LED vs LCD

BogEyes

BogEyes

BogEyes

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Hey, I'm in the market for a new monitor. I was pretty interested in this benq monitor as I'm on a budget.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-032-BQ&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat=

But Ocuk are now stocking the Led backlit version for less than a tenner more.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-033-BQ&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat=

I'm basically wondering, whats the pro's on con's of both led backlit, and standard lcd? For some reason I'm inclined to opt for the led backlit monitor, but would there be any downsides in doing this? I'm going to be using the monitor for gaming, mainly first person shooters, web browsing, word processing and watching films. What would suit my needs more?

Cheers, borgia.
 
I'm also trying to decide on which 24" monitor to buy, I was learning towards the Liyama Prolite but now I see the BenQ G2420HDBL and after reading about LED backlight it sounds awesome. Is there any conclusive reviews which state the best £150 - £200 24" monitor available for gaming and general use?
 
Benq LED one does look tempting at the price, I have seen some demo's in a high street store of LED and the picture was more vivid and crisper than mainstream LCD.
 
Pros of edge-lit LED (subjective priority):
- Less heat and energy consumption.
- Allows thinner designs.
- Instant on, no "warm-up" needed
- Theoretically lower brightness settings should be possible, (but the makers seem to limit them to around 100cd minimum, or even higher, anyway :( )
- Larger range dynamic contrast (useful for TVs under certain circumstances, not something we want for monitor use)
- Better lifetime, won't go dimmer or change temperature as fast as CCFLs tend to at the end of their lifecycle.

Cons
- Not available in any "prosumer"-products, only low end TN panels or very expensive professional grade displays (like the £2000 full LED-array HP LP2480zx).
 
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gareth170 said:
so is LED better than LCD? also with LED does backlight bleeding still happen?
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Backlight bleed is caused by bad tolerances in the manufacturing process. It's not realted to any specific backlight tech. Good CCFL screens don't bleed, low end LED screens probably will.

There's nothing inherent in white edge-lit LED that affect image quality or backlight bleed directly. If it's better or not will depend on if the indicidual LED based screen you're considering is better or worse than whatever CCFL based screen you compare it against, and how important stuff like power consumption and instant-on is to you.
 
The downside to the LED version of that Benq monitor is that it doesn't have an HDMI slot. The LCD version doesn't say it has one on that page, but it does.
 
MrH said:
I'm also trying to decide on which 24" monitor to buy, I was learning towards the Liyama Prolite but now I see the BenQ G2420HDBL and after reading about LED backlight it sounds awesome. Is there any conclusive reviews which state the best £150 - £200 24" monitor available for gaming and general use?
Click to expand...

I bought the Prolite 2407HDSD last week, fantastic screen for the price. I've also experienced Iiyama's warranty process in the past and they've always been great.
 
Yea seems really odd. LED backlit = newer tech, older slots? Does not compute :).

I'm tempted to get one for my Xbox 360 (using a 19" LCD TV atm, need bigger!). My 360 isn't HDMI so ill be using a VGA cable, but an HDMI slot would be nice if i got a cheap blu-ray player or something. But of course LED backlit should look better. Grrrr decisions.
 
gareth170 said:
so is LED better than LCD? also with LED does backlight bleeding still happen?
Click to expand...
LED backlights don't automatically give a better image than normal CCFL backlights. You can (and usually do) still get bleeding and lighting uniformity problems.

Image quality is all about the type of LCD panel. The backlight has very little impact on how good an image the screen can show. I wouldn't say LEDs are a gimmick, they do better than CCFLs in terms of power consumption and heat-up time, but these manufacturers boasting about "Amazing quality LED monitors!!!!" need a good slapping.
 
Thanks for the responses guys.

Still undecided on what to go for mind.

I'm not sure if the led backlit version not having a hdmi slot is a problem for me? I don't, and won't ever own a console so, what could I use it for?

I'm sure I will be blown away by any 22-24" monitor I get coming from a 17" screen. Its just if an led backlit screen simply looks better, it seems silly not to get one?

Sort of going off topic from led vs lcd. But will 1920 x 1080 be too high a resolution for my system (cpu is unlocked to a quad though)??
 
It'll be fine at that res, and so far I'm really happy with my LED (Acer) monitor, though I can't speak for any others. The colours are good, the whites are stunning, it's thin and comes on in time to see the splash screen (my old one took so long to warm up it'd miss it) and the rest is pretty much as you'd expect from a TN panel.
 
Devrij, what monitor did you have before your led one? Assuming you came from just a normal widescreen lcd, have you noticed much of a difference?

Goofball said:
Pros of edge-lit LED (subjective priority):

- Larger range dynamic contrast (useful for TVs under certain circumstances, not something we want for monitor use)
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I don't really understand what this means, but why is this not that great for monitor use?
 
i can tell yuo that my sammy LED tv (series 6, 46") looks nicer than my 30" Hazro for IQ. Obvisouly its lower res as its only 1080p but still. The main reason it looks better is because the blacks are black instead of grey. I never noticed how "grey" they were on a normal screen until I bought the new tv. Now I want to repalce my hazro, but i need a LED screen that is the same size or larger, and i dont want to sacrifice resolution.....so i have to wait :(

for a pure visual comparison of some random models, a certain purple shirt showed me a plasma, lcd and led on display next to each otehr showing the same video. then i went elsewhere and bought one for £500 less lol.

Dynamic contrast means the screen can over brighten whites, or darken blacks. The ratios on led screens are pretty mental, since the black is where the led's are off, its all about how bright they can make the white. So you get ratios in the tens of millions lol.
 
borgia said:
Devrij, what monitor did you have before your led one? Assuming you came from just a normal widescreen lcd, have you noticed much of a difference?



I don't really understand what this means, but why is this not that great for monitor use?
Click to expand...

It means that LED can be dimmed all the way to black, while CCFL still produce a noticable amount of light at their lowest possible output (below that they'll start to flicker or eventually turn off). That's why LED backlit screens have huge dynamic contrast numbers.

Dynamic contrast works somewhat for TV use where the entire picture is somewhat dynamic and the adjustments aren't too agressive. For monitors you usually always have static content somewhere on the screen and computer rendered graphics have a lot more solid fills and even gradients than you get in video, which makes the brightness adjustments very noticable and annoying, or if there's enough static content, stops the backlight from adjusting at all. That's why dynamic contrast is an unimportant feature on a monitor.
 
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