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Monitors and Displays | View information about Monitors and Displays within our Technology Website Directory section by reviewing this area of our website. We provide a wealth of information online to help our visitors become better informed about Computer Buzz. |
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Monitors and Displays
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Once upon a time, if you wanted a really first class computer monitor, you just went out and bought a flat screen Sony Trinitron, and that was all there was to it. Sony is still a player, but the competition is hotter than Sony ever imagined.
New display models come out every week, so it's hard for even someone like PC Magazine or Consumer Reports to keep up with who's on first. Here is a listing of some of our favorite players in the monitor/display category these days:
Samsung Official Website:www.Samsung.com
NEC Official Website:www.NEC.com
Apple Official Website:www.Apple.com
Dell Official Website:www.Dell.com
HP Official Website:www.shopping.HP.com
ViewSonic Official Website:www.ViewSonic.com
LG Official Website:www.LGE.com
eMachines Official Website:www.eMachines.com
Westinghouse Official Website:www.Westinghouse.com
Gateway Official Website:www.Gateway.com
Princeton Official Website:www.PrincetonGraphics.com
That said, the big difference between one display and another these days revolves around older technology CRTs (cathode ray tubes) and FPDs (flat panel displays utilizing any of several newer technologies). Let us explain:
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Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs)
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The CRT was invented during the latter days of the Spanish-American War, or so it seems. It's been with us for a long, long time, and the technology is tried and true, even if it is getting a little long-in-the-tooth.
An electron gun at the rear of the tube shoots electric "dots" onto the back side of a phosphor-covered glass screen at an unimaginable high rate of speed to form the image that the user views from the front side of that screen. CRTs fall into one of two broad, general types: aperture grille or shadow mask.
The shadow mask has tiny holes in a metal plate placed in a manner ensuring that electrons from each of the tube's three cathode guns reach only the appropriately-colored phosphors on the display. All three beams pass through the same holes in the mask, but the angle of approach is different for each gun. The spacing of the holes, the spacing of the phosphors, and the placement of the guns is arranged so that, for example, the blue gun only has an unobstructed path to blue phosphors. The red, green, and blue phosphors for each pixel are generally arranged in a triangular shape. All early color televisions and the majority of CRT computer monitors, past and present, use shadow mask technology.
Aperture grille monitors (e.g., Sony's Trinitron, ViewSonic's SonicTron, or NEC/Mitsubishi,s DiamondTron) provide a superior image to the traditional shadow mask monitors, despite having two faint horizontal support wires visible across the screen. Aperture grille monitors also have flatter screens than the shadow mask monitors.
(See ViewSonic G220fb SonicTron display in adjacent photo.)
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Flat Panel Displays (FPDs)
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FPDs are commonly confused with LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays), but the terms are not synonymous. LCDs are far-and-away the currently most popular type of FPDs, but there are also several others, and some of these new FPD technologies are just now coming to the fore.
Flat panel monitors are rapidly becoming more popular, but not necessarily because of better image quality. While they can be brighter, in general the image quality is better on a good quality conventional CRT. LCD monitors are especially useful because the take up far less desk space, and unlike big-screen CRTs, they weigh significantly less than the Space Shuttle (typically 3 kilograms or less). Unlike CRTs, FPDs usually feature both a VGA plug and a DVI (digital) plug, so they will sync up to most any video card (with the appropriate cable, of course). CRTs almost never have more than one plug on the back, and that is usually a VGA.
Flat panels are prone to dead pixels and ghosting of images (since they redraw slowly), thus they are a poor choice for games. All things considered, Computer Buzz is inclined to go with FPDs over CRTs because of their superior convenience and their ever-improving image quality. CRTs are great to look at, but their technology has just about run its course, and, barring an unforeseen breakthrough, it's not ever going to be much better than it is right now. If that's okay with you, go for it, but the near future belongs to the flat panels.
(Adjacent image shows a Dell flat panel display.)
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