LED backlit LCD monitors: CCFL obsolete?

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Mr Evil
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LED backlit LCD monitors: CCFL obsolete?

Post by Mr Evil » Wed Mar 17, 2010 11:36 am

LCD monitors with LED backlights have been expensive in the past, but I had to buy a new monitor recently and saw that they have come down in proce a lot. I therefore decided to try one, and picked up a BenQ V2210 Eco.

One of the first things I did was connect it to my power meter, and the power consumption is a mere 15W with the brightness set at a comfortable 50% and displaying a white screen, compared to 35W for my other, CCFL monitor of the same size. That's a massive difference, and it looks to me like CCFL backlights are going to be a thing of the past very soon.

One thing that's important to note, given that this is SPCR, is that this monitor does emit a slight buzzing sound regardless of brightness setting, audible if I put my ear close to the back of the monitor, though fortunately I can't hear anything from the front.

MtnHermit
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Post by MtnHermit » Sun Mar 21, 2010 6:21 am

Thanks for the post, unfortunately the benq v2210 eco is not available in the US. Tis a shame. A comparable product are the Dell G2x10 LED backlite monitors.

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Post by CA_Steve » Sun Mar 21, 2010 8:21 am

I've been very happy with my two Dell G2410's.

greenfrank
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Post by greenfrank » Sun Mar 21, 2010 3:11 pm

I have a Samsung Widescreen 17" 740NW (not Led). Consumes only 13w.

I don't need another screen for the moment, but in Mexico is possible to buy the Benq Widescreen 18.5" G922HDAL (Led), with (promised) 17w power consumption.

Vicotnik
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Post by Vicotnik » Sun Mar 21, 2010 4:00 pm

Are there any low power IPS monitors? I settled for a Dell U2711 since a TN panel doesn't cut it for me. The U2711 is pretty nice though, except for the cost. About 50W at my current settings. Not that bad for a 27" IPS with CCFL backlight. It's also silent at any brightness setting.

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Post by electrodacus » Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:05 pm

Vicotnik wrote:Are there any low power IPS monitors? I settled for a Dell U2711 since a TN panel doesn't cut it for me. The U2711 is pretty nice though, except for the cost. About 50W at my current settings. Not that bad for a 27" IPS with CCFL backlight. It's also silent at any brightness setting.
50W is not that bad for a 27" IPS with CCFL can you measure the power with brightness down to 0%.
I have a 20" NEC 2090UXi A-TW-IPS and at my current settings is using about 21W you can see more details about power consumption on this small review I made comparing this to a 20" Acer TN see Link.
I will change the NEC to LED backlight some day but I will not win to much probably 3 to 5W less than now.

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Post by lm » Tue Mar 23, 2010 6:46 am

A bit odd that there is no DVI connector on display of the OP.

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Post by Vicotnik » Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:01 am

electrodacus wrote:50W is not that bad for a 27" IPS with CCFL can you measure the power with brightness down to 0%.
43W at 0% brightness.

I usually have the setting at 8%. My old 2405FPW was to bright even at 0% so that I had to adjust the gamma slightly in the driver settings. Nice to not have to do that anymore.

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Post by electrodacus » Tue Mar 23, 2010 9:02 am

Vicotnik wrote:
electrodacus wrote:50W is not that bad for a 27" IPS with CCFL can you measure the power with brightness down to 0%.
43W at 0% brightness.

I usually have the setting at 8%. My old 2405FPW was to bright even at 0% so that I had to adjust the gamma slightly in the driver settings. Nice to not have to do that anymore.
Interesting then 43W is a bit to much for my liking probably they do not reduce to much the light output at 0%. I usually use 25% during the day and about 15% during the night (I also have a capacitive touchscreen on my monitor and that also takes probably 5% of the light and is annoying during the day since is glass and glossy maybe I will remove the touch screen). And this will be about 18W and 21W and at 0% brightness a bit under 15W but of course mine is 20" with 4:3 aspect ratio so much smaller than yours but also the power consumption is 3x less. for now 1600x1200 is enough for me.

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Post by Mr Evil » Tue Mar 23, 2010 10:32 am

lm wrote:A bit odd that there is no DVI connector on display of the OP.
Yeah, it put me off when I saw that, even more so because it only comes supplied with a VGA cable* so I had to pay a bit extra for an HDMI cable. I decided it was ok though, because it is quite nice to use the headphone output on the monitor (audio over HDMI) instead of stretching the headphone cable all the way over to the PC.

*Why do modern monitors even have VGA connectors? Are there even graphics cards out there that can use the full resolution of a monitor this size that don't have digital outputs of some sort?

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Post by psyopper » Tue Mar 23, 2010 10:42 am

Mr Evil wrote: *Why do modern monitors even have VGA connectors? Are there even graphics cards out there that can use the full resolution of a monitor this size that don't have digital outputs of some sort?
VGA is analog RGBHV.

Component video is analog RGB with the H and V sync running on each of the color channels which ultimately reduces available bandwidth on those channels (and duplicates a LOT of signal in order to save two cables).

Component video can drive 1080p by the defined standard. VGA has even more bandwidth and thus higher resolution available.

DOes this answer your question? Not really. But VGA is still a viable transport system. Besides, my netbook doesn't have a digital out...

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Post by lm » Tue Mar 23, 2010 11:04 am

psyopper wrote:DOes this answer your question? Not really. But VGA is still a viable transport system. Besides, my netbook doesn't have a digital out...
I find that odd also. What's the point of putting only a VGA connector on a netbook, when nobody uses CRT monitors anymore?

Digital transport is much more natural with LCDs, i.e. the circuit path is much simpler that way (not taking into account stupid unnecessary things like HDCP).

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Post by psyopper » Tue Mar 23, 2010 12:16 pm

lm wrote:
psyopper wrote:DOes this answer your question? Not really. But VGA is still a viable transport system. Besides, my netbook doesn't have a digital out...
I find that odd also. What's the point of putting only a VGA connector on a netbook, when nobody uses CRT monitors anymore?

Digital transport is much more natural with LCDs, i.e. the circuit path is much simpler that way (not taking into account stupid unnecessary things like HDCP).
Actually, for the most part it helps the netbook manufacturers from having to deal with HD video issues. HDCP 1.1+ prevents anything greater than 1024x768 on the VGA channel which means the best you can get is 480p. Since most non-Ion netbooks can barely even do this very well, it starts to make sense.

I actually have seen a few modern Macbook's get 1280x720 on VGA conversion to a HDTV with HDCP 1.1+ that most Windows machines will still be relegated to 1024x768. Even Bootcamped Windows is still limited... I'd love to know why - it must be a limitation of Windows.

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