LED backlight montitors. Worth it?

[toolfan524]

Im a architecture student who needs new laptop, so I am considering a Dell XPS m1530. Id like a high resolution display but they have a option for the LED LCD panel with lower resolution. I know Apple really touted this feature with the MacBook pros, but is it anything special? Or should I just go with the 1920x1200?

LCD, Color and camera
Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch LCD (1280x800) & 2.0 MP Camera [subtract $150]
High Resolution, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LCD(1440x900) & 2MP Camera [subtract $100]
High Resolution glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LCD(1680x1050) & 2MP Camera [subtract $50]
High Resolution, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LED LCD (1440x900) & 2.0 M [add $50 or $2/month1]
Full Hi Definition, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LCD (1920x1200) & 2.0 M [Included in Price]

 

[leo2kp]

LED gives amazing contrast ratio. On LCD TVs you're looking at 500,000:1 ratio in some cases. To put that in to perspective, my 19" Viewsonic has a ratio of 800:1. For architecture I'm not sure what is more important to you.

 

[lcaley]

I think it would be worth it. I'd probably go for the LED screen. The main reason is that LEDs will use less power than a regular screen. They give a better response time, and much better contrast ratio (normally). DEFINITELY worth $50. My laptop is a 15.4 inch 1280x800 and it looks really good, I'm sure 1440x900 will look amazing.

Edit: leo beat me to it 😀

 

[bdollar]

lcaley,

How much better is the response time? Didn't realize led backlighting improved it. Does that mean it is a better gaming option than most LCDs?

 

[jdunn]

LED backlighting is a really big thing for graphics professionals. CCFL backlighting produces a monitor with color accuracy that sucks. The white light emitted by CCFL is not a correct spectrum and that produces inaccurate color. The LED back lighting produces full spectrum white light. I have bought 3 garden variety CCFL LCD panels and tried to color calibrate them with no success. Returned all of them and I am still using CRTs.

One of the worst problems for photographers and artists is the uneven brightness produced by LCD screens . You cannot see the entire screen at a constant even illumination. The LED backlighted screens are reported to solve this problem also.
In addition to accurate color the gamut has been expanded with LED backlighting. The best of the LED type have full adobe1998 RGB color spectrum. Not even CRT's have that.

The top of the line are the NEC and the Visio (both 24 inch) retail in the $5,000 price range. Samsung released the XL20 (20 inch -$1499) and the XL30 (30 inch) which don't quite cover adobe1998 RGB. Now Viewsonic has the lowest price leader The 22 inch VLED221wm at a street price of $739

 

[bdollar]

Does anyone know the effect on response time. Is it better as lcaley said, same, worse? If better, how much?

Jdunn do you do any gaming? I assume those same positives are nice for gaming as well? (assuming no response time issues).

 

[m@rc]

I'm not sure about response time in game, but I surely can be turned on a lot faster, cause there's no warm up time needed.

 

[pcfreak101]

In my experience, and correct me if I'm wrong, but in my experience, LED monitors actually makes the response time worse. I have yet to see one with a response time under 8 ms. Even so, LED monitors offer much more "correct" colors, larger contrast ratio, brighter backlights, and longer battery life. I would say though, that unless you are a professional graphics designer, or simply have way too much money to throw around, its not worth it. The increase in battery life is negligible, compared to the increase in cost.

 

[frozenlead]

Response time improvements? Comon, guys, who can notice a difference of 2-8ms?

I would choose the traditional screen. I have a 1920x1200 screen, and it's well past proved it's worth. I can fit soooo much stuff on it at once, and games look gorgeous. The 1530's only carry 9600/8600GT options, i believe, so games won't look as good; you'll have to turn down the resolution if you get a high-res panel. The battery life advantage can't be a whole lot, maybe 10 minutes.

 

[Guest]

LED backlighting is a really big thing for graphics professionals. CCFL backlighting produces a monitor with color accuracy that sucks. The white light emitted by CCFL is not a correct spectrum and that produces inaccurate color. The LED back lighting produces full spectrum white light. I have bought 3 garden variety CCFL LCD panels and tried to color calibrate them with no success. Returned all of them and I am still using CRTs.

One of the worst problems for photographers and artists is the uneven brightness produced by LCD screens . You cannot see the entire screen at a constant even illumination. The LED backlighted screens are reported to solve this problem also.
In addition to accurate color the gamut has been expanded with LED backlighting. The best of the LED type have full adobe1998 RGB color spectrum. Not even CRT's have that.

The top of the line are the NEC and the Visio (both 24 inch) retail in the $5,000 price range. Samsung released the XL20 (20 inch -$1499) and the XL30 (30 inch) which don't quite cover adobe1998 RGB. Now Viewsonic has the lowest price leader The 22 inch VLED221wm at a street price of $739

That indeed is wonderful. very informative, Thank you. I am happy to have met some one who knows. My question is, is LED display the same as LED backlit display? what is LED backlit LCD display? can you suggets some material on this?

Thank you.

gangakz@yahoo.com

 

[dneonu]

when comparing led's to ccfl's weather it's on a hdtv or computer monitor the
led easy defeats ccfl's hands down. led's are much more energy efficient and
much longer lasting than ccfl's thus more economical in the long run and led
products give image quality as good or better than ccfl's and led's allow
hdtv's and computer monitors to be much thinner and lighter as well.

 

[sddk]

I believe some of the hype with LED's but let's not be fooled. It's a cheaper alternative for manufacturers and probably the biggest reason for the push. My opinion is that the number one thing to look for in picking monitors is resolution and LED backlighting should be a far second. LED backlighting might mean greater contrast but resolution is greater detail. As a engineer who does lots of CAD, resolution is far more important to me and I would think this would be the same for an architect. Remember, LED's are fundametally cheaper than CCFL's and will drop in price soon. Eventually, all monitors will be LED backlit and will be fundamentally cheaper than those we are seeing on the market today. Also, remember that we are seeing the first generation of LED backlit monitors and they haven't worked out the kinks with LED backlighting either. There are problems with the LED light bleeding over in high contrast situations and problems with color accuracy.

 

[moldboy]

LED monitors don't exist (at least not in the way we are speaking of here). There are CFL backlit screens and LED backlit screens. LED screens have little effect on the colour reproduction that difference if in the LCD technology. Response time is similarly limited by the screen technology.

There are two distinct components of an LCD monitor, the Liquid crystal matrix and the backlighting. You can think of it like a picture in an art gallery, the ability of the artist and the paint used determine the quality of the image. The lighting in the gallery also has an effect, as was mentioned CFL tubes tend to have poor spectrum, so that would be like lighting your art gallery with yellow lights, you could still see the pictures, but they would have a yellow shade.

 

[bobbyfranky]

AS SDDK said, " Also, remember that we are seeing the first generation of LED backlit monitors and they haven't worked out the kinks with LED backlighting either. There are problems with the LED light bleeding over in high contrast situations and problems with color accuracy. "

Having juster recenylt bought and returned an LED-LCD 55 inch tv, and new toshiba 15.6 inch led laptop, also returned due poor screen detail - in 1/2011 led problems still not worked out. The technology is inherently flawed - it is cheaper for the manufacturers but the picture quality sucks. SDDK mentioned resolution and light bleeding over from high contrast situations (like in most typical scenes in movies) and color accuracy. People in movies on an LED-LCD looked as if they have been painted with water-paint or something - all splotchy to the point the people looked animated. For example, the black hair bleeds onto the face, and the flesh tone face bleeds into the hair, resulting in a flat matted look on the face - like it was a drawing or painting - the natural facial contours get lost - the face does not look rounded enough.

I believe these 'kinks' are actually inherent in the led technology and will not be able to be fixed (cheaply). Stay awy from LED IMHO.

 

[jaguarskx]

LED backlighting is a really big thing for graphics professionals. CCFL backlighting produces a monitor with color accuracy that sucks. The white light emitted by CCFL is not a correct spectrum and that produces inaccurate color. The LED back lighting produces full spectrum white light. I have bought 3 garden variety CCFL LCD panels and tried to color calibrate them with no success. Returned all of them and I am still using CRTs.

One of the worst problems for photographers and artists is the uneven brightness produced by LCD screens . You cannot see the entire screen at a constant even illumination. The LED backlighted screens are reported to solve this problem also.
In addition to accurate color the gamut has been expanded with LED backlighting. The best of the LED type have full adobe1998 RGB color spectrum. Not even CRT's have that.

The top of the line are the NEC and the Visio (both 24 inch) retail in the $5,000 price range. Samsung released the XL20 (20 inch -$1499) and the XL30 (30 inch) which don't quite cover adobe1998 RGB. Now Viewsonic has the lowest price leader The 22 inch VLED221wm at a street price of $739

Not exactly.

While high end LCD monitors w/ LED backlight meant for graphics professional can produce good white lights that is 72% color gamut, low end LCD monitors that are geared towards average consumers uses LED backlights that are only 68% color gamut which generally has a bluish shade. However, even these high end LED backlit monitors still need to be properly calibrated to give the best results.

LED backlighting does not solve the issue regarding backlight uniformity. An example is the BenQ EW2420:

Source: http/www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/benq_ew2420.htm

The high end NEC monitors like my LCD2690WUXi uses a feature called Color Comp that basically helps even out the backlight distribution. Here's an example of the NEC PA271W monitor which uses traditional CCFL backlight:

Color Comp - OFF

Color Comm - ON

Source: http/www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/nec_pa271w.htm


Eizo uses something similar.

 

[jaguarskx]

Oops. I didn't notice jdunn's response was from 4/25/2008.

Try not to dig up old thread guys.

 

[cosmingurau]

I have just bought a Samsung LED S24A350H 24 inch 2ms GTG Rose Black. It has MUCH, MUCH WORSE contrast ratio than my old BENQ LCD G2420HD. The blacks are AWFUL compared to the LCD. They are too lit and reflective. The colors are very blueish, no matter what I try to do. And believe me I tried everything. I will sell it and but the much cheaper and better BENQ. I cannot believe people are saying LEDs are BETTER. Theya re the exact opposite, man. And in my case it is a SAMSUNG, which should be worlds better than a BENQ, yet it is quite the opposite. I will go into an all caps rage if I see someone saying that LEDs are better in any way except for response time.

 

[quarks]

That is the reason for what I bought two Philips monitors that have CFL back light, not LED !!! Led sucks, at least for now, they look blue and everything looks unnatural.....CFL is way better !!!

 

[pabloottawa]

I believe some of the hype with LED's but let's not be fooled. It's a cheaper alternative for manufacturers and probably the biggest reason for the push. My opinion is that the number one thing to look for in picking monitors is resolution and LED backlighting should be a far second. LED backlighting might mean greater contrast but resolution is greater detail. As a engineer who does lots of CAD, resolution is far more important to me and I would think this would be the same for an architect. Remember, LED's are fundametally cheaper than CCFL's and will drop in price soon. Eventually, all monitors will be LED backlit and will be fundamentally cheaper than those we are seeing on the market today. Also, remember that we are seeing the first generation of LED backlit monitors and they haven't worked out the kinks with LED backlighting either. There are problems with the LED light bleeding over in high contrast situations and problems with color accuracy.

I believe some of the hype with LED's but let's not be fooled. It's a cheaper alternative for manufacturers and probably the biggest reason for the push. My opinion is that the number one thing to look for in picking monitors is resolution and LED backlighting should be a far second. LED backlighting might mean greater contrast but resolution is greater detail. As a engineer who does lots of CAD, resolution is far more important to me and I would think this would be the same for an architect. Remember, LED's are fundametally cheaper than CCFL's and will drop in price soon. Eventually, all monitors will be LED backlit and will be fundamentally cheaper than those we are seeing on the market today. Also, remember that we are seeing the first generation of LED backlit monitors and they haven't worked out the kinks with LED backlighting either. There are problems with the LED light bleeding over in high contrast situations and problems with color accuracy.

I agree 100%

Led is more economical and the light is more evenly dispersed but the industry is only pushing it because it's a newer technology and therefore more expensive.

Is an LED monitor better than an LCD? In my experience and opinion, no.
If you get a REALLY good LCD monitor, it will come out to be almost as expensive as an LED monitor of the same size and for the money I'll bet it will perform just as well if not, better. There are reasons why some LEDs will cost as much as a high quality LCD of the same size.

Right now I'm using a 25 inch HP LCD monitor (2509M) which operates at 60H.
I don't really know what that means but when I first got it, I realized that my store had a Gateway 24 inch LED monitor for a bit less so I brought back my HP and got the Gateway. BOY WAS I EVER DISSAPOINTED!

Long story short, it was crap and I quickly returned it and got my HP back which from what I could see, performed much better, the colors were more vivid and I had all the brightness I could ever want from a monitor. The response time was better than the gateway and everything just looked better.

I'm not really a benchmark type of guy. I'm sure the LED monitor would have scored better in tests but from my chair my HP LCD monitor was far better.

My next monitor will be a 120H monitor as I understand that is better quality than the 60H monitors.

Don't beleive the hype guys and when it comes to monitors, buy local so you can return it if you're not happy.

LED does not necessarily mean better.

 

[comingbright]

LED gives amazing contrast ratio. On LCD TVs you're looking at 500,000:1 ratio in some cases...

If LED display, usually is around 2000-4000 :1.