Monitors

LED

A light-emitting diode (LED) display is an LCD display that uses LED backlighting to light the display. LED has lower power consumption than standard LCD backlighting, allows the panel to be thinner, lighter, brighter, and display better contrast.

DLP

A projection technology that uses a spinning color wheel with a microprocessor-controlled array of mirrors

OLED

An organic LED display uses a layer of organic material that responds to electrical stimulus to emit light. This process allows each pixel to light individually, resulting in much deeper black levels than LED. OLED displays are also thinner and lighter than LED displays.

Aspect ratio

Aspect ratio is the horizontal to vertical measurement of the viewing area of a monitor

Dot pitch

Dot pitch is the distance between pixels on the screen. A lower dot pitch number produces a better image.

Brightness

Intensity of the image

Interlace/Non-Interlace

Interlaced monitors create the image by scanning the screen two times. The first scan covers the odd lines, top to bottom, and the second scan covers the even lines. Non-interlaced monitors create the image by scanning the screen, one line at a time from top to bottom.

LCD

Liquid crystal display (LCD) is commonly used in flat panel monitors and laptops. It consists of two polarizing filters with a liquid crystal solution between them. An electronic current aligns the crystals so that light can either pass through or not pass through. The effect of light passing through in certain areas and not in others is what creates the image. LCD comes in two forms, active matrix and passive matrix. Active matrix is sometimes called thin film transistor (TFT). TFT allows each pixel to be controlled, which creates very sharp color images. Passive matrix is less expensive than active matrix but does not provide the same level of image control. Passive matrix is not commonly used in laptops.

Native resolution

Native resolution is the number of pixels that a monitor has. A monitor with a resolution of 1280x1024 has 1280 horizontal pixels and 1024 vertical pixels. Native mode is when the image sent to the monitor matches the native resolution of the monitor.

Plasma

Plasma displays are another type of flat panel monitor that can achieve high levels of brightness, deep black levels, and a very wide range of colors. Plasma displays can be created in sizes of up to 150 inches (381 cm) or more. Plasma displays get their name from the use of tiny cells of ionized gas that light up when stimulated by electricity.

Contrast

Ratio of light to dark

Reset

Returns the monitor settings to factory settings

Contrast ratio

The contrast ratio is a measurement of the difference in intensity of light between the brightest point (white) and the darkest point (black). A 10,000:1 contrast ratio shows dimmer whites and lighter blacks than a monitor with a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1.

Frame rate

The frame rate refers to how often a video source can feed an entire frame of new data to a display. A monitor's refresh rate in Hz directly equates to the maximum frame per second (FPS) of that monitor. For example, a monitor with a refresh rate of 144 Hz will display a maximum of 144 frames per second.

Horizontal, vertical, and color resolution

The number of pixels in a line is the horizontal resolution. The number of lines in a screen is the vertical resolution. The number of colors that can be reproduced is the color resolution.

Refresh rate

The refresh rate is expressed in Hertz (Hz) and refers to how often per second the image is rebuilt. A higher refresh rate produces a better image.

Pixel

The term pixel is an abbreviation for picture element. Pixels are the tiny dots that comprise a screen. Each pixel consists of red, green, and blue (RGB).

Position

Vertical and horizontal location of the image on the screen

Legacy monitors

cathode ray tube (CRT)