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Some
people experience an odd display problem that is caused by
refresh rates: in Windows, the screen displays multiple
small vertically separated screens.
The Desktops are tiny
but functional. Having your monitor controls set to highest
pixels with low refresh rate is the cause; go into Display
Properties, click on the Settings tab, and reset your
display to something less bizarre.
It
isn't a guarantee of quality to buy a monitor with a major
PC manufacturer's label on it, i.e. a Dell, Gateway, IBM,
etc. monitor; most monitors labeled by a PC maker are made
by the same guys who market their own monitors. The PC
manufactures pay a fee to slap their own label onboard.
Most
Windows users prefer a 17" monitor for their personal use
when price is a factor. If you're in the market for a new
monitor, don't try to cheap out by buying a tiny or a
low-quality monitor, your aching eyeballs won't forgive you.
Forget the 14", they're just too small, and the price
difference between them and a respectable 15" is too small
to make a 14" worthwhile. And don't forget, the listed size
isn't the viewable area. Two monitors of the same size may
have quite different viewable areas. Bigger monitors are all
over the market.
The
"color depth" setting is the number of colors that your
graphics card supports. The more colors, the better the
image, but as always, there's a tradeoff: more colors means
more processing demands on your system. Go into Display
Properties and see what's available. "True Colors" or 24-bit
color makes 16,777,216 colors available, while "High Colors"
or 16-bit color gives you 65,536 colors. Lower settings
might be unacceptable; many drivers don't even offer 8-bit
(256 colors) or 15-bit (32,536 colors) settings any more.
New PCs offer 32-bit color, which offers the same amount of
colors as True Colors, and uses the other 8 bits to control
image opacity. Only serious gamers will get a lot out of
this setting.
You've
probably noticed the sexy LCD or plasma flat-screen
monitors. As their prices drop (and they are dropping),
their popularity will spike even more than they are now. (If
you want a really, really big screen, think plasma.) If you
want an LCD screen now, don't cheap out and get the
passive-matrix type; spend the extra cash and get an
active-matrix screen. And always look them over carefully
before you buy: LCD screens vary tremendously in quality
from manufacturer to manufacturer, and price is not really a
guide. Be damn careful cleaning an LCD screen; special
wet-dry cloths work best. Using glass cleaner is tricky;
runoff can run down into the bottom of the display and short
out some of the display elements. New kid on the block: FED
(field emission displays) monitor technology. This
alternative to LCDs may crack the market faster than
expected. Note: NEC's new Plasma Sync 50MP1 50" gas plasma
monitor is now available to anyone with a fast $19,000 to
spend. Apparently the resolution is fantastic, but I doubt
many of us are going to buy a monitor that costs more than a
used Lexus. But, as with everything technological, the price
will drop sooner or later. Next up: flexible "roll-up"
displays that can be rolled up like a newspaper and
flattened out for use, and OLED (organic LED) displays that
are thinner than even the flat LCD displays and don't
require the bright backlighting most LCD screens need. If
you're buying a new monitor, consider your usage: graphics
mavens won't like the blurrier display of their work, but
text users will like the sharpness of the text display. Go
for the widest possible viewing angle, but since different
manufacturers use different measurement processes, don't
expect one manufacturer's numbers to compare to another's.
For best LCD quality, look for a graphics card with a DVI
(digital interface) output. Rapid response time is another
factor: 25 milliseconds or less is optimal, but any decent
CRT monitor has it all over LCDs for display response.
The
standards for LCD screens don't jibe with the older CRTs. A
15-inch LCD screen offers about the same about of viewable
real estate as a 17-inch CRT. They like to stay with their
native (default) resolutions, which is usually 1028x768 for
15-inchers and 1280x1024 for 17-inch screens. As always, the
higher the resolution, the more data the screen can display,
but watch out: icons and text can often appear very small if
a screen's resolution is a bit high for its size. Brighter
screens tend to work better for viewing, especially for
multimedia displays. Most mainstream LCDs operate at a
luminance (brightness) of 200 cd/m2, while a
brightness of 300 to 400 cd/m2 provides more
brightness. Unfortunately, testing has proven that luminance
ratings from one monitor to another can vary drastically. A
good way to test an LCD screen's brightness is to view a
blank white page in a word processor set to display in Full
Screen mode. Viewing angle is also an issue; some LCD
displays don't do well when viewed at anything less than
head-on. Try it for yourself by moving horizontally and
vertically to look for subtle color shifts and loss of
contrast. Want to play games or watch video clips on your
LCD? Then don't settle for a response time less than 16
milliseconds, but when you crank up the response time, you
get into the area of "motion flicker," which is exactly what
it sounds like. And finally, look for an LCD monitor with a
digital input along with the usual analog input. Digital
inputs provide for sharper images without requiring
readjustments. However, using a digital input requires you
to have a graphics card with a digital-out port and an
appropriate cable. Most people don't see enough of a
difference between digital input and analog input to make it
worth the extra time and money.
Now
let's really confuse you. Monitors with USB ports are
rapidly appearing on dealer shelves. If this has no meaning
to you, forget it and use the regular port. But if you know
about USB ports and want a monitor with one, you probably
ought to hold out for a powered port to really get some
mileage out of it; the un-powered USB ports just don't have
enough oomph to make them worth the extra bucks. USB ports
allow you to plug peripherals directly into the monitor
rather than having to plug them into the CPU...see why you
want powered ports?
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