Ben Poweski's Weblog

To accompany my recent Mac Pro purchase, I’ve been looking for a large format LCD display. I’m tired of my dual 19” setup, two screens are far less usable than 1 large one. While the AAPL screens are undoubtedly expensive, people usually compare AAPLs to oranges while giving cost figures.

All LCD screens are NOT created equal

The modern LCD screen is manufactured using 3 primary technologies:

• TN Film (Twisted Nematic + Film)
• MVA &t; PVA (Patterned Vertical Alignment)
• IPS (In Plane Switching)

So what is the big deal? It is all about trade-offs.

TN Film

TN Film LCD panels are the cheapest panels around. Look at any sub $400 24” LCD and you’re likely to find a TN Film panel inside. On the negative side, viewing angles are usually subpar when compared to the other LCD technologies. Usually about 10 degrees worse than an S-PVA panel. These panels have worse color presentation, often they only have 6-bit color depths versus 8-bit color. Many TN Film panels exhibit a purple hue throughout. On the positive side they have the best refresh ratings, often in the in 2-5ms range.

Common TN Film panels include:

• Any Samsung with a B in the model number (Samsung 245BW)
• Any Dell with an E at the beginning (E248WFP)
• ViewSonic Optiquest Series Q241wb

So far we can see TN film is less than desireable for anyone doing a significant amount of design work or if you’re a color snob (such as myself).

MVA and S-PVA

MVA (Multi-Domain Vertical Alignment) and S-PVA (Patterned Vertical Alignment) panels present a significant bump in quality over TN Film panels for a modest increase in price. In my opinion you should avoid TN Film and find an MVA or S-PVA panel. They offer an increase in brightness and viewing angle in exchange for a slightly higher screen latency.

Common MVA and S-PVA panels include:

• Samsung T series (245T, 305T)
• Dell 2407WFP
• BenQ FP241W

IPS

IPS is king when it comes to color representation. IPS panels exhibit true 8-bit color depth at the expense of latency, cost and contrast. If you are a fanatic about the color of your screen then IPS is the only way to go, unless you want to revert back to your old CRT.

Common PPS panels:

• Apple Cinema Displays
• Dell 3007WFP, 3008WFP

All it all, unless you absolutely must have the perfect color representation on your screen S-PVA or MVA is the way to go. Many of these panels can be had for near $450 price points. Be cautious when researching a screen, many times manufacturers will stop producing models that use the better S-PVA screens and replace them with the cheaper TN FIlm panels. This has happened with many models such as the Acer AL2416WBsd.