All Kinds of Computer Monitors

When going out with the honorable intention of buying yourself a computer monitor, or if you want to buy one for that special someone (right!), then you have to know what you're dealing with. You don't want people to look at you thinking you don't know anything about computer displays, do you?

First of all, there are two main kinds of computer monitors, if you choose to classify them by the technology used to display the images. The first category, which is slowly becoming extinct, contains the CRT monitors. CRT stands for Cathode Ray Tube. The design sounds very sci-fi and it consists in some sort of tube that contains an electron source, namely an electron gun (not dangerous) and a screen that is fluorescent. The images are created using different means of deflecting and accelerating the beams from the gun. It's a really complicated design for someone who isn't so hardware-oriented, like myself.

The important fact is that you won't find too many CRT monitors nowadays. As I mentioned before, they are slowly going extinct because of the LCD revolution. There were times when the LCDs were much less popular than the CRTs. Back then, LCDs were mainly designed for laptops (in the PC market) and were a lot more expensive, so people used to stick with the cheaper alternative of the CRT. Nowadays, LCDs have lowered their prices and almost everyone has one for their computer. Besides the fact that they are much easier to carry around, they are really less harmful for your eyes. Also, they consume less power. There are some disadvantages to these, though, like the limited viewing angles or the dead pixels problem. I think you're aching to know how LCDs work, too. Well, LCD is short for Liquid Crystal Display and the images are really formed using crystals. Actually, a liquid crystal solution, bounded by two polarizing sheets of material. When current is passed through this solution, the crystals become aligned and don't let light pass through. Therefore, the crystals either block the light or not.

But when buying a monitor, you don't just care about how it displays the image. There is also the question of image quality and resolution. Most of us today want a 720p HD monitor, if not a Full HD 1080p one. Just to get things straight, I'll have you informed that a HD monitor is a monitor with the capacity of displaying a very high resolution image. If you want a HD monitor, you have to look for one with a native resolution of something X 720 pixels or something X 1080 pixels. Lastly, when buying a monitor don't forget: widescreen is in, square is out. Just think about it: the image in the cinema is not square, is it? Neither should the movies you watch on your computer. Now that you know the basics, you're free to go out and explore the possibilities.