Good 15 inch TFT screens

[Tea]

Been using the A-Open TFTs quite a bit lately. Very happy with them. Alas, A-Open are out of stock and don't look like having any for quite some time. There are plenty of Acers, but the Acers are nowhere near as clear and sharp. Looks like we have to switch brands.

I have easy access to LG and Mitsubushi, no doubt Samsung and Panasonic too. Probably several others.

My requirements:

• Good picture quality. It doesn't have to be the absolute best, but it has to be in the ballpark.
• Good warranty service. A Longer than 12-month warranty would be a real bonus.
• Good price: if I can't retail it for under AU$1000 there is no point in buying it: we listed the A-Opens for about $950.

Experiences, gentlemen?

 

[CougTek]

The NEC LCD1550M has the same panel as the much-praised EIZO FlexScan L375. The main difference between both displays is that the NEC has a narrower viewing angle. Both share fast response times (25ms total of rise and fall time). Their contrast (450:1) and brightness (300cd/m²) are the best of the industry.

I can buy the NEC LCD1550M for 710$CDN here, so I figure you should be able to have it for ~900$AU. Forget the EIZO, it's certainly more expensive.

Don't touch the Viewsonic VX500. The MVA technology used in its panel isn't up to the par. Despite very impressive specifications, it's disappointing when you see the actual result.

 

[Tea]

Hmmm ... I bet it's more like $1200 AU, which would put it out of the ballpark. But sounds nice. I'll check it out.

 

[Mercutio]

You mean you can sell overpriced TFT displays but you can't manage SCSI hard disks? j/k

Not that I have any room to talk or anything.

Here, the only reasonably priced 15" TFT display I can get says KDS on it (US $329), and doesn't look impressive in the least.

Give me a CRT any day. I like having a display I can look at in daylight.

 

[CougTek]

The NEC LCD1550M for 1200$AU would be a ripoff. Just to give me an idea of your inflated prices, how much does the Samsung 570v cost in Australia? Here, it's a pretty common LCD and it cost ~550$CDN. I hope you on't have to spend more than 700$AU for it.

 

[Fushigi]

...how much does the Samsung 570v cost in Australia? Here, it's a pretty common LCD and it cost ~550$CDN. I hope you on't have to spend more than 700$AU for it.

I'd second the vote on the Samsung line. My fiance's been using one since May '01. No problems; nice image for an LCD; inexpensive. They run around US$350 and up.

- Fushigi

 

[James]

I haven't seen the 570V out here yet.

The cheapest I have seen the 560V retail for is A$931.70 inc. GST. The 570S goes for A$1,270.50 retail.

Halve the prices above to get rough USD equivalents.

I'd buy everything overseas if it wasn't for the fact that (a) I get slugged 10% of the purchase price *plus shipping* when it comes into the country and (b) shipping is exorbitant. I've bought a Turtle Beach Audiotron and shipping (on a USD283 item) is USD90.

Living in the US or Canada, you have no idea what it is like buying equipment in much of the rest of the world.

 

[Tea]

My Samsung supplier is closed for the day - putting in a new electronic ordering system, I hope it is as good as the old one - and they don't list that particular model, CougTek.

But I just said "to hell with it" and ordered a Hitachi, sight unseen, for $825 ex tax - that will retail for $1000 even. Specs are marginally down on the A-Open - only 300:1 rather than 400:1 contrast ratio, but I've yet to see a crappy Hitachi monitor. And it has a three year on-site warranty, which is a real advantage.

I'll let you all know what I think.

But be sure to post any other suggestions!

PS: Yes, Fugshi, Samsungs TFTs always seem to be amongst the best. They can be a bit too expensive though. I'll find out next week.

 

[Adcadet]

Just in case some of us missed this, I think I should post this link to a decent (IMO) discussion article on flatpanels. Not the best, but a starting point.

http://arstechnica.com/guide/flatpanel/flatpanels-1.html

(will someone please tell me how to make those nifty URLs that all the cool people use?!)

 

[Tannin]

<URL=your.url.net>click here</URL>
gives you this:
click here

 

[Tea]

But don't let his nifty URL mislead you: Tannin isn't remotely cool. Trust me, I know these things.

 

[Sol]

Speaking of TFTs anyone know if there aere any good for games yet? I'm going to give myself some serious back issues if I have o move my 20Kg CRT to too many more LANs.

 

[Tannin]

Come see me late on Friday afternoon, Sol - you can borrow my Hitachi for the weekend. (Unless someone buys it, of course.)

I must remember to get Tea to update this thread with her impressions of the Hitachi.

 

[Mercutio]

Not yet. Quake3 doesn't look very good on the 15" LCD of the brand-new 1GHz Toshiba laptops that are sitting on my living room floor right now. Even with all the graphics options turned off there's a lot of artifacts on the screen that I think come from the screen updating slower than the video refresh rate within the game.
It's tolerable but if I was more of a gamer I'd be mightily P.O.'d.

Incidently, in (US) PC Magazine's tests of 17/18" LCDs, their top picks were Samsung for overall value, KDS for best "budget" model, and LG for best quality of display. They also like the Hitachi 18" display. Acer and Sony had two of the worst-rated displays.

 

[CougTek]

Mercutio,

There is a significant difference between laptop's LCDs and the LCD sold as separated units. The latters' are looking a lot better, although I think they are still a bit short of being ready for games and fast motion video. The last generation improved a lot over the one before and I think the LCD monitors that will be released this summer should finally be up to the par for gaming. Time will tell though (not you David ;-) ), there no warranties.

BTW, the NEC LCD1550M is now 640 canadian pesos, so it's quite afordable (~400U$) for a high-end LCD.

 

[Mercutio]

Really? Historically I've preferred laptop LCDs to desktop.
Maybe that's because I'm usually closer to the laptop display.

Desktop LCDs still seem like a gimmick to me, anyway.

 

[CougTek]

Notebook's LCDs typically have a contrast ratio of 100:1 or 150:1 (their backlight is a lot weaker due to the space constraint), their viewing angle isn't as large and their response time is slower.

 

[time]

Time to revive this topic. Tea, how have you found the Hitachi?

Choices here seem to be down to Mitsubishi Electric, who I believe have some sort of joint venture in the US with NEC. So US readers will probably not have seen these models, but here goes anyway.

Mitsubishi DV152, 350:1 contrast, 35mS response, 150x140 degree viewing angles.

Mitsubishi DV156, 400:1 contrast, 25mS response, 160x160 degree viewing angles, includes speakers.

Brightness is the same at 250. The second costs almost half as much again as the first. The customer wants a compact display that can double as a TV, so I figure response matters.

Comments, everyone? Remembering that here in Oz we have few brands and fewer models, and there's now a worldwide shortage of panels :roll:

 

[Tea]

The Hitachi was a mixed bag, Time. I forget the model number already but it would have been their entry-level one. 300:1 contrast ratio, as I remember. Picture quality was noticably down on the superb A-Open (400:1), though still quite good. I didn't even consider response time, as my own use is mostly spreadsheets and web browsers, which make this irrelevant, but require the best possible clarity. Off-axis performance is a bonus too, though not strictly necessary,

I liked it though: very small and neat, and that three year warranty is practically unique. With $1000 worth of monitor, 12 months cover is not really enough.

Guess I'll try the DV152, Time. Same price as the A-Open, more or less. Doubt that I'l be able to make any sensible comment about it as a TV though. I wouldn't know what to look for.

 

[time]

Here's an update on the Mitsubishi DV152, since we finally got one to play with.

It's too damn bright. Black is but a distant memory - welcome to the land of washed out white and gray. I'm running it with Brightness set to zero and it's still too much.

It would be nice if changing the Contrast from 0 to 100 had some kind of effect.

It is nominally a color screen, but heaven help you if you expected the colors to make sense. The default settings leave grays as strongly tinged blues. This can be at least partially adjusted out, but examination of primary colors shows red is simply not red. It's more of a pink.

Without real red, yellow remains a sickly lemon.

The lack of blackness makes black on white text seem thin and lacking clarity. On the other hand, white on black is excellent. Pity that's hardly a normal color scheme.

On a positive note, response seemed just fine with a TV card. Scrolling was also quite acceptable.

I felt compelled to tweak the video settings to try to get a reasonable picture. More washed out whites and absence of blacks. Worse than the old LCD TVs I've seen on airliners.

My daughter, a budding graphic artist, hated it intensely. She only had to move her head slightly for shadings to change on her artwork. I guess the viewing angles they quote are the absolute limits of visibility, not usability.

Our assessment may improve, but I'm trying to decide whether or not to return it. I've no idea what else we could get right now.

 

[Tea]

Oh dear. Not good news. I'm starting to think that you need to pay top dollar for a decent TFT. (The A-Opens aside, and getting hold of the damn things is difficult. I can get any number of the Acers, but the Acers are crud.) I think, from that graphic arts and movies point of view of yours, you'd be very, very difficult to please with a TFT screen, Time. I mostly only care about spreadsheets and the like, and I'll sacrifice color-balance for sheer clarity any day.

The permanant non-black, yes, the Hitachi was like that too, though perhaps not as noticable. (Hard to say, as we are looking for different things.)

Best thing you can do is shout yourself a business trip to Sydney for the PC Show. I used to go every year. Costs a fortune, if you stay for a week in Darling Harbour, but you get to ride the harbour ferries and eat out at The Rocks, spend a day at the Maritime Museum, another at the Taronga Park Zoo, Powerhouse Museum, Chinatown, the Chineese Gardens .... Sydney is wonderful in autumn.

Oh. Nearly forgot. You go to the PC Show on at least two different days so that you can claim the whole damn thing on your tax return. Perfectly legitimate to do this. While you are there, walk round and look at every single monitor. There is just no substitute for seeing them in the flesh.

 

[bahngeist]

Given that 15" LCD's is the topic, I have avoided posting on this thread since the monitors I have are 18" and 17.4" respectively. But then ...

I have been using a NEC LCD1830 since last summer, and in all it is an excellent monitor for the price. Even though it is analog (probably less of an issue now than it was earlier), it is quite sharp, the viewing angle is v. good, as are the colour intensity and gray scale range. I have never noticed any appreciable ghosting with fast motion sequences. But at $800< U.S. it would be dear in Aus. dollars, and then there is the question of availability 'down under'.

I recently acquired a Neovo X-174 (an analog/digital unit), and am also quite pleased with the unit. However, in retrospect, I would have been as happy with a second LCD1830, since the image quality really isn't that much different when comparing analog and digital output. The extra $200 U.S. would have been better used elsewhere.

 

[bahngeist]

Given that 15" LCD's is the topic, I have avoided posting on this thread since the monitors I have are 18" and 17.4" respectively. But then ...

I have been using a NEC LCD1830 since last summer, and in all it is an excellent monitor for the price. Even though it is analog (probably less of an issue now than it was earlier), it is quite sharp, the viewing angle is v. good, as are the colour intensity and gray scale range. I have never noticed any appreciable ghosting with fast motion sequences. But at $800< U.S. it would be dear in Aus. dollars, and then there is the question of availability 'down under'.

I recently acquired a Neovo X-174 (an analog/digital unit), and am also quite pleased with the unit. However, in retrospect, I would have been as happy with a second LCD1830, since the image quality really isn't that much different when comparing analog and digital output. The extra $200 U.S. would have been better used elsewhere.

 

[CougTek]

I saw earlier this afternoon that Samsung has launch a new digital flat panel monitor : the 171P. Given the rave of positive comments writen about their previous 17" DVI model (the 170T), their new 171P looks very promising.

The specifications are impressive : 25ms response time, 1280x1024 definition, 170° viewing angle, 500:1 contrast ratio and 250cd/m² brightness. It uses the all digital DVI-D connector when it's used in digital mode.

And it looks nice too :

I hope the price won't be too prohibitive. It will certainly blow your small 1000$AUD budget though.

 

[Groltz]

I don't know if you've seen this, Tony, but THG had a comparison of 14 flat panel monitors. I believe they were all 15" models.

--Steve

 

[Tannin]

Thanks Steve, I'm making a start on it now. It's a shame that none of the models reviewed happen to be ones that I am familiar with. I can see I have a lot of reading ahead of me.

 

[CougTek]

I can see I have a lot of reading ahead of me.

That's how we learn ;-)