I have been receiving emails asking me about LCD monitor criteria, and have
seen questions posted from time to time by people shopping for one. I
thought I would post this.

--

Some Notes When Shopping For An LCD Monitor


Check for bad pixels. Check for lit pixels on a black screen, then grey
screen (if possible), and on a white screen. Look carefully from edge to
edge. All the manufactures have a bad pixel policy, where they may define
that the monitor is good if there are less than 5 to 7 bad pixels in any one
quadrant of the screen area. Some may be dark, lit, or partial lit,
depending on their defect.

Check on a black screen for the evenness of the back light. There will be
variations from one monitor to the next, even in the same make.

Check for the viewing angle, and evenness of the picture brightness. It is
normal to have some fall-off of evenness. More than about 10% error may be
considered unacceptable by most manufactures.

Check for the sharpness of the letters. LCD screens in their native mode
should be razor sharp on the fonts, and edges. Use the auto-set-up to make
sure that the monitor is set up to the display card. Generally in the
non-native resolution, LCD or TFT screens do not perform well.

Make sure that the monitor has at least a 3 year warranty with it. This
should include the backlight. Most are rated at 20,000 hours. This means
that at 20,000 hours, the back light may be at 50% of its brightness from
new. Most TFT monitors are rated with an MTBF of 20,000 hours. CRT
monitors are rated to about 30,000 to 40,000 hours depending on the make and
model. MTBF = Mean Time Between Failure.

Purchase a TFT screen on the basis of a lifespan of about 3 to 5 years
maximum when used at home.

NEVER touch the screen or rub the screen with your fingers. Always use a
moistened soft tissue to clean, and be gentle. The transparent plastic
optical surface can scratch very easily. The LCD matrix can be very easily
damaged by pressing on the screen.

Don't expect to use this type of monitor for doing serious picture or photo
work. They are not accurate for this unless a lot of money is put in to
them, and even then, they are not as good as a CRT monitor for this type of
work. A medium priced CRT monitor would be better for photo work.

The plus side is there is very little power consumption, little heat, no
radiation, no UV rays, and no RF interference, as like from a CRT monitor.
The result is better health for the user, less eye-sore, and more production
because of less tiredness. Many companies found that with these monitors,
there was a large increase of productivity from the employees.

The typical TFT monitor will draw about 40 to 50 Watts. The typical 17 to
19 inch CRT monitor will pull about 150 to 170 Watts. This makes a big
difference especially when these are on the computer with a UPS, and you
want to finish up during a power failure. As for power cost savings, the
TFT monitor uses about 1/3 of the power of a CRT monitor, therefore costs
about 1/3 to run. Depending on your electricity costs, some people have
claimed that the they recovered some of the cost difference just in the
power savings over the life span of the TFT monitor. Over a 5 year period
of heavy use, I can see this to be viable to some degree.


--

Greetings,

Jerry Greenberg GLG Technologies GLG
=========================================
WebPage http://www.zoom-one.com
Electronics http://www.zoom-one.com/electron.htm
=========================================

"Jerry G." wrote in
:

I have been receiving emails asking me about LCD monitor criteria, and
have seen questions posted from time to time by people shopping for one.
I thought I would post this.


With all the criteria you just mentioned, which one will help me, say replace
a screen for a HP5140N laptop? The points are fine, but can I use a screen
form an IBM A27 in the HP?


--
+++++++++++++ SEND ME A LINK +++++++++++
Docmill's "Home of Hot Links in the FryingSpam"
No Lemmings or pseudo-plonkers were amused by this post, but I tried.

In the laptops, the screens are proprietary to the design of the particular
unit, and even the model for all these makes of computers. These are
designed to fit the particular model, and interface to their internal logic.
If the manufacture is making the parts for a number of different models,
then there may be some compatibility between them, depending on how they did
the interfacing.

For the most part, there are no universal screens for these. Only some of
the optional expansion cards are compatible by industry standard, at the
very most.

When you buy a laptop, you are stuck with the screen that it has. If there
are defects during the warranty period, the manufacture will replace the
screen, and service the laptop at no charge. After the warranty there is a
cost to service it. As for the parts, most of the manufactures will not sell
parts to any non-authorized people. The computer must be sent to them for
service.

--

Greetings,

Jerry Greenberg GLG Technologies GLG
=========================================
WebPage http://www.zoom-one.com
Electronics http://www.zoom-one.com/electron.htm
=========================================


"docmill" ;up wrote in message
. 3.44...
"Jerry G." wrote in
:

I have been receiving emails asking me about LCD monitor criteria, and
have seen questions posted from time to time by people shopping for one.
I thought I would post this.


With all the criteria you just mentioned, which one will help me, say
replace
a screen for a HP5140N laptop? The points are fine, but can I use a screen
form an IBM A27 in the HP?


--
+++++++++++++ SEND ME A LINK +++++++++++
Docmill's "Home of Hot Links in the FryingSpam"
No Lemmings or pseudo-plonkers were amused by this post, but I tried.

"Jerry G." wrote in
:

In the laptops, the screens are proprietary to the design of the
particular unit, and even the model for all these makes of computers.
These are designed to fit the particular model, and interface to their
internal logic. If the manufacture is making the parts for a number of
different models, then there may be some compatibility between them,
depending on how they did the interfacing.

For the most part, there are no universal screens for these. Only some
of the optional expansion cards are compatible by industry standard, at
the very most.

When you buy a laptop, you are stuck with the screen that it has. If
there are defects during the warranty period, the manufacture will
replace the screen, and service the laptop at no charge. After the
warranty there is a cost to service it. As for the parts, most of the
manufactures will not sell parts to any non-authorized people. The
computer must be sent to them for service.


That wasn't news to me, but to the rest of the people, I'm glad you spit it
out.

--
+++++++++++++ SEND ME A LINK +++++++++++
Docmill's "Home of Hot Links in the FryingSpam"
No Lemmings or pseudo-plonkers were amused by this post, but I tried.

Make sure that the monitor has at least a 3 year warranty with it. This
should include the backlight. Most are rated at 20,000 hours. This means
that at 20,000 hours, the back light may be at 50% of its brightness from
new. Most TFT monitors are rated with an MTBF of 20,000 hours. CRT
monitors are rated to about 30,000 to 40,000 hours depending on the make
and
model. MTBF = Mean Time Between Failure.


Now if only they'd come up with a standard size and color temperature tube
for these, and make them user, or at least easily shop replaceable rather
than burrying them deep in the panel.