Need advice on flat panels for using AutoCAD

[Wekiva]

The architectural/engineering firm I work for is getting ready to start buying flat panel monitors to help maximize desktop space. I'm doing some research on good flat panels that won't kill our budget. For now we don't have a set size or price but that will get more defined over the next few weeks. Currently our office has all 19" CRTs so we want to at least match that size (I'm assuming that a flat panel 17" is about the size of a 19" CRT). So to step up one size I'd like to start looking at 19" flat panels and the budget would be probably less than $500 per monitor.

Are there any good Shootouts or comparison sites that would help in this endeavor?

Thanks

 

[ChuckHsiao]

If you're just going with AutoCAD design work, then response times probably aren't going to be important. What will probably matter more though is contrast and possibly color quality. In that case I would recommend some sort of MVA or IPS panel; they have fewer viewing angle issues (so more people can see what's on the monitor at the same time). Not a TN panel since those have limited viewing angles. No need to hunt for those very fast monitors since fast monitors usually sacrifice color etc. for speed.

One thing you might want to look into (depending on how your AutoCAD is set up) is the inversion scheme that's used on the monitor. Some CAD programs, when setting to half brightness or shading (for example), do so by simply turning half the pixels to black in a checkerboard scheme. Unfortunately, some monitors use the same checkerboard scheme for inversion, which prevents damage to the LCD panels. This means that if you use that type of CAD on that type of monitor, the flicker from this will be noticeable. Unfortunately, no manufacturer says what inversion scheme their drivers use, and I seriously doubt any tech support guy you call up is going to know offhand. This means you'll have to find example screens to test it out yourself. Fortunately, there are example screens (as well as an explanation of what inversion is) in the link below:

http://techmind.org/lcd/
(scroll down about halfway to where it talks about inversion)

Note that to test for the type of inversion scheme, your monitor has to be properly calibrated in terms of analog clock and phase. Instructions is also given on that page.

Incidentally, this is why some monitors may flicker when you're turning off some versions of Windows -- Windows simply does a checkerboard to black pattern to the background when you're at the shut down screen.

Somehow, $500 per monitor seems pretty high -- you could get 20" LCDs with that amount of money I think. 17" LCDs start at about $200, while 19" LCDs start at about $270. If you're going for non-TN panels though, you'll have to look for 19" or higher; there are very few 17" (or lower) LCDs that are not TN.