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In the buyer's guide this week we are looking at monitors - specifically what features and specifications you should be looking for, and what is available in New Zealand right now.

There are a lot of variables when it comes to monitors such as size, resolution, response time, contrast ratio/brightness, inputs, aspect ratio and panel type to name a few. Let me take you through a few of these main ones before we jump in and see what is out there.

Panel type

Most computer monitors on the market today are LCDs (Liquid Crystal Display), and these come in 3 types - TN, IPS and VA. Each of these come in different variations, however in the interest of keeping you awake I won't go into them now; suffice to say that TN panels are the cheapest and most common, and if the monitor you're looking at doesn't state what type it is, then it's a TN. Unless you're a professional graphics artist/media designer, or simply extremely anal about colour accuracy and viewing angles, you'll be happy with a TN.

IPS panels will be found in the more expensive LCD panels (they're roughly twice as expensive as TN panels), but some of them have much slower response times (discussed below) so aren't ideal for gaming. If you need to use a monitor in portrait mode then you'll be looking for one of these. VA panels are also more expensive with wider colour gamuts but slower response times.

LED monitors are also starting to hit the market here. These are simply LCD monitors that use LED backlighting instead of CFL tubes. This results in much lower power consumption, much much higher dynamic contrast ratios (also discussed below), extremely thin monitor casing and large, bold "LED!" stickers encasing the packaging and product brochures as if it were the best thing since optical mice. Expect to pay at least 50% more for these benefits.

Contrast ratio/brightness

Contrast ratio is the difference in brightness between the darkest black and the brightest white that a screen can produce. The higher this ratio then, by and large, the better the image looks (ever wonder why photograhers frame dark photos with light borders and vice versa?). A contrast ratio of 1,000:1 for instance would mean that the brightest white a screen can produce is one thousand times brighter than the darkest black, which is pretty good.

There are two ways of measuring this figure - one is a "real" contrast ratio (which most of the time is around 1,000:1 which is good enough almost any use), this tells you the contrast ratio that the screen can produce in one single frame (i.e. producing the darkest black and brightest white at the same time, with the same level of light coming from the backlight).

The other way is to measure the "dynamic" contrast ratio (which can be up to and over 1,000,000:1), which is achieved by the screen being able to turn its backlight down, measuring the darkest black, then cranking the backlight right up and measuring the brightest white. You're very unlikely to get any advantage from this in the real world, so if a salesperson ever proudly beams an impressive dynamic contrast ratio figure to you, I encourage you to raise one eyebrow at them until they concede that that number doesn't really mean crap.

Brightness on the other hand is a much safer figure. It is measured in candela per square metre (cd/m2), or "nits" (from latin nitere = "to shine"). The brighter a screen is, the easier it is to view in bright surroundings (bright screens typically look a little more vivid too). Anything below 250cd/m2 is poor, above 350cd/m2 is excellent, and anywhere in between is just fine.

Resolution

This is quite a simple figure - it is literally the amount of dots (aka pixels) that the panel physically possesses. This is usually expressed in a width vs. height format, e.g. 1920x1080 meaning that the screen would be 1920 pixels wide by 1080 high, or just over 2 million in total (aka ~2 megapixels if you're conversant with digital cameras).

Generally speaking, a higher resolution will give you a finer, more detailed picture, and will allow you to view a wider area of web pages and documents. Remember, however, that if your monitor is for gaming then more pixels require more graphics processing power, so if you've got a low-end graphics card then a high resolution monitor is just going to make things worse whilst gaming.

"Low" resolution these days is considered 1600x900 or lower, whilst 1680x1050, 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 are the most common medium/high resolutions, then from there you jump up to the insane-o-max 2560x1600 ultra high resolution of the big 30" screens.

Size

Also quite self-explanatory - the size of a monitor is measured in inches diagonally from corner to corner of the viewable area of the screen. Bigger screens tend to have higher resolutions as well but the two don't go hand in hand so don't go making any assumptions about the resolution of a screen based on its size.

When deciding on screen size, my main recommendation would be not to go too big, particularly if you sit quite close to your monitor. I recently upgraded from a 20" LCD to a 24" LCD and I found that viewing the bigger monitor at the same short distance as the smaller monitor was rather uncomfortable, so I ended up sitting the new screen on top of a box situated behind my computer desk just to give me some extra viewing distance. In all honesty, if they made 1920x1200 LCDs in any size smaller than 24" I would happily opt for that instead.

Response time

People make a big fuss over this number but personally I don't think it's a big deal. "Response time" is the amount of time it takes a pixel on the screen to respond to changes in brightness levels, measured in milliseconds. A slow response time would result in blurry and smeared motion on screen - anyone who has used a laptop from the nineties or earlier will know what this looks like.

Most screens advertise their "Grey-to-Grey" (aka GtG or G2G) response time, which is the time it takes a pixel to cycle through all halftone brightnesses, starting and ending at grey. The large majority of modern LCDs state a GtG time of 2ms or 5ms, with a slim few being 6ms. All of these would be suitable for gaming. If anyone could spot the difference between a 2ms panel and a 5ms panel in a blind test, I would be seriously, seriously impressed.

Don't confuse response time with refresh rate. Refresh rate is how many screen updates the panel will accept per second. Most screens will take 60Hz, some do up to 75Hz and one or two even do 120Hz - this is insanely high and looks insanely smooth, or it can be used for 3D gaming in dual-60Hz mode.

Aspect ratio

This is basically the 'shape' of a screen, measured by the ratio of the amount of columns versus rows of pixels on a screen. For example, 1600x900 and 1920x1080 resolution screens have a "16:9" aspect ratio. This also happens to be the aspect ratio that High Definition video (e.g. BluRay movies) are displayed in and is also supported by the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 consoles so has become a popular widescreen format for people who wish to use their PC monitors for these purposes as well.

The other widescreen format which seems to be slowly being phased out is 16:10, which covers virtually all other modern screen resolutions: 1440x900, 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. All PC games support these resolutions but you'll probably experience some scaling, distortion, image loss or black bars surrounding your image if you use these monitors with the other HD material mentioned above.

Inputs

The amount and type of inputs on monitors these days varies quite a bit, so make sure the screen you're looking at buying will suit your requirements both now and in the future.

DVI and VGA connections come standard on all but the cheapest of screens, but for maximum usability you want one with at least one HDMI connection as that seems to be the ubiquitous standard on electronics these days (it carries the same digital video signal that DVI does but also delivers audio and HDCP encryption for protected HD content).

Displayport is also becoming more common, and is a must if you want a 3-monitor setup using ATI's latest "Eyefinity" technology. Lastly, some monitors also feature more conventional inputs like composite, SVHS and component video (YPbPr) inputs for hooking up DVD players and that sort of thing. These will obviously only benefit you if you intend on actually using them.

Recommended models.

So now that you're equipped to bluff your way through a conversation about LCD monitors, here are my picks for the best LCD screens available in NZ right at all price levels...

$200 - $399:

LG W2043-PF 20" 1600x900 16:9 5ms DVI $235
Asus VH232T 23" 1920x1080 16:9 5ms DVI $295
LG W2261V 22" 1920x1080 16:9 2ms DVI HDMI $299
ViewSonic VX2433wm 23.6" 1920x1080 16:9 2ms DVI HDMI $329

$400 - $799:
LG L246WHX 24" 1920x1200 16:10 5ms DVI HDMI YPbPr $499
Samsung P2370HD 23" 1920x1080 16:9 5ms Freeview HD Ready DVI HDMI YPbPr $569
Samsung 2233RZ 22" 1680x1050 16:10 3ms 120Hz Dual Engine 3D Ready DVI $579
Acer S243HL 24" 1920x1080 16:9 2ms LED HDMI $615

>$800:
HP LP2475w 24" 1920x1200 16:10 6ms IPS DVI HDMI Displayport $879
Samsung 305T+ 30" 2560x1600 16:10 6ms VA DVI $2099

That's all for now, see you in our next PC buyer's guide.