Thanks. Your comments will help me make a wiser purchase.
I was a real late adopter of LCDs as the early ones seemed grossly
priced and often looked weird - washed out or there was a kind of
silvery metallic sheen at some angles. I was also paranoid about dead
pixels. I was finally won over by the low prices and space savings and
wouldnt want to get a CRT either especially since they improved the
ghosting issue with games. There is a compromose though. Reviewers
like Anandtech used to harp on the 6bit-8 bit aspect. Usually to speed
up screens which were fairly slow even a year or two ago which caused
game ghosting problems --- they started making a flood of 6bit panels
that were much faster but dont get as many shades except by
dithereing. In tests reviewers said if you are a picky graphics
designer the banding issues with subtle shades of the various colors
might make a CRT or 8 bit LCD slower planel a better choice. Ive got a
6 bit and it really isnt noticeable so far.
Another thing generally speaking makers have really improved in
regards to bad pixels and many people with cheap LCDs dont see them
anymore. I bought one for $150 zero bad pixels.
My 19" viewsonic was zero then I saw a prominent BLUE partially stuck
pixel after a while. This really bugged the heck out of me. Everytime
I watched a movie with a dark scene youd see this blue pixel floating
close to the middle of the screen. It only seemed to be stuck on blue
during black or dark shades. Strangely enough that was when I
discovered I had a really bad stick of mem. While I was fretting and
moaning about the bad pixel I replaced the bad stick and the bad pixel
disappeared. I dont know if itwas related or not.
They have been hyping alternative technologies but they really arent
catching on. One was slim CRTs. Super slim ones that looked only 4
inches or so thick. I dont see them anywhere. That was supposed to
give LCDs a run for their money this year. These were also hyped.
OLEDs
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/01/07/hln.wired.oleds/
SED
http://www.videsignline.com/news/60400239