Don’t get lost in the panel jungle – How to choose the right monitor

Employees and IT decision-makers spend a lot of hours in front of their monitors each day. Kevin Yang, Technical Product Manager Europe at MMD explains what you should know about panels when you pick your new monitor.

Q: What are the most important features and benefits of IPS and VA panels?

We believe that the various panel types have been somewhat stereotyped over the years. IPS as well as VA panels have been in the market for almost 20 years, and the original versions of those panels had a bad name in certain aspects. Compared to LCD TN panels, IPS once had the reputation of suffering from slow response times, blurring, and ghosting, but that is no longer the case. Modern IPS panels are much improved, with reasonable response times for example, and suit many different application purposes. The same applies to VA panels, which have always been famous for having a better contrast ratio than IPS and TN. On the downside VA panels were said to have poor response time and to lack colour accuracy, in comparison to IPS. However, today’s monitors no longer have these problems; we have VA panels with fast response times and even Quantum Dot technology that allows a better colour quality than IPS.
 
Q: What kind of panel is best suited for graphic designers or video makers?

Colour accuracy is very important to graphic designers, which is why IPS panels are recommended for this group. We would say this is also the case for video makers, except they need excellent resolution as well, since higher resolution monitors make it easier to edit video. For example, rather than having two monitors next to each other, one for the video and one for the control panels, they should go for minimum 34-inch 21:9 monitors that allow both on one screen, which is a real benefit.

Q: How about companies looking to increase employee productivity?

It mostly depends on what kind of work employees are going carry out on the monitor, but generally speaking it is better to have a panel with a flicker-free backlight or a low blue light functionality. This avoids headaches after long hours spent in front of the screen and reduces shortwave blue light rays, which are potentially harmful to the eyes. If the user has a multi-screen setup, borderless panels are the best choice because they enable a better integration of the screens.

Q: And what should home users look for?

For general home use, a regular monitor with Full HD for web browsing is more than enough, but casual gamers might want a large-screen monitor on which they can play console games and watch videos.

Q: Which refresh rate should a typical home or office user look for?

60 Hz is currently the top choice for these users – only dedicated hardcore gamers would benefit from 144 Hz panels. In fact, over the next year we are going to launch super high-resolution monitors, even 8K, with the very best colour quality, HDR technology, and yet they are still at 60 Hz because there is just no need to go beyond that. Right now, there are no movies or multimedia content that can benefit from a faster refresh rate than 60 Hz; it is really just for hardcore gaming.

 

About MMD
MMD is a wholly owned company of TPV established in 2009 through a brand license agreement with Philips. MMD exclusively markets and sells Philips branded LCD displays worldwide. By combining the Philips brand promise with TPV’s manufacturing expertise in displays, MMD uses a fast and focused approach to bringing innovative products to market. MMD serves the Western European markets from its headquarters in Amsterdam. The Eastern European and CIS markets are served by a local office in Prague. Through its network of local sales teams MMD works with all major IT distributors and resellers. The company’s design and development centre is located in Taiwan. www.mmd-p.com

Press contact:
united communications GmbH
Elena Strzelczyk
Rotherstr. 19
10245 Berlin
Tel.: +49 30 7890760
Philips.Displays@united.de

Company contact Europe:
MMD
Xeni Bairaktari
Prins Bernhardplein 200, 6th floor
1097 JB Amsterdam
Tel: + 31 20 5046945
xeni.bairaktari@tpv-tech.com

This release was published on openPR.