LCD Monitors - How do you get the "REAL" specs?

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 14:42:04 GMT, "Noozer" wrote:

LCD manufacturers love to lie about the specs of their monitors. How does
one get the real lowdown on the specifications of an LCD monitor?

Are there any tricks to look for? Any test that can be done?

- Is 16ms really 16ms or is it (out of 1000 monitors, the fastest was
16ms?)
- How many colours can the monitor really produce?
- How can one measure the contrast ratio?

Basically, if I buy an LCD and it doesn't meet spec I want to be able to
toss it back into the resellers/manufacturers face. Better yet would be
class action lawsuit against the lying manufacturer.

Hard to say. You can read the hardware test sites. Of course than you
may be swayed by any idiosyncrasies or even influence from advertisers
to that magazine or site. I remember reading a thing a long time ago
where some writer in the industry was talking about the industry and
he claimed that PC mags and other commerical consumer sources were
notorious for being influenced by advertisers. I doubt most outright
lie about tests etc but they may choose and leave out certain tests or
models. One thing I noticed was certain makes would win and in the
roundups many models would be excluded thats one way to rig the
results. Lets say theres a hot competing model and your biggest
advertiser has a dog in the same price range. Yoo could test a special
model by your big advertiser that costs much more is of course much
better and maybe even in limited production and leave out any cheaper
well regarded models etc. I use to think this about CRT monitors and
scanners. I would scan all the mags , sites and wonder why there were
so few overall roundups a few years ago and why they constantly left
out various popular well regarded models.

Toms Hardware I recall a little while ago was really hot for the Hydis
panels I think they were called which were used in a variety of
models. Eventhough they were rated officially specwise kind of
mediocre he claimed any maker using the Hydis panels were beating many
of the other models which claimed much lower reponse times. I think
hes given some other models not using the Hydis panel good reviews
since then though which was earlier in the year or the end of last
year if I recall correctly. He also mentioned I think it was a
Samsung that was supposed to come out with ultra low response times
which I think he characterized as a disaster after he tested it. I
think they pulled it off the mkt or didnt bring it to mkt. I dont
remember the exact details.

But he makes the point its all about compromise - some of the panels
which sported geniune lower response times I think he pointed out had
worse viewing angles and other areas which they were worse in than
many other panels. There was yet to be that perfect panel - great in
all areas.