Im looking to buy some new monitors. Im going for two 17" screens. Not sure though whether to go for TFT or LCD... What are the actual differences. Are there any major differences in performance.
From what Ive seen of monitor prices LCD monitors are generally a bit cheaper not by much though.
Also can you recommend any good makes to look out for?
The Royal Ram
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NuvoForum LeaderVPS - Virtual Prince of the Server
LCD's are TFT's :]
PHP, CSS, XHTML, Delphi, Ruby on Rails & more. Current project: CMS Object. Most recent change: Theme support is up and running... So long as I use my theme resource loaders instead of that in the Rails plug-in. Release date: NEVER!!!
NuvoForum LeaderVPS - Virtual Prince of the Server
LCD screens use liquid crystal, a material which isn't technically solid, liquid or gas.
Liquid crystal changes it's state when a current is passed through it (haven't tried a rasin yet though) and that's what causes the image to be displayed.
TFT stands for Thin Film Transistor, and it'd basically what all full colour and moderately sized LCD screens use to keep them from going to hell.
TFT screen images are, like with an old style CRT (Cathode Ray Tube), made from individual pixels (like the dots on a printed image, the more pixels you have, the sharper an image can appear to be).
Each pixel is actually a small pocket of liquid crystal and making a screen like this rather than just having one big plop of LC means the screen is more stable and you don't have as much trouble with things displying incurrectly (you wouldn't want a hand full of pixels getting zapped to the same colour as one insignificant one, it'd look bad).
If you hit an LCD TFT with any amount for force, you'll kill it and possibly end up getting messy in the process (the word liquid should be a clue here), but at least you won't get fried by the electric charge that CRT screens build up because they use a tube (don't touch a cracked CRT screen, I know someone who did and it blew him across the room... he's now my brotherinlaw ).
LCD's are easy to break since there's no solid glass pane, if you touch your LCD, you can make finger trains where the goop inside is being moved about :]
LCD screens are less dangerous to your eyes since the screen isn't constantly being scanned, meaning it doesn't flicker (you look at a CRT through a digital camera, it usually looks weird).
Plasma screens: dangerous since they get rather hot and they often need a gas change every few years.
CRT: big, bulky and generally pants unless you're a gamer who's not going to a LAN party or who's too skint to get a new quick refreshing LCD (higher refresh = less ghosting).
OLED: not exactly available yet, but will be cool when they are.
Organic Light Emitting Diode technology allows for screens that can go pretty much anywhere from TV's to watches (imagine a watch with a full colour display) and they can even be rolled up like a projector screen when not in use.
Projectors: why anyone would get a projector for a PC is beyond me (unless they bought it and then realised that they'd be better off with a DVD player).
They need a dark room, enough space to project, a flat surface to project onto and if something is in the way, you get shadows in the image
PHP, CSS, XHTML, Delphi, Ruby on Rails & more. Current project: CMS Object. Most recent change: Theme support is up and running... So long as I use my theme resource loaders instead of that in the Rails plug-in. Release date: NEVER!!!
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Forum LeaderThe Royal RAM
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Current project: CMS Object.
Most recent change: Theme support is up and running... So long as I use my theme resource loaders instead of that in the Rails plug-in.
Release date: NEVER!!!
well... shocked... I could have sworn they were different. Ive never seen them being reffered to eachother as bieng the same thing...
The Royal Ram
My iBook TFT is great as far as I care.
Liquid crystal changes it's state when a current is passed through it (haven't tried a rasin yet though) and that's what causes the image to be displayed.
TFT stands for Thin Film Transistor, and it'd basically what all full colour and moderately sized LCD screens use to keep them from going to hell.
TFT screen images are, like with an old style CRT (Cathode Ray Tube), made from individual pixels (like the dots on a printed image, the more pixels you have, the sharper an image can appear to be).
Each pixel is actually a small pocket of liquid crystal and making a screen like this rather than just having one big plop of LC means the screen is more stable and you don't have as much trouble with things displying incurrectly (you wouldn't want a hand full of pixels getting zapped to the same colour as one insignificant one, it'd look bad).
If you hit an LCD TFT with any amount for force, you'll kill it and possibly end up getting messy in the process (the word liquid should be a clue here), but at least you won't get fried by the electric charge that CRT screens build up because they use a tube (don't touch a cracked CRT screen, I know someone who did and it blew him across the room... he's now my brotherinlaw
LCD's are easy to break since there's no solid glass pane, if you touch your LCD, you can make finger trains where the goop inside is being moved about :]
LCD screens are less dangerous to your eyes since the screen isn't constantly being scanned, meaning it doesn't flicker (you look at a CRT through a digital camera, it usually looks weird).
Plasma screens: dangerous since they get rather hot and they often need a gas change every few years.
CRT: big, bulky and generally pants unless you're a gamer who's not going to a LAN party or who's too skint to get a new quick refreshing LCD (higher refresh = less ghosting).
OLED: not exactly available yet, but will be cool when they are.
Organic Light Emitting Diode technology allows for screens that can go pretty much anywhere from TV's to watches (imagine a watch with a full colour display) and they can even be rolled up like a projector screen when not in use.
Projectors: why anyone would get a projector for a PC is beyond me (unless they bought it and then realised that they'd be better off with a DVD player).
They need a dark room, enough space to project, a flat surface to project onto and if something is in the way, you get shadows in the image
Current project: CMS Object.
Most recent change: Theme support is up and running... So long as I use my theme resource loaders instead of that in the Rails plug-in.
Release date: NEVER!!!
The Royal Ram