LED monitor?

[Jaevric]

I'm in the market for a high-quality flatscreen monitor, 23" or 24" widescreen. Budget is very flexible, up to $400.00. I'd been looking at a standard LCD monitor but I've seen a few mentions of LED monitors. Has anyone used one of these? How do they compare to a "normal" LCD flatscreen?

[Darth Wong]

Aren't LED monitors just LCD monitors with LED back-lights? Or is there something new and different which I'm unaware of?

[General Zod]

Aren't LED monitors just LCD monitors with LED back-lights? Or is there something new and different which I'm unaware of?

Pretty much just that. There's no real significant difference between the two.

[Sarevok]

Same question here !

I did not know you could make a display using LEDs ?

[phongn]

LED backlighting can be more even than traditional CCFL backlighting and also provide a wider color gamut. They also don't have the initial "warmup" period that a fluorescent tube has.

As for monitors - the NEC EA231WMi is probably the best in your price range. It's a 23" 1920x1080 eIPS matte display.

[Starglider]

Aren't LED monitors just LCD monitors with LED back-lights? Or is there something new and different which I'm unaware of?

Some LED displays have a feature called 'local dimming'; these are basically a low-res monochrome LED matrix behind a high-res LCD matrix. By reducing the backlight brightness in dark areas of the picture, a much better contrast ratio can be achieved, compared to a standard cold cathode or LED backlight. However these are expensive and still fairly rare.

True LED monitors use no LCD technology at all, just a matrix of tri-colour LEDs. These have even better contrast ratios and colour gamuts, but are very, very expensive and rare.

[Jaevric]

As for monitors - the NEC EA231WMi is probably the best in your price range. It's a 23" 1920x1080 eIPS matte display.

Thanks. Let me betray my ignorance for a moment, though; the NEC website shows a 14ms reponse time on that monitor, and only a 1000:1 contrast ratio. Isn't 14ms fairly slow and a 1000:1 contrast fairly bad? I've seen monitors with a 50,000:1 or 70,000:1 contrast; I'd assumed higher was better in this case. Am I missing something here?

Keep in mind I'm not absolutely fixated on an "LED" monitor, I was just trying to find out if they're better or worse than the standard flatscreens.

[General Zod]

As for monitors - the NEC EA231WMi is probably the best in your price range. It's a 23" 1920x1080 eIPS matte display.

Thanks. Let me betray my ignorance for a moment, though; the NEC website shows a 14ms reponse time on that monitor, and only a 1000:1 contrast ratio. Isn't 14ms fairly slow and a 1000:1 contrast fairly bad? I've seen monitors with a 50,000:1 or 70,000:1 contrast; I'd assumed higher was better in this case. Am I missing something here?

Keep in mind I'm not absolutely fixated on an "LED" monitor, I was just trying to find out if they're better or worse than the standard flatscreens.

14ms is pretty slow, but if you're concerned about the refresh rate because of gaming, get a regular LCD monitor (The average HDTV is between 4ms and 6ms, for example). If gaming isn't important than the refresh rate won't make that big of a difference.

[phongn]

Thanks. Let me betray my ignorance for a moment, though; the NEC website shows a 14ms reponse time on that monitor, and only a 1000:1 contrast ratio. Isn't 14ms fairly slow and a 1000:1 contrast fairly bad? I've seen monitors with a 50,000:1 or 70,000:1 contrast; I'd assumed higher was better in this case. Am I missing something here?

14ms is relatively slow, but AFAIK that's for black-to-white transition; some monitor refresh rate specs are gray-to-gray (or blue-white-blue) which is going to be much less. Contrast ratio numbers can also be massaged.

What an IPS monitor gives you is much superior viewing angles and color fidelity (most consumer TN LCDs cannot display true 24-bit color but dither 18-bit instead) Personally, that's much more important to me than super-fast refresh rates.

Keep in mind I'm not absolutely fixated on an "LED" monitor, I was just trying to find out if they're better or worse than the standard flatscreens.

They generally have more even backlighting but they might not actually be better in and of themselves.

[Stark]

Yeah, gray-to-grey quoted refreshes are why some 'fast' monitors handle very bright moving areas (like skies) poorly. Contrast ratio numbers are basically worthless for anything other than comparing things in the same line.

That said, for a computer viewing angle is irrelevant and for gaming color fidelity is irrelevant, whereas refresh rates are absolutely critical. Well... some games. Even Gratuitious Space Battles looks shit on poor panels because of the brightness.

[phongn]

That said, for a computer viewing angle is irrelevant and for gaming color fidelity is irrelevant, whereas refresh rates are absolutely critical. Well... some games. Even Gratuitious Space Battles looks shit on poor panels because of the brightness.

For some games you want faster refresh rates, sure, but what about when one isn't gaming? Are short refresh rates that advantageous?

[Stark]

On a panel with bad refresh rates (meaningful ones, not made up 'lol 4ms from grey to grey') even panning a view around a high-bloom scene bleeds colour all over the place. Like I said, even GSB's HDR'd explosions (sprites with light effects) look shit as they expand and contract, with obvious gradients of brightness where the panel can't keep up.

On an older panel I had (with quoted '6ms' response time) watching paratroopers in World in Conflict was hideous, because as the black shapes fell down the bright sky, they left a ghost trail of ugliness. It's not just an issue with tearing or CRT-style refresh rates.

[Jaevric]

Well, I do a fair amount of gaming, so I definitely want to get a monitor that'll show games well. I've read you can't tell the difference on anything faster than a 5ms refresh rate, anyway, and if the various manufacturers fudge the numbers that much...meh. I'll see if I can find a display of the NEC that's running something worthwhile. Thanks.

[Ypoknons]

Aren't LED monitors just LCD monitors with LED back-lights? Or is there something new and different which I'm unaware of?

There are OLED monitors in the pipeline, which are proper LED monitors. They are seeing scale production for mobile devices, cell phones and PMPs (Nexus One, Zune HD), but for monitor and TV use they're still not quite there.

LED-backlit LCDs can be thinner and are mercury-free, as I understand. Many LED backlit TVs have local dimming, shutting off the backlight in one area for deep blacks. On a lot of laptops many LED backlights are brighter than a lot of the crappy CCFLs used (though there have been good CCFL backlit laptops from Sony and Dell's business line). On a desktop monitor, it's not a huge difference and it differs from panel to panel, it's not clear cut better or worse.

[TimothyC]

LED-backlit LCDs can be thinner and are mercury-free, as I understand. Many LED backlit TVs have local dimming, shutting off the backlight in one area for deep blacks.

The situation is Either-Or.

If your TV uses edge lighting, you can go thin (See Samsung LEDs [ALL], LG SL90 line), while a full backlight lets (but does not require) local dimming (IE LG's LH90 and LHX, Toshiba's SV670, and Vizio's LED TVs have local dimming while the LE700 from Sharp does not (in the US anyway)).