LCD vs LED Monitors

[SCraig]

I'm thinking about getting another monitor to go along with the one I already have (yes my video card supports 3 monitors). I was looking around on the internet for comparison information between LCD and LED monitors when I ran across this titbit:

While the technology of the displays of LCD’s and LED’s is basically the same, the LCD monitor uses cold cathode fluorescent lamps as back-lights as compared to the LED monitors that emit diodes.

I think I've decided not to go with an LED monitor. I don't want to get smacked in the eye by an errant LED that was emitted I also decided I wasn't going to bother reading the rest of their review.

Seriously I am looking for another monitor but I don't have any experience with LED monitors. I do know the physical difference between LCD and LED (I have a background in electronics) but I don't know how well they work functionally for image processing use. Naturally my primary purpose is going to be image editing so if I'm going to have problems calibrating an LED monitor or if they just plain don't work well for that purpose I'd certainly love to know.

I'm sure most of you have used LCD monitors but if any one has also used an LED monitor I'd really appreciate some input on how well they perform.

 

[mjhoward]

compared to the LED monitors that emit diodes.

they don't emit diodes! They ARE diodes that emit LIGHT... hence Light Emitting Diodes.

 

[SCraig]

they don't emit diodes! They ARE diodes that emit LIGHT... hence Light Emitting Diodes.

Hence the smiley at the end of the line and the statement that reads "(I have a background in electronics)". I just thought the comment in the review was a hoot.

 

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

I have and HP 27" LED. While it doesn't have the greatest color gamut coverage compared to the high end monitors, it works well for me as a duel use editing/personal use monitor. I am planning on picking up a dell ultrasharp as the prices come down. I would get the new apple display since my computer has thunderbolt, but I hear they aren't the greatest for photography.

One thing I will mention- if you have an older colorimeter, it may not read LEDs accurately. My old Spyder2 had this issue which forced me to upgrade to the Spyder 3.

 

[mjhoward]

they don't emit diodes! They ARE diodes that emit LIGHT... hence Light Emitting Diodes.

Hence the smiley at the end of the line and the statement that reads "(I have a background in electronics)". I just thought the comment in the review was a hoot.

Bwah! I read up to that line at which point I was laughing and had to stop to respond! Thats what I get for not reading everything. lol

 

[SCraig]

I have and HP 27" LED. While it doesn't have the greatest color gamut coverage compared to the high end monitors, it works well for me as a duel use editing/personal use monitor. I am planning on picking up a dell ultrasharp as the prices come down. I would get the new apple display since my computer has thunderbolt, but I hear they aren't the greatest for photography.

One thing I will mention- if you have an older colorimeter, it may not read LEDs accurately. My old Spyder2 had this issue which forced me to upgrade to the Spyder 3.

Thanks, that's the kind of info I was looking for. I'm not looking at ultri-high end but a good one. I'm just not sure yet. I run the network at work but even there all of the monitors are LCD.

My colorimeter is a Spyder 3 so I should be good there if yours works OK. That was my other concern

Thanks, I appreciate the input.

 

[SCraig]

Bwah! I read up to that line at which point I was laughing and had to stop to respond! Thats what I get for not reading everything. lol

Jeez, if I had a buck for each time I've done that same exact thing I'd just buy a monitor FACTORY and be done with it!:lmao: Not a problem at all.

 

[unpopular]

I don't think that there would be any difference except in lifespan and possibly uniformity. I really like the LED display in my 15" Macbook.

 

[pemaleso]

Nice thread.
I have my 2007 lcd monitor and works just fine with my nvideo card.
I use free software calibrize once a month.

Sent from my iPhone using PhotoForum

 

[SCraig]

Nice thread.
I have my 2007 lcd monitor and works just fine with my nvideo card.
I use free software calibrize once a month.

I don't think that there would be any difference except in lifespan and possibly uniformity. I really like the LED display in my 15" Macbook.

Thanks guys. I "Think" you are correct in that the differences are minor but I don't know that for certain. I hate to just go to a store and look at them since there is no telling how they have been adjusted.

Your comment did remind me that I one of the laptops we have here has an LED display on it. I remember when I ordered it that if it didn't work well I'd never hear the end of it, but then forgot about it when the guy I got it for didn't gripe about his display. I remember that when I was setting it up I noticed how bright it was and that it didn't seem to retain its image a lot better when viewed from different angles.

Most LCD monitors I've used have a "Sweet Spot" where viewing them from a particular angle looked best by far. The monitor on that laptop didn't seem to be as bad about that and now I'm wondering whether that is a trait of LED monitors. Guess I'll do a bit more digging.

Thanks again everyone. I appreciate the input.

 

[Garbz]

I think in general you're getting your technologies confused. There are no LED monitors available for a reasonable price. They are LCD monitors with an LED backlight. Calling them LED monitors do a complete disjustice to actual LED displays. They are quite a different technology and will one day be the future of displays. The term "LED Display" is marketing bull**** making something sound futuristic and will likely just cause confusion when actual LED displays hit the consumer / TV market.

The difference between LCD that use cold cathodes as their backlight and LEDs as their backlight are .... thickness. Little more than that. LED backlit displays can also go brighter so they are great to use outdoors but that is only really important for laptops, and even that that is at odds with conserving power. Even my LCD I consider has an average max brightness compared to some other displays and rarely ever gets turned up past the 70% mark.

Gamut, viewing angles, colour depth and all those other actual important things have very little to do with the backlight, and everything to do with the LCD display itself. To that end:

The viewing angle or "sweet spot" as you just called it is dependant on the layout of the crystals and the electrodes. For photography the key acronym is IPS (in-plane switching). IPS displays as opposed to PVA or TN panels are perfect viewing angles but have slightly slower response times. The most common display type is TN panel (they are cheap and thin), they have poor viewing angles, and they can't actually display 8bit colour instead opting for 6bit + firmware dithering to fake the colours it misses. PVA, the great middle ground, has better viewing angles but suffers from what isknown as "black crush" which is when viewed dead on you lose the ability to display fine shades of very dark colours. That said they offer greater viewing angles, and true 8bit colour so they are good if you're on a budget.

You'll rarely if ever see an IPS display in a laptop since until recently with the likes of the iPad and similar tablets they have been hard if not impossible to make thin and light.

In summary:
- You can get all different display types with both cold cathode backlights and LED backlights. They do not affect the performance of the display technology itself.
- You can not get 8bit colour out of a TN display regardless of the backlight. You don't want this for photography.
- TN panels make up the vast majority on the market.
- TN panels offer poor viewing angles regardless of the backlight.
- PVA and IPS panels can offer wider colour gamuts regardless of the backlight.

 

[SCraig]

I think in general you're getting your technologies confused. There are no LED monitors available for a reasonable price. They are LCD monitors with an LED backlight. Calling them LED monitors do a complete disjustice to actual LED displays. They are quite a different technology and will one day be the future of displays. The term "LED Display" is marketing bull**** making something sound futuristic and will likely just cause confusion when actual LED displays hit the consumer / TV market.

The difference between LCD that use cold cathodes as their backlight and LEDs as their backlight are .... thickness. Little more than that. LED backlit displays can also go brighter so they are great to use outdoors but that is only really important for laptops, and even that that is at odds with conserving power. Even my LCD I consider has an average max brightness compared to some other displays and rarely ever gets turned up past the 70% mark.

Gamut, viewing angles, colour depth and all those other actual important things have very little to do with the backlight, and everything to do with the LCD display itself. To that end:

The viewing angle or "sweet spot" as you just called it is dependant on the layout of the crystals and the electrodes. For photography the key acronym is IPS (in-plane switching). IPS displays as opposed to PVA or TN panels are perfect viewing angles but have slightly slower response times. The most common display type is TN panel (they are cheap and thin), they have poor viewing angles, and they can't actually display 8bit colour instead opting for 6bit + firmware dithering to fake the colours it misses. PVA, the great middle ground, has better viewing angles but suffers from what isknown as "black crush" which is when viewed dead on you lose the ability to display fine shades of very dark colours. That said they offer greater viewing angles, and true 8bit colour so they are good if you're on a budget.

You'll rarely if ever see an IPS display in a laptop since until recently with the likes of the iPad and similar tablets they have been hard if not impossible to make thin and light.

In summary:
- You can get all different display types with both cold cathode backlights and LED backlights. They do not affect the performance of the display technology itself.
- You can not get 8bit colour out of a TN display regardless of the backlight. You don't want this for photography.
- TN panels make up the vast majority on the market.
- TN panels offer poor viewing angles regardless of the backlight.
- PVA and IPS panels can offer wider colour gamuts regardless of the backlight.

Thank you for posting that information. I did a bunch of reading on the subject last night and you are 100% correct in what you say, and most certainly in that I had the concept of an LED monitor completely wrong. I did not realize that the LED's were simply providing the backlight, that puts things in a completely different perspective.

Thanks again for that very informative post. Much appreciated.

 

[Cruzingoose]

There are many types of flat monitors...
LCD using fluro tubes for backlight- Toss it after 2000 hours or when the display yellows or greens.
LCD using LED backlight- eventual odd shading from the LEDs as they are over driven and fail in different modes.
LED - no backlight but totally unatural color for precision editing.
OLED - extremely punchy color, but with proper adjustments, could begin to approach the gamut of a tube.
PLASMA - with a huge dot pitch and the highest power hog of any display device it is not even suitable for television.
TUBE - it's big but it just works, and works, and works....

If you are buying for energy savings, go tube. It uses less energy and lasts much longer.

 

[Garbz]

LED - no backlight but totally unatural color for precision editing.
OLED - extremely punchy color, but with proper adjustments, could begin to approach the gamut of a tube.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sorry but it looks like you've got a few things quite backwards there.

LED and OLED are the same in terms of colour production. Both of them generate photons from a tuned band gap in some material. The photons are always emitted at the same energy and thus are generated in a way that the colour could not be any more pure. Look at an LED or OLED emission spectra on a spectrum analyser and they are bested only by really stable lasers in terms of colour purity. Every LED or OLED produces a gamut dot on the very edge of the horseshoe diagram. Furthermore by providing essentially infinite contrast and no change in spectral response with respect to brightness, even when the gamut is plotted in 3D it appears perfect. You can't say this is unnatural for precision colour editing and then trump the supposed wide gamut of tubes at the same time. What you need is colour calibration and management in any case unless your display perfectly matches the sRGB gamut, which would also make it a rather poor performer in terms of the above.

CRTs gamuts were defined by their phosphors and filters. They were quite standard covering around 73% of NTSC. Consumer grade LCDs have been able to match this for more than 10 years. Furthermore the best wide gamut LCD ever produced achieved 97% coverage of the AdobeRGB gamut, cost around $8000 too. By comparison my LCD display achieves the same coverage, is larger, has better a contrast ratio, internal hardware lookup table calibration so that a calibrator won't reduce the output of the video card, and was less than 1/8th of the price. The best LCDs on the market leave this for dead. Sony's experimental OLED display left the best LCDs for dead.

As for energy savings, I don't know of a single LCD on the market that chews up more power than a CRT, and LED backlit LCDs are by far the most power efficient display devices available. And then the notion of it just works, and works, and works .... but only for about 3 years after which phosphor degradation means that very quickly your CRT's gamut changes, shrinks, the display darkens and the contrast ratio drops.

I haven't a clue where anyone gets the notion that CRTs are by any measure the best displays on the market, unless you count the ability to kill someone by dropping a display on them. All of what you said applied only for the first 2 years that LCDs hit the market.

Oh an in case you're interested here's the colour gamut of my phone. The red line is my phone, the light blue line is 99.99% of CRTs ever produced.

 

[Cruzingoose]

LED - no backlight but totally unatural color for precision editing.
OLED - extremely punchy color, but with proper adjustments, could begin to approach the gamut of a tube.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sorry but it looks like you've got a few things quite backwards there.

LED and OLED are the same in terms of colour production. Both of them generate photons from a tuned band gap in some material. The photons are always emitted at the same energy and thus are generated in a way that the colour could not be any more pure. Look at an LED or OLED emission spectra on a spectrum analyser and they are bested only by really stable lasers in terms of colour purity. Every LED or OLED produces a gamut dot on the very edge of the horseshoe diagram. Furthermore by providing essentially infinite contrast and no change in spectral response with respect to brightness, even when the gamut is plotted in 3D it appears perfect. You can't say this is unnatural for precision colour editing and then trump the supposed wide gamut of tubes at the same time. What you need is colour calibration and management in any case unless your display perfectly matches the sRGB gamut, which would also make it a rather poor performer in terms of the above.

CRTs gamuts were defined by their phosphors and filters. They were quite standard covering around 73% of NTSC. Consumer grade LCDs have been able to match this for more than 10 years. Furthermore the best wide gamut LCD ever produced achieved 97% coverage of the AdobeRGB gamut, cost around $8000 too. By comparison my LCD display achieves the same coverage, is larger, has better a contrast ratio, internal hardware lookup table calibration so that a calibrator won't reduce the output of the video card, and was less than 1/8th of the price. The best LCDs on the market leave this for dead. Sony's experimental OLED display left the best LCDs for dead.

As for energy savings, I don't know of a single LCD on the market that chews up more power than a CRT, and LED backlit LCDs are by far the most power efficient display devices available. And then the notion of it just works, and works, and works .... but only for about 3 years after which phosphor degradation means that very quickly your CRT's gamut changes, shrinks, the display darkens and the contrast ratio drops.

I haven't a clue where anyone gets the notion that CRTs are by any measure the best displays on the market, unless you count the ability to kill someone by dropping a display on them. All of what you said applied only for the first 2 years that LCDs hit the market.

Oh an in case you're interested here's the colour gamut of my phone. The red line is my phone, the light blue line is 99.99% of CRTs ever produced.

>> The LED monitors seem to change their color and brightness with different viewing angles while the OLED appears more tube like and not so variable but still very punchy. Tube phosphor colors overlap each other slightly while LED colors are quite narrow leaving gaps. Then there is the "dead pixel" or "live pixel" issues a tube will never have. You have not viewed a flat monitor with a black or brightly colored dot or two or more that does not change? How about colored lines or flickering patches? As flat panel pixel size shrinks, the higher chances of these defects rendering the device less than desireable.

>> The few rich people that spent the $8 on a display certainly deserves a quality monitor, but like all electronics, in a few years, if it still works, will be passed down to the kids for playing video games and soon to be ready to buy another. These devices are not what the general public will spend their money on. The $99 or less Wal&^%t or E&^y is what most people buy. If you are directly facing the display things look fine. Move up/down or side/side and the color, brightness, blacks/ shadows change greatly. The viewing angle has been improving but is nowhere as good as an LED or tube screen. You don't have to turn a tube so another person can share what is on the screen.

>>> I stand corrected. If the LCD has a LED backlight there will be an energy savings at the expense of color reproduction and brightness over time. White LEDS are not known for high CRI ratings. Fluro tube backlights which are most common, but have excellent CRI ratings, fade and die too quickly, usually after 2000 hours. Being a Ham Radio Operator and electronics tech, audio/videophile , I've waited for the day I would find flat panel displays in the dumpsters and on the side of the road. Now they are here, and in masses. It's been a great source if extra income picking these things up, replacing fluro tubes, inverters and capacitors in the power supplies, then taking them to the local pawn shops and taking the $$$ I can get from them. Some of these are not even 2 years old.

>>>I did not want to imply a tube was the defacto standard and nothing works better. The tube is so far the most consistant and cost effective over time, most are still in operation for over 15 years for computer use and 60+ years in televisions. It is all a matter of money. Consumer grade goods just don't measure up to broadcast quality specs and most people just don't know any better. And I compliment the color accuracy of your phone's display. I'm sure the OLED display in my Samsung Captivate is right up there also, but I wont be caught dead restoring a photograph on it.