Choose your Computer Flat Screen Monitor

 LCD and CRT Monitors, Projectors                               

LCD vs Plasma? 

Plasmas can suffer burn in, LCD's dont.

Plasmas do better with brightness and contrast, therefore have warmer richer images than LCDs. Thus are more suited for large screen home theatre.

LCDs have sharper crisper images and give off no glare from room lights. 

LCDs perform very well under most ambient light conditions and a room full of lights wont wash out its picture.

You dont have to worry about eye strain with an LCD TV as they dont flicker like CRT TVs.

The latest LCD TVs have the best possible resolution of 1920 * 1080 pixels. This means choosing a LCD TV with a HDMI connection to ensure compatibility with HD-DVD and Blu-ray DVD video formats.

Plasmas can be glary if used in a bright room thus more suited for dark home theatre.

Plasmas handle fast moving objects better thus are more suited for watching sport, car racing etc.

LCDs are lighter than Plasmas.

LCDs can be used for computer monitors, Plasmas can't because of burn in.

LCDs have better power consumption.

Conclusion

• Projectors are still quite expensive as the projector screens can cost thousands of dollars. You can buy special paint designed to create a video projection surface although you can lose some brightness and detail.
• The projector lamps have a fairly short life and can be expensive to replace.
• The price of thin monitors has dropped dramatically over the last few years.
• The response time of LCD monitors is now under 8ms, which means fast moving graphics required for games are handled well. The human eye can't distinguish any flicker under 8ms.
• Check that the monitor and graphics card will support higher resolutions if you need them. A typical resolution is 1280*1024 for 17 inch and 1600*1200 or 1920*1200 for larger monitors.
• If you like big screen television or you like to watch a lot of action, sport or special effect movies then a Plasma is a better option.
• If you want an everyday TV then LCD is a better option.
• If you are using your computer as a home cinema then Plasma is a better option.
• If you want to double your home cinema computer as a computer monitor then LCD is better because it doesn't suffer burn in.
• If you are conservative with your power bill then choose LCD.  

There is a large range of monitors and TVs out there. So how do you know the best one for your needs?

See the Home Entertainment website of Australia's leading consumer organisation CHOICE