TFT Monitors

It's been one hell of a year for TFTs. Once mocked by gamers for their rubbish response times that led to images looking like a Photoshop blurring effect, we're now seeing hordes of new screens boasting response times of 16ms. Compare that to the norm of 30-40ms last year, and you start to realise just how far they've come.

And that's not all. TFTs are brighter than ever, their prices continue to tumble (aside from the occasional rise when demand outstrips supply) and they look a damn sight more attractive than that antique known as a CRT.

For, as you may have noticed, a TFT monitor is far, far smaller than its equivalent CRT. To enjoy the 1,280 x 1,024 resolution all these screens boast, you'd have to buy a 19in CRT at the very least - so say goodbye to half your desk. Then there's the rock-solid focus that won't deteriorate with time. Oh, and the guarantee of absolutely perfect geometry. Trust us, you'll find it difficult to use a CRT ever again.

But we can't deny that buying a TFT is a big jump for the CRT loyalist. And if you make a wrong decision, based on specs and marketing alone, you could end up with a bigger turkey than the biggest of them all in the Big Turkey Farm, Alabama.

Fortunately, us lovely lot at Custom PC cherry-picked eight of the best 17in fast-response TFTs around, put them through a heap of tests and, using the advanced kind of maths that would leave Einstein scraping his chin off the ground, we worked out which was the best for value for money too. We're kind like that. To find out which screen is worth splashing out on, keep reading.

Contributor: Tim Danton

One of the big questions we wanted to address with this group test is how well the latest TFTs with super-fast response times could cope with the traditional strengths of CRTs. In particular, how do they cope when it comes to DVD movies and games?

Our test rig gave the screens every chance to shine too. With a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 processor, 1GB of Corsair memory and a 256MB ATi Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card, the only reason games wouldn't look good is because the screen on test couldn't do them justice.

Before we started testing, we set up these screens' brightness and contrast levels to their optimum settings using the setup screens in DisplayMate (www.displaymate.com)

Games

Testing games performance was quite simple. We loaded up Unreal Tournament 2003 and Re-Volt, played our favourite parts of the games for a while, then gave each TFT a rating between 0 and 2 depending on how good we thought they were. Screens lost marks for any smearing, a sign that the action was moving too fast for the TFT to keep up.

DVD playback

To provide a decent challenge for our screens, we used the fast-paced Podrace sequence from 'Star Wars: Episode 1'. Again, we were looking for signs of smears, but we were more demanding when it came to image quality. Annoying artefacts (when a screen doesn't accurately display a subtle gradation in colour) meant these screens lost marks.

Technical

We used a selection of tests from DisplayMate to really stretch these screens. We were particularly looking for colour handling skills and timing problems. By colour handling, we mean how well the TFTs can blend colours, so that skin - for example - looks like skin rather than something orange.

The timing problems will only appear when a screen is using an analogue signal, connecting through a D-SUB connector. Poor timing means that 'jitter' can be seen, where pixels seem to be moving miniscule amounts to produce an unfocused effect. If a panel had a DVI input we used this to minimise any problems.

Everyday

The final part of out tests, but the most important in terms of the points on offer, as this is what most people will be doing with a screen, was the everyday section. First up was sharpness - a first impression, if you like, of just how good the screen is. Any sign of timing problems (producing a slight loss of focus) lost marks.

We also looked at a selection of digital photos to check for realism and quality. We then viewed a document in Word and browsed the Internet - things that most people will do an awful lot of the time.

Our final check was for brightness. Although manufacturers make largely similar claims here, we wanted to know how bright the screens looked in practice.

Viewing angles deserve a special mention here as they're so important in how well a screen performs. Poor viewing angles can mean that a display's colours don't look even across the screen, which can be highly irritating.