The LCD is easily one of the most misunderstood pieces of tech simply because the manufacturer’s are rarely honest about their specs or what type of panel is in the LCD.
- Make sure your LCD is a *VA or IPS. Avoid TN panels, they are unacceptable for professional level work.
- Ensure you can return the LCD. Dead pixels, stuck pixels, and lit pixels are all common in present day LCDs, make sure you purchase from a company with a hassle free return policy.
- The specs on the box are irrelevant. Contrast ratios, viewing angles, response time are all lies.
- Avoid Wide Gamut. Wide gamut can be great if you are working in an aRGB color space (photographers) – but can be a nightmare for web designers who work in the sRGB color space.
- Don’t buy from big box stores. In the last few years Best Buy and Futureshop have only sold crappy TN panels which are unacceptable from color critical work.
- Avoid a high pixel pitch. Higher pixel pitches are less sharper, but better if you sit far away from you monitor or if you are myopic.
- The manufacturer doesn’t matter. There are only a handful of manufactures of LCD panels.
- Watch out for back light bleed. When watching a movie there is nothing more annoying than seeing blotches of white in the black areas.
- Read “real” reviews. PC World, Cnet, etc don’t have a clue what a good LCD is, so make sure you read real reviews.
- Not all LCDs are created equal. LCDs have the worst quality control of any product I know. Color reproduction, back light uniformity, screen coating, etc are rarely consistent.
Finding an LCD for web design is increasingly difficult and expensive. All the manufacturers are moving towards cheaper panels and gimmicks like glossy screens or wide gamut. If you need a good recommendation this forum thread will help a lot. Hardforum’s Display Forum, is another great resource.
As of summer 2009 in Canada, you are limited to a handful of choices. NEC LCD2490WUXI, Dell 2407 (non hc), BenQ FP241W, Samsung 245T, Apple 23″ ACD, maybe the Dell U2410 and there are a few more, but they are quite difficult to find or too expensive ( Apple’s 30″ ACD ).