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Thin Is In (Cadalyst Labs Review)
1 Apr, 2008 By: Ron LaFonThey're thinner, sleeker, and more responsive than ever. A look at the newest large LCD monitors.
A large monitor is a natural choice for CAD and graphics work — its larger resolution boasts higher pixel counts so that it's easier for users to see what they're doing. It's also easier to work on models without having to constantly zoom, pan, and reposition. This roundup review looks at new displays from Lenovo, NEC Display Technologies, and ViewSonic.
For this year's large LCD monitor roundup, Cadalyst sent invitations to vendors requesting the latest flat-panel LCD monitors with a minimum 20" diagonal viewable screen area with at least 1,280 x 1,024 resolution. Only three vendors sent displays. This response almost certainly reflects vendors' announcement schedules rather than a decrease in the number of available new large monitors. Indeed, just as this article was being published, Cadalyst received announcements for a variety of new displays, including a 30" display from NEC. Suffice it to say, a wide range of flat-panel displays are available today, evenly split between the more conventional 4:3 aspect ratio and the wider 16:10 aspect ratio. Monitors in this particular roundup review ranged in price from $449 to $1,199.99.
In the past, flat-panel displays for CAD and digital-content creation (DCC) suffered from relatively slow response times that manifested themselves as visual stutter or ghosting as the monitor struggled to keep up with the speed of an intricate object being displayed on the screen. The good news is that response times of the monitors included in this roundup are significantly faster, lessening (if not eliminating) previous display problems. Typical response times for the older CRT displays were in the range of 1–3 ms. The LCD panels in this roundup ranged from 2 ms to 8 ms gray-to-gray, which is a great improvement that obviously still leaves room for growth.
 Large LCD Monitors Report Card |
Many users still find CRT displays better suited to their needs, both in response time and color fidelity. But the availability of CRT displays is steadily growing slimmer. On the other hand, LCD monitor vendors are beginning to show more innovation as they strive to distinguish their products from those of others. A number of niceties are showing up in today's LCD displays, and the ability to display content-protected high-definition (HD) media (along with the associated cable) is beginning to be incorporated into the products.
In this current roundup, ViewSonic offers the first monitor I've seen with a dynamic contrast rating of 3000:1. Features such as these, in combination with faster response times, are making their way into more moderately priced displays — a definite advantage for end users who are looking for large, high-quality displays at good prices.
Testing Procedures
For this roundup review, I used the new DisplayMate Multimedia Edition on USB display testing, adjustment, and calibration utility (see the "A Rule of Thumb to Test Monitors" sidebar, p. 20) to run through a range of video tests for brightness, contrast, focus, convergence, purity, geometric distortion, and raster rotation. DisplayMate also incorporates tests specific to LCD displays, such as the displays covered in this article. During the course of testing, I also evaluated the on-screen menu (OSM), the general functionality of the available controls, and the connectivity options. I examined a suite of digital photographs on each display, and although these latter results cannot be quantified easily, this evaluation proved very useful — particularly because many design professionals find themselves working with either photographs or visualizations in their daily work.
After testing, the LCD displays were rated based on several factors, each of which was weighted according to its importance: image quality (6x), price (4x), connectivity (2x), image controls (2x), and warranty (1x).
For this roundup, all tests were driven by an NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700 graphics card with 512 MB of onboard GDDR3 memory. All tests were completed with NVIDIA drivers v.6.14.11.6252 (7/20/2007). The test system was a new HP xw4600 workstation that Cadalyst Labs already had in house.
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AutoCAD Tips!
Autodesk Technical Evangelist Lynn Allen guides you through a different AutoCAD feature in every edition of her popular "Circles and Lines" tutorial series. For even more AutoCAD how-to, check out Lynn's quick tips in the Cadalyst Video Gallery. Subscribe to Cadalyst's Tips & Tricks Tuesdays free e-newsletter and we'll notify you every time a new video tip is available. All exclusively from Cadalyst! |
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