PC Monitors

PC Monitors gives you an insight into our hands-on testing with the Iiyama ProLite T2250MTS touchscreen monitor. We look at the usability and responsiveness of the unique touchscreen technology used in the T2250MTS and see what else Iiyama’s touchscreen monitor has to offer. How does the touchscreen experience compare with the good old computer mouse and did Iiyama make any sacrifices to incorporate this technology? Read the PC Monitors review and find out.
 

Iiyama ProLite T2250MTS review

The super-skinny Acer S243HL is now available in the shop. This slick screen is one of the thinnest PC monitors currently available and boasts a staggering contrast ratio of 8000000:1 (not a typo, we had to triple check ourselves). The PC Monitors team hasn’t yet tested this monitor, so it is difficult to say whether we agree with the specifications or if the numbers have been somewhat exaggerated by Acer. If user and professional opinions are anything to go by (and we suggest they certainly are), however, the Acer S243HL offers very good image quality and is certainly worth consideration if you’re after a PC monitor with an LED backlight. Depending on how things go, we may be able to get our hands on this machine for a review – the specs certainly have us excited, but we’re sad like that.

The Acer S243HL is one of the thinnest PC monitors available today

Now we almost wrote the title ‘monitor reviews now dated’, but we felt this was very inappropriate considering both PC monitors reviewed thus far are very new tech. We have added the date that the review was published (or last significantly edited) for reference. By significantly edited, we mean if we changed our opinion about something we said, having used the monitor again or thought about it enough. Anything that could change the message conveyed in the review, rather than little tweaks. Adding a date seems standard practice for PC hardware reviews, and as more monitors become available it will help you work out how old the technology is. We hope you appreciate this small but significant addition by the PC Monitors team.

Our regular readers may notice that the ‘coming soon to PC Monitors’ box has been removed from the top of the sidebar. Because we regularly update the website to tell you what we’re working on; the PC Monitors team felt this box was unnecessary. You can also subscribe to our feed or follow us on Twitter – or of course check back yourself regularly. We appreciate you reading our content, as without you, we would be wasting our time writing about PC Monitors! We are currently working on the Iiyama ProLite T2250MTS review, which should be up later this month.

Thank you for your patience and thank you for reading!

Iiyama Prolite T2250MTS review coming soon

Maximum PC has just published an insightful article comparing the three most common technologies used in LCD PC monitors today; TN (Twisted Nematic), IPS (In-Plane Switching) and VA (Vertical Alignment). Maximum PC notes that TN (Twisted Nematic) monitors are by far the most popular in today’s consumer market, as this technology is the cheapest to produce whilst offering a perfectly capable display. Unlike the more expensive IPS (In-Plane Switching) monitors, TN monitors require only one transistor per pixel. This means that costs are driven down directly, but also by virtue of TN panels requiring a less powerful backlight – due to less ‘transistor blockage’. This also means that less power is consumed by the monitor, which is attractive in the current socioeconomic climate.

One particular problem of TN technology is that it is unable to transition 8-bits per pixel for colour smoothly; TN monitors tend to use 6-bits per pixel plus a dithering method (alternate but very similar shades of a colour represented each screen refresh). TN technology allows for much faster response times than IPS monitors (2ms vs. 6ms), making them more suitable for PC games and displaying other fast moving images. Aside from the broader colour gamut, IPS and VA monitors also provide greater viewing angles than TN displays.

The PC Monitors of the future are likely to forego LCD technologies altogether; using backlightless OLEDs (organic light emitting diodes) to provide superior response times to TN LCD panels and superior contrast and colour compared to IPS and VA LCD panels. We explore OLED display technology not only in our future of PC Monitors article and our OLED monitors article, but also in our monitor technology article. The monitor technology article also provides a more detailed look at some of the terminology briefly touched upon in the Maximum PC LCD monitor technologies article.

Maximum PC explores the different LCD monitor technologies