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Monitors

Take a Better Look at Monitors

The first thing to consider is whether you want a traditional monitor or a flat-panel LCD screen. Your eyes will appreciate the biggest monitor you can afford, but be sure to check how much space you have available on your computer desk. Important specifications are dot or aperture grille pitch and resolution. Aperture grille CRTs are more expensive than those that use standard shadow mask technology but provide a crisper and sharper image.Resolution is not as important as it might seem. Few users other than those in the graphic arts use a resolution that exceeds 1,280x1,024, even on large 19-inch monitors. Don’t, however, buy any display with an optimum resolution of less than 1,024x768, even if you currently use a lower resolution. Also keep in mind that your video card will play a large part in how good images look at high resolutions

Features and Terminology

Aperture grille	A tube construction method that uses a grille of very fine wires in front of the phosphor face plate instead of a conventional shadow mask. Because the grille has less thermal mass, it doesn’t heat up as much and provides greater protection against electron-beam overspill. This results in a shaper and brighter image.
Convergence	How well the three-color electron beams (red, blue, and green) are adjusted. If a display is misconverged, images will have a color halo around them and will eventually cause eyestrain.
Dot (or aperture grille) pitch	The distance between adjacent dots (or stripes on an aperture grille tube) of the same color phosphor. The smaller this pitch, the sharper the image.
Geometry	The relationship of the displayed image to the screen boundaries. Poor screen geometry results in pincushioning, barreling, hooking, and other distortions. Quality monitors have controls that let you correct many of these conditions.
Natural Flat	A new tube construction method that greatly reduces the amount of curvature on the face of the CRT. This, in turn, reduces distortion and reflected glare.
OSD	On-Screen Display. Used by most vendors, this lets you adjust various parameters of the display using an on-screen menu.
Refresh rate	How frequently the video card rewrites the screen. The closer to the AC power frequency of 60Hz the refresh rate is, the more likely the screen is to show flicker.
Resolution	How many horizontal dots and vertical lines the display can image. The resolution is given in horizontal dots by vertical lines (HxV). Your monitor should have a resolution that’s appropriate for the kind of tasks you perform. For Web surfing, this will probably be 800x600 or 1,024x768. Even on large CRTs, many applications such as word processing programs are more difficult to use when the resolution exceeds 1,280x1,024.
Shadow mask	The most common type of CRT tube technology. This uses a metal mask with closely spaced holes placed in front of the phosphors on the faceplate. This cuts down on the electron beams spilling over onto the wrong phosphor dots.