I will check that one out.

Thanks

The likely answer is "yes".

LED/LCD LED BackLight LCD Monitors replace the CFL backlight with three LED's per pixel. This solves the two main reasons that you cannot correctly calibrate any LCD display that has a CFL (Cold Flourescent) backlight.

No LCD monitor with a CFL backlight is capable of accurately representing colors. White depends on the color of the backlight and black is an illusion because an "off" pixel is not really opaque. (Ever look at a "black" screen in the dark?) Contrast and brightness controls on an LCD monitor are also an illusion. In a CRT you can vary the intensity of each pixel, providing contrast and brightness control. In the LCD each pixel is either on or off.

Most monitors called "LED" are actually still an LCD panel with white LED lighting behind them. I was quite disappointed as i expected an "LED" monitor to use red/green/blue LEDs for the pixels. While there are some that take this approach (oLED, for example), there are very few available in quantity to the public at reasonable prices.

LCDs are capable of multiple shades of opaqueness. They haven't been restricted to on/off for decades.

Great information!

So that is why I see monitors labeled "with LED"

So what should I be looking for in a monitor?

What gets called LED monitors are in fact LCD monitors. Else the others that aren't LED shuld be called Flourescent Moniitors. That'll be confusing when real LED monitors come out !

But re the actual question., the colour-consistancy of new LED backlighting, and it's constancy over time, shoud totally blow away the flouros. As the colour balancing is done in the LCD response, the tweakability should be identical (apart from more reliable !).

I'm even surprised they make flouro ones still.

geoff

Active Matrix (O)LED displays are stil restricted to quite small size. And they are stunning.

geoff

So something in the 24-27" size, what should I be looking at.

What should you be looking for? Probably not specs. Go to a decent electronics store that has a large number of displays set up and operating. Find a place where most of them look like they are calibrated to pretty much normal colors, rather than a place that just plugged a bunch in and some look blue, some look yellow, some look orange, etc.

Now, without looking at any of the labels, descriptions, names, technologies, or whatever ... just look at the pictures. Some will be obviously much better than others. Pick out a few of those better ones, then start comparing specs between those.

Remember, it's your eyes that are going to be using that monitor, so first of all get one that makes them happy.

Good point!

There are different types of backlighting for LCDs:

Fluorescent - These contain mercury so from what I've heard, the industry will likely move away from them.

LED (3 colors) - The intensity of the LEDs can be varied to change the white point of the monitor. This has a small advantage because otherwise you have to digitally manipulate the signal and that leads to rounding error, and you have less bits to work with. (The implementation of the rounding makes a difference as some forms of dithering are a lot better than others. There is also a difference between spatial and temporal dithering.)

The downside to this approach is that the backlighting may not be that uniform.

LED (1 color) - More uniform than 3 colors. Color gamut will probably be smaller than a LED with 3 colors... this is not necessarily a bad thing. The ideal color gamut for most users would be sRGB or Rec. 709 exactly (larger than this is inferior for many applications). Smaller than that means lower quality color but higher energy efficiency for laptops.
Color uniformity may be worse than fluorescent.

LED / local dimming (1 color) - In a few TVs, and in Dolby's "reference" monitor. Very high contrast ratio is possible. However, objects on a dark background can have halos around them... so the image can have artifacts in them.


In practice, I think it makes more sense to look at a monitor's overall performance. Knowing the type of backlighting doesn't necessarily predict how good the monitor is, e.g. color uniformity depends on how the monitor is designed, color gamut depends on how the monitor is designed / the type of phosphors used, etc.

All these types of backlighting can be valid since they have their own cost/performance advantages.

I don't have an LED LCD computer monitor, but I do have a very nice 55" LED LCD Samsung 8500 television set which I've had for a little over a year. From both the technical perspective, as well as the actual experience of calibrating and then watching the TV, I can see nothing but upside to this technology compared to the older fluorescent backlight technology. LEDs have almost unlimited life, and generally do not change brightness or color with age. They can be turned on and off in microseconds which lets the designers do remarkable tricks to improve the quality of the display. One of these tricks used on the Samsung televisions is called "local dimming" and it is used to overcome one of the deficiencies of LCD technology compared to plasma and DLP, namely contrast. Since LCD crystals never get completely opaque, the blacks on LCD displays are never quite as good as plasma and DLP sets. However, since the LED can be turned off in microseconds, the designers developed controllers that turn off (or dim) the LEDs behind the pixels that need to be really dark. The improvement in contrast is stunning (you can turn the feature on and off to see the difference).

There are many other advantages having to do with 3D, color accuracy, and more. I am very, very impressed with this technology for television. If the same capabilities are available on computer monitors, I'd get it in a flash.

It sounds to me that LED backlight has some advantages as far as longevity and contrast.. Can anyone recommend a manufacture, or is it like a lot of other things, only a few manufacture for many companies.

I believe dynamic LED backlit monitors are available but at a rather staggering price. Apart from the haloing issue that Glenn mentioned even in 2D they have a strange 3D look to them as the plane of the luma component is behind the plane of the chroma component to some extent, wierd when you move your head around.

We do have a couple of Sony oLED monitors. Quite expensive little beasts and I'm not 100% sold on them regardless of the price. The blended colors look a bit off or something.

Not so certain about the advice to pick a monitor that gives a pretty picture. Certainly not the recommendation when it comes to monitor speakers. Many HDTVs include advanced logic to mask errors and make the incoming image look better than it is. The same logic can introduce artifacts that aren't there and mask ones that are.

Bob.

I saw this on Dell today.

Dell
Dell ST2320L 23-inch Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor with LED

What is this?

I recently decided I wanted to use 4 monitors instead of 2 (2 for my stand-up work position, 2 for the sofa). So I bought 4 Asus monitors in different flavors of ports with their 228 LED panels. They replaced the Dell 2405 LCD pair that I loved - but were too heavy and a bit large.

Generally, I'm pleased. I calibrated with my Spider without a hitch. They weigh about half as much as the Dells and draw much less power. They don't have such a wide viewing angle as the Dells, but are OK. And they have only 1920x1080 pixels instead of Dell's 1920x1200. One VGA port went bad within about 3 weeks, but otherwise, no problems.

They do have better contrast, fast response time, very bright image. I chose them on the basis of reviews at Newegg and Amazon.

I bought one at Best Buy, one at Amazon, a couple at Newegg; be sure to compare prices. The best recent price was on amazon, but google the search instead of using Amazon's own search function if you want the best price - I paid something under $140.

I picked up a couple of Vizio V220MV 22" LED-backlit LCD monitors at Costco for some secondary computers and I'm really pleased with them. They calibrated up quite well with my Spyder 3.

1920x1080p, 2 HDMI inputs (which can be used with a DVI to HDMI adapter), composite, component, S-Video and VGA inputs plus they have a digital TV tuner and speakers. They were around $200 each.

http://www.vizio.com/m220mv.html

Vizio makes some surprisingly decent, cost-effective stuff if you're on a tight budget.

"I saw this on Dell today.

It is a basic LCD monitor that uses LEDs to light the LCD instead of cold cathode tubes.

For what we do you would do better with the Dell U2410. Unfortunately it is quite a bit more expensive but it is designed for high colour accuracy. I think Jay Mitchell has bought one, would be interesting to hear back what he thought of it.
If you really want to spend up big then the HP Dreamcolor appears to be excellent value for the money. It performs close to monitors almost double its price. Of course at around $3,000 it is not cheap but if you want great color accuracy and dynamic range you do get to pay a lot.

If I recall correctly Ushere bought a couple of modestly priced IPS monitors that he's quite happy with. The type of LCD panel is more important for our work than how it is lit. There's a bit of an explaination of IPS here: http://www.pctechguide.com/43FlatPanels_In-Plane_Switching.htm

Bob.

I believe dynamic LED backlit monitors are available but at a rather staggering price.You are right about that. I paid $4,400 for my 55" TV. The equivalent LCD with traditional backlighting would have been about $1,800. So, staggering is the right adjective. I convinced myself that it was the right thing to do not only because the picture looked remarkably good, but because the display should last a lot longer. I got twenty-one years out of my Pioneer 43" CRT big-screen. The power supply finally bit the dust for the second time, and I just didn't have the heart to fix it again. The power supply on this set is obviously the most likely thing to go, but when that happens, hopefully I can fix it (I've fixed several dozen SMPS units over the years).

I have two new Dell U2410s. They are excellent, and calibrated no problem with the Spyder. About $500 each on eBay incl. shipping. Highly recommended.
James
p.s. don't buy any older rev refurbished units. There is a problem that some have where they blink off to black intermittently for a second.

OLED displays would solve virtually all of the problems that LCD displays present. Full-gamut calibration - black is black, white is white. Extreme viewing angle, no contrast change when viewing off-center. Very low power consumption - which is why they are in your SmartPhones. Thinner and lighter because there's no backlight required.

So, where are the under-$500, 24-inch OLEDS?

Unfortunately, in the future. We hope. There's a significant yield problem in manufacturing. But they are working on it. Samsung claims they have achieved 90% (similar to LCD manufacturing yield).

Extreme viewing angle is right. My main LCD panels on my desktop computer claim 170 degree angle but in actual practice if you get more than about 45 degrees off side to side or 15 degrees vertically the image quality suffers dramatically. If i stand up the picture washes out. If i slouch down in the chair the picture goes dark and inverts. Straight on they're great, but from any other position they're useless.

Compare that to the two smart phones i have that display a usable image even when looked at almost from on-edge, it's a night-and-day difference.