Nowadays there are quite a few budget TFT models around which still offer some nice specs. The only real problems with the budget models at the moment are the looks and the lack of extra features (like DVI, pivot, rotate etc). I have often said that performance wise, you will probably not see much difference in the higher end and budget models. What you are paying for with the likes of the Samsung 172X and LG1780U is the aesthetics, and the extra functionality of the monitor. To many, this extra cost is justified, but to some, a budget model will suffice. I thought a roundup of the budget models might help people decide on which TFT is for them.
Any owners of the monitors covered please add your user comments, as they would be very helpful I am sure. Likewise, anyone who knows any online reviews for any of these, please link to them:
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Monitors covered:
AG Neovo F417 (R12)
OcUK Value / Digimate 1715
VideoSeven L17PS
OcUK Value /Belinea 101902
OcUK Value / Digimate 1916
VideoSeven L19PS
LG 1915S
Acer 1912S
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AG Neovo F417-(R12)
17inch, 1280 x 1024 resolution, 12ms response time, 450:1 contrast ratio, 260cd/m2 brightness, 150/135 viewing angles, VGA connection only.
£146 (from OcUK as of 17/5/05)
AG Neovo have used a BOE Hydis HT17EX1 panel in the F417-R12 (confirmed by Neovo), and the performance should be quite comparable to other 12ms panels. Modern fast TN are all quite comparable when it comes down to ‘real use’ and reports have been favourable regarding it’s performance. The Neovo is a quite nice looking black screen and for the price, it has become a popular model with OcUK members. There is no DVI, which is expected from a budget model and no fancy features either.
Official Neovo Spec page
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Reviews:
Sion’s Review – non forum member, but kindly submitted to me for posting (May 2005)
John1986 Review (May 2005)
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User Comments:
JOHN1986: “The image is crystal clear, brightness and contrast are good. For reference, it’s sharper than my sisters LG1515S. To be honest, I’ve never used a REALLY good TFT (dell 24" etc) but it is certainly great to my eyes, and excellent value. NO ghosting on CoD, and as some will know, it can be quite fast in multiplayer. A little blurring when spinning round, but nothing major. I’ve never used a TFT for games, its (the ghosting) VERY minor..…less than shaking your head as fast as you can, and trying to look at something.”
SION: “Monitor is great, no ghosting, watching Family Guy, 24, The Office, South Park etc. Colours are lovely, crystal clear...no complaints at all. The coloured sand picture and the art palette one look brilliant, just as good, if not probably better than my old CRT. Black screen - Black right across, but for a little hint of lighting in far bottom left corner. But you'd have to be close to notice it. White Screen - Same again. From distance pure white. Up close little bit of off-colour around the edge. But I mean up close (few inches). Haven't gamed on it yet I must say, but I did just run 3dmark03. I was very impressed with what I saw, just as good as my CRT, and this was running at 1024x768 as well !! Jaggies seem more prominent, but then, at 1024x768, jaggies are always an issue for me. But, if it looks that good running outside its default resolution, I can't wait to play some games later in native res. (Though on the desktop, running at 1024x768 ain't so great, everything seems a bit blurred I must say. Gaming not so). Here is a picture for you. You can still see the dust footprint from my old monitor! I'll tidy later. But colour production is brilliant. No streaks or ghosting, perfect.”
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OcUK Value /Digimate 1715
17inch, 1280 x 1024 resolution, 16ms response time, 450:1 contrast ratio, 260cd/m2 brightness, 140/125 viewing angles, VGA only, 2x speakers and headphone jack.
£150 (from OcUK as of 17/5/05)
The OcUK Value TFT is also known as the Digimate 1715. The current stock uses the 16ms AU Optronics TN film panel as used in several other higher end models like the Hitachi CML174 and the Sharp LL172A. The panel offers some very good, and long time established performance in the 17” market. The monitor isn’t particularly attractive, but performance is still very good. Digimate have updated the panel used to a 12ms model, (see spec here) but the OcUK value TFT still uses the 16ms version.
As the panel used is the same, performance comments from the Hitachi CML174, NEC 1760NX and the Sharp LL172A can be helpful. Again, no fancy features like DVI or rotate functions, but the addition of stereo speakers might be handy for office use. Obviously these are not up to much, but for light sounds use they might be useful.
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User Comments:
FTM: "...Budget screen really, but doesn't ghost to my untrained eyes....CS/CoD/City Of Heroes...all play with no ghosting. Sharpness - much better than the fujitsu-siemens TFT's we have at work. Movie playback is free of 'noise' and no ghosting. Cant comment on viewing angles, as I have nothing really to judge it against. Colours more vibrant than the TFT's we use at work as well. Its superior in every way to the Hansol 710P CRT I was using."
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Videoseven L17PS
17inch, 1280 x 1024 resolution, 14ms response time, 350:1 contrast ratio, 370cd/m2 brightness, 160/120 viewing angles, VGA only, 2x speakers and headphone jack.
£155 (from OcUK as of 17/5/05)
I have been told by VideoSeven that their L17PS uses a 14ms CMI Mei Optoelectronics panel, but from the spec it looks more like this Fujitsu Siemens panel. Either way, the panel offers some unusual specs really at 14ms response time and a low contrast ratio. While we have learned not to trust monitor response rate specs too much, the quoted contrast ratio is quite low really while the brightness specification is particularly high. I would question the accuracy of these specs really, but either way, brightness is an important aspect of a display and looks like it is high for this monitor. Performance in terms of pixel response should be good, perhaps a notch below that of the 12ms panels around today, but comparable to the 16ms panel (AU Optronics) offered in the Digimate 1715.
Official Spec page
Any owners of the monitors covered please add your user comments, as they would be very helpful I am sure. Likewise, anyone who knows any online reviews for any of these, please link to them:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monitors covered:
AG Neovo F417 (R12)
OcUK Value / Digimate 1715
VideoSeven L17PS
OcUK Value /Belinea 101902
OcUK Value / Digimate 1916
VideoSeven L19PS
LG 1915S
Acer 1912S
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
AG Neovo F417-(R12)
17inch, 1280 x 1024 resolution, 12ms response time, 450:1 contrast ratio, 260cd/m2 brightness, 150/135 viewing angles, VGA connection only.
£146 (from OcUK as of 17/5/05)
AG Neovo have used a BOE Hydis HT17EX1 panel in the F417-R12 (confirmed by Neovo), and the performance should be quite comparable to other 12ms panels. Modern fast TN are all quite comparable when it comes down to ‘real use’ and reports have been favourable regarding it’s performance. The Neovo is a quite nice looking black screen and for the price, it has become a popular model with OcUK members. There is no DVI, which is expected from a budget model and no fancy features either.
Official Neovo Spec page
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviews:
Sion’s Review – non forum member, but kindly submitted to me for posting (May 2005)
John1986 Review (May 2005)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
User Comments:
JOHN1986: “The image is crystal clear, brightness and contrast are good. For reference, it’s sharper than my sisters LG1515S. To be honest, I’ve never used a REALLY good TFT (dell 24" etc) but it is certainly great to my eyes, and excellent value. NO ghosting on CoD, and as some will know, it can be quite fast in multiplayer. A little blurring when spinning round, but nothing major. I’ve never used a TFT for games, its (the ghosting) VERY minor..…less than shaking your head as fast as you can, and trying to look at something.”
SION: “Monitor is great, no ghosting, watching Family Guy, 24, The Office, South Park etc. Colours are lovely, crystal clear...no complaints at all. The coloured sand picture and the art palette one look brilliant, just as good, if not probably better than my old CRT. Black screen - Black right across, but for a little hint of lighting in far bottom left corner. But you'd have to be close to notice it. White Screen - Same again. From distance pure white. Up close little bit of off-colour around the edge. But I mean up close (few inches). Haven't gamed on it yet I must say, but I did just run 3dmark03. I was very impressed with what I saw, just as good as my CRT, and this was running at 1024x768 as well !! Jaggies seem more prominent, but then, at 1024x768, jaggies are always an issue for me. But, if it looks that good running outside its default resolution, I can't wait to play some games later in native res. (Though on the desktop, running at 1024x768 ain't so great, everything seems a bit blurred I must say. Gaming not so). Here is a picture for you. You can still see the dust footprint from my old monitor! I'll tidy later. But colour production is brilliant. No streaks or ghosting, perfect.”
=============================================
OcUK Value /Digimate 1715
17inch, 1280 x 1024 resolution, 16ms response time, 450:1 contrast ratio, 260cd/m2 brightness, 140/125 viewing angles, VGA only, 2x speakers and headphone jack.
£150 (from OcUK as of 17/5/05)
The OcUK Value TFT is also known as the Digimate 1715. The current stock uses the 16ms AU Optronics TN film panel as used in several other higher end models like the Hitachi CML174 and the Sharp LL172A. The panel offers some very good, and long time established performance in the 17” market. The monitor isn’t particularly attractive, but performance is still very good. Digimate have updated the panel used to a 12ms model, (see spec here) but the OcUK value TFT still uses the 16ms version.
As the panel used is the same, performance comments from the Hitachi CML174, NEC 1760NX and the Sharp LL172A can be helpful. Again, no fancy features like DVI or rotate functions, but the addition of stereo speakers might be handy for office use. Obviously these are not up to much, but for light sounds use they might be useful.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
User Comments:
FTM: "...Budget screen really, but doesn't ghost to my untrained eyes....CS/CoD/City Of Heroes...all play with no ghosting. Sharpness - much better than the fujitsu-siemens TFT's we have at work. Movie playback is free of 'noise' and no ghosting. Cant comment on viewing angles, as I have nothing really to judge it against. Colours more vibrant than the TFT's we use at work as well. Its superior in every way to the Hansol 710P CRT I was using."
=============================================
Videoseven L17PS
17inch, 1280 x 1024 resolution, 14ms response time, 350:1 contrast ratio, 370cd/m2 brightness, 160/120 viewing angles, VGA only, 2x speakers and headphone jack.
£155 (from OcUK as of 17/5/05)
I have been told by VideoSeven that their L17PS uses a 14ms CMI Mei Optoelectronics panel, but from the spec it looks more like this Fujitsu Siemens panel. Either way, the panel offers some unusual specs really at 14ms response time and a low contrast ratio. While we have learned not to trust monitor response rate specs too much, the quoted contrast ratio is quite low really while the brightness specification is particularly high. I would question the accuracy of these specs really, but either way, brightness is an important aspect of a display and looks like it is high for this monitor. Performance in terms of pixel response should be good, perhaps a notch below that of the 12ms panels around today, but comparable to the 16ms panel (AU Optronics) offered in the Digimate 1715.
Official Spec page
Last edited:
added further up!