15” LCD Monitor Shootout

There was a time when LCD monitors were a distant dream for most people, given their exorbitant pricing. While LCDs still cost at least three times as much as regular CRT monitors, their prices have dropped considerably. The lowest priced model we got in this shootout was from Samsung at Rs 19,500. So, while LCDs are still purchased for special applications, many organizations can now replace their old CRTs and make a fashion statement. The benefits of LCD monitors over regular CRT monitors are fairly well known. They consume far lesser power and emit lower radiation, causing less eye-strain, thereby enabling you to work longer hours on them. Their display quality is also richer and they take up lesser space on the desktop. 

If you’re decided that LCD monitors are for you, then how do you decide which is a good buy? To find out, read our shootout, in which we extensively tested nine 15” LCD monitors from six different manufacturers. Before taking you through the individual reviews, we’ll talk about what we looked for in these monitors. We used our standard trio of performance, features, and price to rate the monitors. The Brown-Gibson model was used to arrive at the

weightages. 

Performance related parameters



All monitors we tested give good display quality if you sit right in front of them and work. However, this quality can degrade if you view them from a horizontal or vertical angle. So check the clarity of display from the sides and top when evaluating a model. There are other performance related parameters as well, which can’t be measured without using special equipment. That’s why we put these specs under features during the evaluatoin. These include brightness level, contrast ratio, and response time. You should go through the monitor’s specs before buying. In the first two, higher rating is better. In the latter, lower is better if you want to use the monitor for applications that require fast moving images like gaming and video playback. 

Features



Since there are lots to consider, we’ve given them in the box above. 

Pricing



We’ve taken the MRPs of all monitors for our evaluation, because it doesn’t fluctuate across regions. So the end user price for all might be much lower, depending upon where you buy it from and how much quantity.

We hope you find our LCD monitor guide useful. Before you read the individual reviews, here’s a useful tip. LCD monitors work best with 32-bit color depth, giving a smoother color gradient, so changeover to it if your display adapter supports it. 

Anindya Roy, Geetaj Channana, Sanjay Majumder