If you’ve been shopping around for a new LCD monitor lately (or intend to upgrade soon), you’d have noticed that prices vary quite a lot for different panels. So what’s the difference between these panels? I’m no expert at this, but I do know enough about LCD monitors to give a little guidance to those who are thinking about upgrading their monitors for photo editing or video editing.

Basically, there are 3 types of of TFT-LCD monitors out there.

1. TN (Twisted Nematic) panels
2. VA (Vertical Alignment) panels
3. IPS (In-Plane Switching) panels

Let’s break them down briefly. TN panels are the cheapest of the lot here. They are panels good for gamers and people who need fast refresh timings. However, these panels have a problem of shifting colours and narrow viewing angles (anything that is 170 degrees or less are probably TN panels). Most of them are also unable to show 24bit colour (in other words, it’s not showing as wide a range of colours as it is possible with other panels) So, these panels aren’t good/accurate for photo editing and video editing purposes.

I’ll skip VA panels and explain IPS panels first. IPS panels are the the creme de la creme for photo and video editing. They retain colours well, they render colours well (able to show 24 bit colour) and have good viewing angles (IPS panels usually have more than 170 degree viewing angles), so these are the professional monitors. However, the refresh rates aren’t as good as TN panels, so gamers beware.

VA panels come in a variety of guises, simply because of different manufacturers calling it different names, but they’re basically all about the same. VA panels, (sometimes called MVA, or PVA) are sort of an in-between TN and IPS panel. They’re like the middle ground, so they offer a couple of compromises here and there, they take some good points of IPS and some good points of TN, a little of a jack of all trades master of none kind of panel. However, these panels are losing ground as prices of IPS panels are falling. Hence, VA panels are losing their strongest edge, which is their price point.

So the next time when you see a 24 inch panel going for 200 odd dollars in Sim Lim, it’s probably a TN panel, and if you see another 24 inch panel going for 800 bucks, then it’s probably an IPS panel, either that or you look like a foreigner whom the sneaky Sim Lim salesmen will try to con you.

DT

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