The computer monitor.
You know I actually think this is one of the most important, yet most overlooked parts
of a computer.
When you see people talking about buying a new computer or even building one, of course
the first thing you hear about is the graphics card, the CPU, the amount of RAM, and all
that.
But if you think about it, the monitor is the thing you're going to be staring at all
day, so it's important to have one you're really happy with.
Now if you already like your monitor don't let me tell you otherwise, but maybe there
are those of you out there who never really thought about it.
Maybe you're just waiting for an excuse to upgrade it.
So in this video I'll cover reasons you may or may not want to get a new monitor, types
of monitors, specs to consider, and just fun things to consider.
Because maybe I'm weird, but yes I do think talking about monitor specs is fun.
Before we move on I want to give a quick shout out to the sponsor of this video, Skillshare,
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Alright, so let's get into the different types of monitors out there.
Obviously this is pretty important, so you know what you have, and also which one you
might want to get next.
Right now there are three main types of panels, TN which stands for Twisted Nematic, VA which
stands for Vertical Alignment, and IPS or In-Plane-Switching.
There are some variations for each but those are the main catagories.
Now you might be hoping I'll be able to say that one of these is definitely the best,
no debate needed.
But like most things, that's not the case.
Because each type of monitor has advantages and disadvantages that makes each better for
some purposes than others.
Like whether you need a gaming monitor, or one for photo editing.
And even what TYPES of games you play will determine which would be best.
So it's really not so simple.
First of all, you should hopefully know what kind of monitor you have, or at least figure
it out.
If you just have what you might consider a "typical" computer monitor that either came
with the computer, or you bought one off the shelf because of the price, chances are you
have either a TN or VA panel.
And these aren't necessarily bad, but they are less expensive.
On the other hand, you might also have an IPS, which are more expensive but have been
coming down in price in the past years.
Knowing which monitor you have will let you know if maybe you don't have the best kind
for what you're using it for.
Alright so I'm sure you want me to get to the point, what is the difference between
all these anyway.
How about we start off with TN panels.
In general, these are the least expensive monitors so they're probably the most common.
But there are exceptions of course.
TN panels typically have the least accurate colors and contrast levels out of all the
monitors, so if you purely want to go for image quality, there are better options.
That doesn't mean the screen will look like crap, but maybe the reds will be a bit oversaturated,
or the black levels aren't very deep, that sort of thing.
Just not very accurate.
However, TN panels do have one major advantage over other current panel types, which is that
they can have very short response times, or input latency.
So this actually makes them ideal for certain types of games, like first person shooters,
where it's extremely important to be able to do flick shots or whatever, and have your
crosshair move as soon after you move your mouse as possible.
A lot of times you will see specialty E-Sports monitors that are TN panels, and actually
pretty darn expensive.
And you might look at that and say, why does this monitor cost so much, it's just a TN.
Well it's because the whole thing was specifically designed to have minimum input latency, and
the TN panel is part of that.
For a special case like E-sports, you also don't really care about color accuracy either.
But on the other hand, if you play something like league of legends, input latency isn't
as critical as say Counter-Strike.
On the other side of the price spectrum, we have IPS panels.
Right now these are pretty much the gold standard of image quality and color accuracy.
If you do professional photo or video editing and go to look for a color accurate monitor,
they'll basically all going to be IPS.
And not only are the colors and contrast better, but they have superior viewing angles as well,
so if the monitor will look better if you aren't looking straight on to it.
You'll also a lot of times see IPS monitors that are even 10 bit as opposed to normal
8 bit.
And you would know if you had a 10 bit monitor, because you typically have to see them out.
If you aren't familiar with what that means, let me give you a quick run down.
Basically 8 bit refers to how much information you use for each color channel to determine
pixel color.
8 bit is 2^8 power, and results in 256 shades of each channel, red green blue, and 256 times
256 times 256 is around 16 million total colors.
But 10 bit is 2^10 power, which is 1024 shades each, which means a 10 bit monitor can display
over a billion unique colors.
So it's no surprise that 10 bit monitors are going to be used by photographers especially,
because they want to be able to see more of the color information their camera captured.
And believe it or not, raw camera images might contain up to 14 bit images, so theoretically
can distinguish trillions of colors.
But I digress.
OK so a good IPS monitor will look the best.
So what's the downside?
Besides price, the main downside of IPS is that it is relatively slow.
The input latency or response time is much longer than TN.
This also means that motion blur will be more significant in fast moving images.
Right now it seems that the fastest IPS panels, like those built for gaming, are around 3
milliseconds, where as a TN might be less than 1.
But a regular non-gaming focused IPS will be slower than that.
Now I'm sure many of you are thinking, are you kidding, who cares about 2 milliseconds?
And you're right, if you don't know any different, you probably won't care.
All I know is having used a gaming TN panel, and trying an IPS with 4 millisecond latency,
it did feel off.
Also you'll want to consider that to get that low of a response time on an IPS, you'll have
to cough up a lot of cash, because IPS is already more expensive.
I think for the vast majority of people, if you can afford one, IPS monitors will be most
enjoyable, just because they look the best.
And it just doesn't make sense for the average person to sacrifice image quality just for
the small fraction of time they spend playing a specific game.
So what about that third type of monitor, the VA or Vertical Alignment panel?
This is pretty much a balance between TN and IPS, both in terms of image quality and price.
It has decent viewing angles, contrast, color, and input latency.
There isn't really too much to say other than if you want a good all around monitor that
won't break the bank, VA will get the job done.
Alright, now that you've learned about the overall types of panels, you have to look
at all the other specs.
I already discussed bit depth and input latency, so I won't go further into those.
The other main factors you'll want to look at are resolution and refresh rate.
And again, the answer may not be so clean cut.
We all would obviously LOVE to have a super high resolution, high framerate monitor, but
they simply don't exist.
Just from the fact that video cable technology can't handle that kind of bandwidth.
For resolution you can go from 1080p, to 1440p, to 4k, or even up to an insane 8K by dell.
And for refresh rate, there's the average boring 60Hz, up to a whopping 240Hz today.
And again, what specs you get will depend on both how much you're willing to spend,
and what you need it for.
I personally think that everyone can benefit from a high refresh rate monitor, because
even on the desktop it looks really nice and smooth.
And for gaming, it's really like night and day, you just can't go back.
So I think that no matter what monitor you get next, seriously consider getting one that's
at least 120Hz, before even considering resolution.
In fact, my monitor back here is 1080p, 240Hz, because I'm crazy.
On the other hand, if you're obsessed with resolution, you could go with Dell's 8K, but
remember it's a maximum of 60Hz.
And everything on the screen is going to look microscopic.
Or if you want the best of both worlds, you can wait till later this year, when I hear
we'll be getting some 4K, 144Hz, HDR monitors from Acer and Asus.
Oh boy.
Which brings me to an important point about all this.
You have to consider what refresh rate and resolution your computer can even handle.
I don't think many people would be able to run their favorite games at 4K 144Hz at anything
above lego quality settings.
So again look at the use case before you buy.
Though I did forget to mention one thing, which may seem pretty obvious.
Which is you don't have to get rid of your old monitor when you get a new one.
You can hook up both and have dual monitors.
Maybe you have one monitor for image quality, and one for gaming, which is actually what
I do.
My second monitor is more accurate, so I edit on that one.
Or maybe you want to get a new monitor specifically to be a second monitor, and keep your current
monitor as your primary.
There's nothing wrong with getting a second monitor just to have more screen real estate,
and then maybe even none of the specs matter.
Maybe you do streaming or something, and just want a second monitor to watch the stream
chat, in which case the monitor could be black and white for all you care.
So clearly there is a lot to consider when thinking about getting a new monitor.
If you don't feel that your current monitor is holding you back, then it probably doesn't
make sense to get a new one.
But if your monitor has been giving you trouble, or doesn't do what you wish it could, at least
now you know all your options.
Or who knows, I bet there are some out there who thought they needed a new monitor, but
realized the one they have is the best choice anyway.
In any case, I hope you guys were able to find this video helpful, and I'd love to hear
what you think down in the comments section.
And don't forget to check out everyone elses comments for suggestions, becuse obviously
I don't know everything.
If you want to keep watching, here's a couple videos I think you'll like, you can just click
on those.
And if you want to subscribe, I make new videos tuesday thursday saturday.
Again I'm looking forward to hearing from you, so thanks for watching, I'll see you
next time, have a good one.