TFT or LCD?

[any1care]

I really need to buy a new monitor and i thought i'd buy a LCD or TFT... are they the same thing? or if they aren't , what's the difference? Thanks.

[hapoo]

short answer: yes

long answer:
TFT is a kind of LCD.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/lcd4.htm

[Ladogaboy]

Doesn't TFT kind of "phase out" if you look at it from a different angle?

[Devhux]

There are two main types of LCD's... DSTN (dual-scan) and TFT (active matrix).

With a dual-scan display, the image is barely viewable at all unless you are looking at it straight on. Also, DSTN displays generally exhibit extreme ghosting (blurred images) which is even noticeable when moving the mouse (take a look at an older laptop to see what I mean).

Active matrix displays (which includes all desktop units) are sharper, have a wider viewing angle, and exhibit less blurring than dual-scan displays. They aren't perfect (especially for gaming), but they are getting better.

As for what LCD I'd recommend, you might want to take a look at the following article:

http://www.gotapex.com/reviews.php?rev=samsunglcd/index.html

[any1care]

thanks for all the help. Still not sure what model to get but thanks.

[Apex]

What model to get is determined by 3 things:

1. Your budget
2. What you're going to use it for
3. How much space do you have?

[Devhux]

Originally posted by Apex
What model to get is determined by 3 things:

1. Your budget
2. What you're going to use it for
3. How much space do you have?

Well-stated Apex. :) A few added points to consider:

- If you'll be playing games, you might want to look a little deeper into the specifications of the display for the "pixel response time." This refers to how quickly the pixels can refresh themselves (lower number = better response = sharper images while gaming). Right now the sweet-spot seems to be around 25ms, but there aren't many displays that refresh this fast (Solarism's 15" display is one of the few smaller displays I can think of).

- If you're going to be working with a lot of documents, a pivot feature is handy (where the display can rotate into portrait mode -- enabling you to view an entire page of text without scrolling). Once again however, this one's more useful on a 17" display capable of 1280x1024 resolution rather than a 15" display capable of 1024x768. Reason being, is that when flipped, 768x1024 is just too narrow (width-wise).

[Devhux]

I believe to get 1600x1200, you have to step up to a 19" or better. That's just one of my main beefs with current desktop LCD's -- too low resolution for their screen size.

Consider that some laptops have 15" displays capable of 1440x1050 resolution or whatever, it's amazing that even 17-18" desktop LCD's only support 1280x1024 (I'm using an 18" display now, and that's the max res).

[Devhux]

Originally posted by chosenfool
i see...ive seen it on notebooks too, and ive always wondered why the LCDs sold have a rather small screen res compared to their actual size. its a pain to have to scroll to the left or right, or up and down, when the screen is resized to a finer res.

Definately. If you get a chance to see a 17" LCD with pivot capabilities, I'm sure you'll be pretty amazed -- flipping the screen to portrait mode really does make web pages and documents easier to navigate (since you'd be seeing roughly a full-page of text at a time -- no scrolling).

[Apex]

It all comes down to money. There's a greater market for high density panels on laptops then on desktop LCD's. That's why you'll see 1600x1200 on down to a 14.1" LCD on a laptop, yet that resolution only exists on 19.6"+ desktop LCD's.

[unnamed]

Originally posted by Apex
It all comes down to money. There's a greater market for high density panels on laptops then on desktop LCD's. That's why you'll see 1600x1200 on down to a 14.1" LCD on a laptop, yet that resolution only exists on 19.6"+ desktop LCD's.

have you noticed that 14.1" on a laptop and 19.6" on a desktop are both basically one step below the max(common) size?

that most likely has something to do with it, i'll bet if they made laptops with 19.6" screens (not that they ever would) you wouldn't see 1600x1200 on a 14.1" lcd.