Panel question

MooMoo444 · 3 Oct 2008 at 10:15

Can someoen with a lot of experience in monitors tell me whats really so bad about a TN panel? Surely as a monitor, you're sitting infront of it, so a 160° viewing angle will be irrelivant.

Whats the huge price hike on VA panels for?
And why does everyone have a dislike for TN panels?

philjohn · 3 Oct 2008 at 14:25

MooMoo444 said:
Can someoen with a lot of experience in monitors tell me whats really so bad about a TN panel? Surely as a monitor, you're sitting infront of it, so a 160° viewing angle will be irrelivant.

Whats the huge price hike on VA panels for?
And why does everyone have a dislike for TN panels?

TN used to be ok if you were just sitting in front of a small monitor, but now that we are seeing 24"+ TN panels, even when sitting directly in front and not moving your head there will be vertical contrast shift, moving your head slightly will make it even worse. If you ever need to have a few people in front of a monitor (code review, showing artwork to clients etc.) it can be quite difficult.

They also only have 6 bit colour accuracy, meaning they have a pallete of just over 255,000 colours - they "fake" the rest by using hacks like Frame Rate Control (flashing between 2 colours very quickly to trick your eye) or dithering, but even with that they can only display 16.2 million vs 16.7 million for an 8bit panel. Add to this some people find that FRC causes them problems visually (headaches, eye strain etc.).

markiemrboo · 3 Oct 2008 at 19:38

and some people find the problems which seem to be associated with *VA give them headaches (I actually prefer TN personally....)

philjohn · 3 Oct 2008 at 20:51

markiemrboo said:
and some people find the problems which seem to be associated with *VA give them headaches (I actually prefer TN personally....)

It really is a bit each to their own, different people have different needs/likes/dislikes, which is why there is a market for the different panel types.

I've become an ardent fan of IPS panels myself, but am looking forwards to SED as a fix for all of the problems inherrent in LCD technology.

jimmy29 · 3 Oct 2008 at 21:14

For general use/watching vids/gaming I have never had a problem with TN. I think the overall quaility of the monitor is more important than the panel technology it uses.