Buying Guide - LCD's

LCD displays, or liquid crystal display, provide thin, low power displays for your computer.  Prices have dropped considerably in the last few years and displays are now available for under $200.

LCD’s can be either analog or digital.  Analog use the technology used by CRT monitors.  Digital theoretically offers better performance since the video signal produced by your computer starts as digital and is then converted to analog for use with an analog monitor which then converts to digital for the actual display.  A digital monitor takes the digital signal and just displays it.  Some LCD monitors support both analog and digital inputs.

Unlike CRT monitors which can support a broad range of resolutions LCD monitors have what is called a native mode.  This is the screen resolution which offers the best picture.  While they will support other resolutions the display does not look as good.  Generally speaking the larger the display the higher the resolution so a 15 inch display might have a native resolution of 800x600 while a 19 inch display would have a native resolution of 1280x1024.  Setting your computer’s video card to match the native resolution of the display will give you the best picture.

While LCD’s come in the standard screen ratio known as 4x3 many of them now come in widescreen known as 16x9.  This is ideal for viewing wide screen movies and viewing pages side by side.

Along with using less desk real estate LCD monitors use less power.  Typically a CRT monitor uses about 100 watt of power while an LCD uses only about 40 watts.  When in sleep mode an LCD display will use only about 1 watt of power.

LCD’s are also being used as TV displays, currently up to about 35 inches in size.  They can provide an excellent picture but sometimes leave artifacts when the motion on the screen is rapid.  Many LCD displays will do double duty as both a TV & computer monitor.

Some LCD displays support a rotate feature.  This allows the display to be turned 90° so that instead of being wider than it is high, it is higher than wide.  This is known as portrait mode.  This can be very useful when doing page layout as it makes it easy to see the entire page at one time.

Extra features on LCD displays can include USB ports, speakers and built-in web cams.