Still Looking for LCD Nirvana
If you're a bit confused by this "review" of the BenQ FP241VW, I apologize. As mentioned, the display was discontinued not long after I received it, but I felt the A-MVA panel was interesting enough that it warranted a technology piece - especially when you consider the current trends away from quality LCD panels. Right now, it appears that A-MVA gets you similar viewing angles to IPS and PVA displays, along with processing lag that competes very favorably with TN and IPS panels. In the case of the FP241VW, color accuracy and color gamut are lower than average, but that a better backlight could address that shortcoming.
When you get right down to it, most people won't notice the difference between IPS, PVA, or MVA unless they use a colorimeter and calibration software. Well, that's not entirely true, as in my experience you will definitely notice the display lag on S-PVA panels. The real question is what causes this lag and whether or not it can be fixed. I have a hunch that the lag has more to do with signal processing used to enhance the image quality rather than the LCD panel itself, in which case upgraded processors and microcode could address the situation. Ironically, earlier S-PVA panels showed less processing lag than the current high-end S-PVA panels that we've tested, so for whatever reason Samsung seems to be going in the wrong direction in regards to eliminating lag. I've discussed this with several manufacturers over the past year, and quite a few seemed totally unaware of this concern. Hopefully that will start to change, and that's part of the reason you're seeing this article.
Going back to a macro overview of the LCD market, it's disconcerting to see the trends that have developed over the past year or two. Four years ago, if you purchased a 24" or larger LCD you were virtually guaranteed a top quality LCD panel. Sure, the Dell 2405FPW originally sold for over $1300, but that price dropped quite rapidly to around $700, and the quality of the 2407WFP improved on the 2405FPW. Notice the trend: lower prices and better quality. That's what we want to see - or at the very least keep prices static while increasing quality or keep quality static while reducing prices. The last two years have unfortunately started a different trend: reduce prices on entry-level displays and ship them with lower quality panels, or increase prices on higher end displays without dramatically improving the overall quality.
Continuing with Dell as an example, the current 2408WFP will sometimes go on sale for under $500, but the normal price is still $600. In other words, Dell's 24" S-PVA LCDs have essentially maintained the same pricing for over two years. On the other hand, Dell also sells a newer S2409W 24" 1080p LCD with a regular price of $280, currently on sale for $200. That's half the price, but as you probably guessed it also includes a TN panel, fewer input options, no flash memory reader, and a far more limited base stand. It's not a bad LCD by any means, but don't expect $200 to get you a display that will rival a good $700 24" LCDs from several years ago. And let's not even get started on the trend towards glossy panels….
At this stage, I'm actually okay with the pricing on LCDs: you get what you pay for. What I'd really like to see going forward is a greater focus on improving quality, features, and performance rather than an apparently single-minded focus on reducing costs and pricing. The BenQ FP241VW is a prime example of the current trends, specifically in the fact that it is discontinued and yet still outperforms many of the new models. Granted, with an original MSRP of over $900 there was no way I'd recommend it - especially not with 30" IPS displays going for only slightly more - but with a price under $500 it would have some clear advantages over both TN and PVA displays. Hopefully BenQ - or someone else - can take the technologies in the FP241VW and make a newer, more affordable display without sacrificing other features. Oh yeah: forget the silly display stand while you're at it and give us height adjustment and rotate functionality at the very least. If they had a different stand, faster OSD, and better backlight (and the monitor were available at a variety of resellers for under $600), the FP241VW could have been Editors' Choice material.
If you want an inexpensive 24" LCD, it's safe to assume that you're not after top image quality. In that case, you can pick up virtually any of the new 24" 1080p displays and be happy with your purchase. Some will struggle with supporting non-native resolutions properly, but you normally don't want to run at anything but native resolution so that's not a huge concern. With prices starting at $250 (or $200 on sale), that's a heck of a lot of monitor for a very low price. Four years ago, I was writing Buyers' Guides and recommending 19" CRTs for about the same price, and there's no way I would choose a CRT today over an inexpensive 22" or larger TN-based LCD. However, we still need more choice, specifically in terms of quality.
We want to see - in no particularly order - high color gamuts, great color accuracy, good viewing angles, base stands that support height/pivot/rotate adjustments, a good selection of inputs (preferably multiple digital inputs), and no processing lag. We would also like to see more displays support higher refresh rates; right now you can get 120 Hz LCDs, but they're all TN panels. So give us all of the above, but keep the price close to (preferrably under) $500, and you'll have my ideal 24" LCD. All of the technologies exist to produce such a display, but the question is whether there's enough demand, and whether they can keep the price reasonable. As basic economics teaches us, demand affects pricing, so if most people are now happy buying inexpensive TN panels it's unlikely that we're going to see any dramatic changes. That being the case, we might just have to wait for OLEDs to come down in price before we see a true revolution in display technologies and quality.
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tomoyo - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
AUO seems to have focused on using AMVA and AMVA3 (their latest tech) only on LCD TVs. The only way to get their good stuff is to buy a 32" 1080p LCD TV using their panel. If you look at their current monitor production, it's literally ALL tn-film. Depressing to the extreme.http://auo.com/auoDEV/products.php?sec=monitor&...">http://auo.com/auoDEV/products.php?sec=...mp;func=...
JarredWalton - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
And the worst part is that the page starts out by talking about how great AMVA is... and then they only have TN panels listed. Ugh....tomoyo - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
Going by B5 analogies. Looks like E-IPS is now our last best hope for good LCD panels. S-PVA would interest me more if there was less input lag, but E-IPS seems to have a good chance of giving us good viewing angles + decent panel speed. Now if we could only get LED backlights + 120hz + ergonomic stands in a 16:10 format over a wide variety of sizes, then we'd be in business. I can't imagine that some company out there wouldn't see an opportunity for premium lcd monitors that hardcore gamers/photography/graphics lovers would love to have at moderate prices. I think this area is a completely unrealized market opportunity.I also really dislike the 16:9 format for LCD monitors. It's takes away the balance between fullscreen and widescreen that we have with 16:10. Another cost cutting move that annoys me greatly.
darklight0tr - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
LED backlights on computer LCDs seem to be a very low priority for manufacturers right now. The focus for that tech seems to be LCD TVs, which is disappointing. I'm beginning to think we'll see OLED computer displays before LED backlight LCDs at the rate they're going! The other problem with the LED backlighting is many manufacturers have been pairing it with TN panels. Its like putting a V8 into an econobox.E-IPS looks to be very good, but one of the reasons I went with S-PVA despite the display lag possibility is contrast is a weak point for IPS technology, and that was an important feature to me. Plus, it wasn't widely available in the screen size I was looking for.
If they make 120hz PC LCDs available, I want it to be TRUE 120hz, not the crap they've been selling with LCD TVs. I've seen "120hz" TVs and its obvious that it is an image processing technology that emulates 120hz, and it looks like crap. My friend has it on his TV, and I had to make him turn it off because it was so distracting.
erple2 - Monday, June 22, 2009 - link
To be fair, the bulk of the 120Hz technologies in TV's (particularly flat panel sets) exists solely for de-judder purposes. It conveniently lets you display 24 fps, 30 fps, and 60 fps content at an even multiple.My Sony TV is a 120 Hz TV - I think that there are 2 things that it's used for:
1. "Motion Smoothing" - very cool but super-annoying technology that smooths out and essentially interpolates intermediate frames in slower than 120Hz content. It's somewhat distracting with film - you can think of it as watching a movie, but filmed with a modern high end digital video camera. The "action" is interpolated to appear more than 24 Frames per second. I don't like it.
2. Solid de-juddering. Since most TV's are 60 Hz, when showing content that isn't an exact multiple of 60, the TV has to do some pulldown to get the image to appear right on the TV (the so-called 3:2 pulldown). The 120 Hz "fixes" that, since you don't need to do any complicated pulldown algorithms to get the proper effect.
Since there is no 120 Hz content available that you'd normally watch on a TV (games displayed from a very high-performance computer being the only exception I can think of), I think that it's mostly a marketing talking point.
So, no, generally, the 120 Hz TV's are actually 120 Hz TV's - they do update the display ever 1/120th of a second. However, given LCD's inability to fully RENDER a new pixel that fast is a whole 'nuther issue. 120 Hz translates to 8.333 ms response time necessary to actually change the image on screen.
darklight0tr - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
On top of all that there has been a disturbing move to 16:9 displays. I know they are trying to standardize things, but I really like the extra real estate offered by 16:10. I guess I'm going to have to keep my DELL 2709W until something amazing comes along or it explodes.hyc - Thursday, June 18, 2009 - link
Second that. I want a 42" 1920x1200 monitor to replace my living room TV, but no such beast exists, they're all 1920x1080. Talk about frustrating.The interesting thing about "voting with your wallet" is you can only vote from a selection of what the manufacturers offer you, there's no way to vote for a new product that none of them currently offer. These days, my wallet has been staying closed...
tomoyo - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
The market for LCDS has been terrible for over a year now. Basically all the high quality non-tn films have been discontinued with a few rare exceptions. Also all the high quality height adjustable stands are mostly gone, which makes it almost impossible to put lcds in a position that doesn't cause back/neck/carpel tunnel/etc issues. It's idiotic what we have these days.I'm lucky I have two older dell models that are non-tn film at work and a similar one at home, all with adjustable stands. 1905FP and 2001FP to the rescue. Sadly I can't even imagine changing these out for any new model, because in general the new models are WORSE. I consider myself stuck with these models until a miracle happens.
Now for a secondary screen, generally the best solution I've found for a good panel is to get a 32" LCD TV 1080P. That's one of the only ways to get a moderately usable screen at a low price, which also has FAR more inputs than any Lcd monitor. You can't get $600 Lcd Monitors that are 32" with 3-4 hdmi inputs and massive amounts of composite/component/s-video. The only huge negative is the low resolution, but 1080P is certainly liveable and great as a secondary video watching device.
BugblatterIII - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
I've got a Dell 2407WFP but that's being reallocated so I'm planning to get the Dell 2407WFP. H-IPS screen, portrait rotation, fantastic quality, low latency etcBugblatterIII - Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - link
Of course I meant planning to get the HP LP2475w.