LCD monitor reviews buyers guide & help

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When it comes to choosing a monitor the chances are you’ll be looking at an LCD or flat panel screen. The prices over the last year have come down a lot now that the industry standard is no longer the older CRT type of display. So it’s a good time to get one.

When selecting your display be cautious of very cheap bargains. Remember it’s worth paying a little bit extra to get a good picture, you’ll be staring at this for periods of time so it has to be kind to your eyes. Generally TFT monitors are much slimmer than the bulky CRT type, this means they take up much less space depth wise.

LCD monitor reviews buyers guide Image quality



As for the picture quality, unless you are using a top of the range CRT type the picture will generally be clearer and sharper.

Speakers

Lots of screens comes with speakers built in. If you intend to use them , don’t get too excited the chances are the sound will not be the best.

It’s generally far better to purchase a monitor with no built in speakers and then put the money you’ve saved towards a decent set of external speakers.

LCD monitor reviews buyers guide article

Screen Positioning
A lot of screens today are able to be changed between landscape and portrait display simply by revolving the display by 90 degrees.
The is a great feature if you use any applications that you wish to see a complete A4 page vertically on.

On most monitors the image will automatically convert to and from portrait


and landscape, depending on the orientation of the monitor.

computer adviser LCD monitor reviews buyers guide

Screen Resolution
Make sure you have some idea of the resolution of the screen and what it looks like before purchasing.

Generally a higher resolution screen will give a shaper image, but as an example a 15” screen should give a clear resolution at 1024 x 768 pixels , a 17” should give 1280 x 1024 .

Most 19” TFT screen also will only go up to 1280x1024 so the picture will be larger , but you will not be able to fit any more on the screen.

Connections
Another point to note is which type of connection will be compatible with the connections on your video card?

Usually a TFT monitor will have both VGA and DVI connections, but some only come with a DVI connection, if this is the case either make sure your video card has a DVI output or check the monitor comes with a DVI converter.

As TFT screens are digital devices, the signal is converted from digital to analogue for VGA type connections.

If you have to use a VGA to DVI converter you won’t really lose any clarity, as the signal converting on later TFT monitors is very good.

Custom Size Monitors
Recently we’ve seen a number of odd size monitors coming onto the market.
Which are better for watching DVD’s , movies etc. Not to mention giving more horizontal screen area.

With an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 16:10 , compared to the aspect ration of a standard screen of 4:3 .

This means that the height of the screen is 3 and the width is 4 , or if it’s 16:9 it would be 16 wide and 9 high.

For example

When you are looking at screens always try to purchase a reputable make or band.

If you find one and are not sure of the brand, always checkout the picture / image before handing over any cash.

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