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Dream Screens

Thinking of switching from a fat monitor to a flat one? We review new 15-inch LCDs. The best have cutting-edge designs, lower prices--and fantastic image quality.

Leigh Anne Jones

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Crystal-Blue Persuasion

LCDs save desktop space--you can count on saving at least 1 square foot, and sometimes much more. But there's more: LCD monitors also use less electricity, generate less heat, and weigh much less than their bulky cathode-ray cousins--LCDs on our chart ranged from 5 to 20 pounds, compared to almost 40 pounds for a 17-inch CRT. And they're ideal for medical offices and hospitals because they don't emit the electromagnetic radiation that CRTs do, so they don't cause EMF interference in other high-tech medical devices.

What's more, they're easy on your eyes because they don't refresh their screens in the same way as CRTs. If a CRT monitor's refresh rate is set too low, it causes noticeable screen flicker, which can cause eyestrain in some people. But LCD flicker is undetectable to the human eye and does not cause eyestrain.

On the downside, besides their high prices, you should also be aware of LCDs' limited viewing angles. The viewing angle is a measure of the angle at which you can view the screen from the sides and top and expect to see an image clearly. A typical LCD viewing angle is 60 degrees, though 70 degrees is preferable; CRTs typically allow a much wider viewing angle. The NEC MultiSync LCD1525X provides the widest viewing angles of any LCD on our chart, at 80 degrees. Wider viewing angles have been achieved with high-end developmental prototypes of LCD panels--advancements that will eventually trickle down to the consumer level. In the meantime, many of the LCDs we tested swivel and tilt--a low-tech but certainly not unreasonable way to address the problem.

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