Q: What’s the best option for monitors – CRT or TFT?
A: The most popular option is now TFT (Thin Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display), as these have so many benefits. They take up less space, they’re lighter, give off less heat, lower power consumption, offer good resolution right across the screen and, unlike CRT monitors, they don’t degrade significantly in performance as they get older. You should also consider price and availability. CRT monitors are tumbling in price but probably won’t be widely available for much longer due to reduced demand etc.
Q: What do I need to consider when buying a TFT monitor?
A: The first thing is whether it will connect to the system you want to use it with! If you’re replacing a CRT monitor, you’ll need the TFT to have an analogue input, and this is something you need to be careful about. Some otherwise good monitors perform quite badly when used with analogue inputs. Ideally you should try before you buy. If you’re working on a new digital installation, there are several kinds of digital video connectors (BNC, S-VHS, DVI etc), so make sure your monitor has the one you need.
Q: What about resolution?
A: For TFT monitors, resolution is not quoted in lines, but in pixels. Usually, however, you’ll just see an abbreviation like VGA which is 640 x 480 pixels, SVGA which is 800 x 600 or XGA which is 1024 x 768. For comparison, a standard UK TV picture is 576 x 350 pixels, so you can see that even a VGA monitor is adequate for most purposes. You may want higher resolution for a large-screen monitor that will display multiple pictures. Note that the screen resolution should (at least) match the signal fed to the monitor.
Q: Is refresh rate important?
A: For a TFT monitor, refresh rate is more accurately called response time. If it’s 20mS or longer, it can give smearing effects with fast moving targets. However, modern monitors typically have response times of 12mS or better, so this is no longer a big problem. This is important to check as it can exacerbate some of the latency seen when looking at moving images.
Q: Are there any other significant points to consider?
A: Look for a monitor with a wide viewing angle, and choose one with a glass screen. Without glass, the soft screen of the monitor will soon get marked as users point at targets, and they are often hard to clean.
