Junk monitors (was: Re: [plug] [OT] User Support)

[Cameron Patrick]

Craig Ringer wrote:

| Well, I've worked on pro-quality monitors for a while now, so anything
| but rock solid and crisp really irritates me.

Ahh, that would probably explain a bit.  In my case it's been countered
to some extent by me never having being exposed to really high-end gear,
and also being able to afford more expensive stuff for my machine at
home as time passes.

| Personally, I think I expect reasonable quality that won't give me
| headaches and blurry vision.

Heh, fair enough :-)

| >  and don't look particularly warped.
| 
| That's mostly a problem in the really cheap and nasty CRTs like ADi 17"
| cheapos. I had the misfortune of using one of those for a while and _oh_
| am I sorry.

Ah.  Haven't used any ADi monitor besides a quite old and pretty nasty
15" at work.

| > (FWIW - the LCD that I have at home doesn't have such nice
| > colours as the CRT sitting next to it, doesn't have such a good viewing
| > angle, is slightly blurry when scrolling through a document due to the
| > response time, and is pickier about graphics cards than a CRT.)
| 
| Interesting. I must admit I've only really looked at the top-end LCDs -
| 16ms response time, high-contrast & wide angle jobs. Expensive, but all
| I'd really consider using.

Hmm.  Mine is only a 25ms response; even 16ms is still noticeable,
though.  The viewing angle on mine is pretty good (so long as you don't
look at it from below, for some reason) but is nothing compared to the
high-end Apple LCD they had on show at LCA... *drool*  The lack of
contrast compared to a CRT isn't so bad - on mine (which claims to be
450:1) it's close to unnoticeable on a white background, not bad on a
black background, but shows up badly in a dark room with a black
background.

| I love the LCD on my laptop, and I even notice the relative lack of
| definition on my Philips CRT when I'm working on them side-by-side.

Yeah.  For anything involving text, I find that LCDs are far superior.
I was also surprised to find that sub-pixel antialiasing does actually
look okay (which is to say, better than normal antialiasing).

| Then again, I also notice the significantly inferior colour on the
| LCD. Top of the range CRTs still seem to beat LCDs in colour quality
| terms.

Yes.  I looked at a few LCDs when I bought mine and a few had much worse
colours - including one which was more expensive and higher-spec'ed in
other ways.  Really high-end LCDs are at least as good as most CRTs though
so the situation isn't /that/ bad.

Cameron.