting). It's gotten really good reviews all over the internet. Seems to have a really good balance between price and performance (not to mention every kind of connection under the sun).

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en...1-3648442.html

I was considering this one but the budget got really tight and I ended up getting a cheapo 23" TN panel on sale on Black Friday (I'm somewhat disappointed with the color [that banding problem] but for $140 I wasn't expecting miracles).

edit: added link