Belinea 10 20 35W

Belinea 10 20 35W

Fast 6 and 8ms panels were already available in all monitor sizes except for 20"s. Several monitors were in line to fill this gap and Acer, Belinea, BenQ, ViewSonic were all planning on releasing a wide P-MVA panel monitor at the end of the year. In the end it was Belinea, which succeeded first and benefited from an early announcement to gain everyone´s attention and press coverage.

They were a bit lucky but justifiably so, as the 10 20 35W deserves it. Belinea releases their monitor at a very interesting price: *see article on Mura effect

Sober, elegant, cheap, the 10 20 35W also includes all the required inputs. There is analog, DVI, sound (it includes speakers for basic sound) and four USB hub ports on top.


The edges of the body are a very thin 1.8 cm wide. One detail that might be a bit of a problem for some webcam users is that the monitor’s thickness varies from 4 cm on the side to 6.5 cm in the centre. To give you an idea, the VP191b is 3.8cm in width (excluding the foot).

LG Flatron L2040P

LG Flatron L2040P

The panel manufacturers LG-Philips and Nec, are the last two big supporters of IPS. Unfortunately for them, this technology is slowing down since the release of fast VA panels. Not so long ago, all 23" monitors and above, in addition to 20"s were all in IPS. This time is over and little by little, all monitor producers turn either to AU Optronics´ MVAs or Samsung´s PVAs. Even graphic designer monitor manufacturer are following suit as we see with Eizo and now LaCie. Only NEC resists.

LG continues and, despite the fact that they are fewer and fewer, keeps those faithful users, who think that IPS are the best, even if this is sometimes hard to justify.

*see article on Mura effect
As you may have noticed we sometimes take the liberty to put quotation marks around some characteristics. LG affirms that this monitor is an IPS but tests give extremely surprising results. More on this below.


As usual with this series, the monitor and body are very elegant. There are only analog and numeric outputs, and no pivot mode, USB hub or specific video inputs…


Videoconference enthusiasts may have some difficulty putting their webcams on the top of the monitor. The upper part is very inclined and thick at 9cm thick on top.

Color quality

Color quality right out of the box

As you will see below, the response times of the latest generation of LCD monitors is no longer an issue. Some readers might still find that LCDs are too slow for the most demanding games (FSP mainly) but for us this problem is now second on the list.


What is important for us now and for months (years?) to come is color quality. If all monitors are fast and have equivalent game and video quality (or at least we feel there are now satisfactory results), accuracy will be a distinguishing characteristic. Performance in this area is quite varied and seems to depend on the manufacturer’s attitude during production. Some just throw the panel, electronic components, and bezel together without the least adjustment. Others, like Eizo, NEC and LaCie, color specialists, calibrate the hardware part of some of their monitors before packing them. More specifically, at the end of the production line, a probe measures colors on the screen and the figure is sent to a computer via video cable and DDC/CI compatibility (cable is bi directional with Nec and LaCie) or via a special USB cable (Eizo). It then rewrites the monitor’s color table (LUT, for Look Up Table) with red, green, blue, and possibly cyan, magneta and yellow (if they are available) to automatically adjust to the color requested.

In the first case, (assembly without adjustments) DeltaE is usually > 10 (the difference between colors requested and the ones displayed). For other monitors, and we verified this in the Eizo S2110W test, the average Delta E right out of the box was 1.4. This is close to perfection.

Some may ask the naïve but useful question of why accurate colors? One answer would be when printing photos. It can very bothersome to detect important color shade differences between the paper and monitor version. This is especially true if you spent a lot of time manually correcting pictures to make them look superb. For games and movies color accuracy is also important as wrong colors might reduce visibility in somber areas of a game.

We remind you that deltaE is a measure between the color requested and the one really displayed on the monitor. The result obtained is also counter-balanced for human eye color sensitivity.

With Delta E > 3 the desired color is noticeably different from the one on the screen.
With 1 < Delta E < 2 colors are accurate. With Delta E < 1, the result is perfect.


Like in the 24" survey, for better readability we take two figures from these graphs, average DeltaE of 18 colors and the color accuracy rate where 100% represents the human eye limit. Beyond this limit even a professional wouldn´t be able to see the difference between the color displayed and the one requested.

Average DeltaE:

Average DeltaE Belinea 10 20 35W = 6,5

Average DeltaE LG Flatron L2040P = 2,5

For comparision with several monitors of reference:

Average DeltaE Samsung 770P (S-PVA 6 ms panel) = 2,7

Average DeltaE Eizo S2110W (S-PVA 8 ms panel) = 1,4

Rate of accuracy

We remind you that we simply reversed the figure found in the previous test (1/Average DetaE)

Behardware accuracy Belinea 10 20 35W = 15 %

Behardware accuracy LG Flatron L2040P = 39 %

Behardware accuracy Samsung 770P = 37 %

Behardware accuracy Eizo S2110W = 71 %

The LG monitor gave us two surprises. The first was because it had quite good initial settings. Those who aren’t graphic artists won´t have to calibrate. The second surprise came in the level of darkness displayed. Previous IPS monitors were usual twice as high and historically this has been one of the weaknesses of this technology.

Miracle? Not really. We will come back to this point below.

Belinea´s adjustments are much more approximate and even quite poor. Obviously, the manufacturer was only concerned with its monitor sticking to the sRGB gamut.


Belinea 10 20 35W / LG Flatron L2040P

We remind you that the gamut is the monitor´s colorimetric range compared to the sRGB range (usually used for digital cameras). It doesn´t correspond to accuracy, but to the amount of reproducible colors. For accuracy, refer to the DeltaE graph above.

Color accuracy after calibration

The two monitors only accept software calibration but this is already enough to considerably improve their quality:



Average DeltaE:

Average DeltaE Belinea 10 20 35W = 0,4

Average DeltaE LG Flatron L2040P = 0,7

Average DeltaE Samsung 770P (dalle S-PVA 6 ms) = 0,36

DeltaE moyen Eizo S2110W (dalle S-PVA 8 ms) = 1,1

Taux de fidélité

Fidélité HFR Belinea 10 20 35W = 261 %

Fidélité HFR LG Flatron L2040P = 143 %

HFR accuracy Samsung 770P = 281 %

Fidélité HFR Eizo S2110W = 92 %

The Samsung P-MVA and S-PVA do very well. Image pros will only have to adjust the brightness level. Here, we are working with the standard settings.

The Belinea 10 20 35W’s standard brightness is 340 d/m² with a black at 0.5 cd/m² (680:1 contrast ratio).

As we said above, the Flatron L2040P is really different from other IPS monitors. White is at 215 cd/m² and black at 0.3 cd/m², or twice the level of other IPS monitors. This is all the more surprising because LG didn’t really inform anyone of these improvements.

Reaction time: 3D, games

Reaction time test 1 : quality for games

A car moves from left to right at high speed.

Movement isn’t perfectly fluid. Depending on its speed, the car is shown in several successive positions. If the car goes very fast, the positions are very close and the eye perceives a flowing movement.

perfect monitor monitor with 3 ghost images
A monitor without ghosting effects would have previous images completely fading away when a new one appears. This is the theory and in practice, it´s often not the case as images fade progressively. Sometimes up to 5 afterglow images remain on the monitor and represent the visible white trail behind objects. Some monitors have strong overdrives in addition to image anticipation algorithms. In this case, an image can appear in front of the main object, creating a white halo in front of objects in motion.

We capture afterglow with a camera at a shutter speed of 1/1000 s. We take 50 pictures per test. We then can see a monitor´s ghosting effects, or all the car´s positions in the entire process.The most important image is the one on the left, the better one. It will be the most displayed on the monitor, while the one on the right is in transition.
These are the two extreme cases between which afterglow can oscillate:

AU-Optronics P-MVA 8 ms panel: Belinea 10 20 35W
NC S-IPS 16 ms panel: LG L2040P

After the surprisingly high black level above, this test leaves us even more perplexed because the L2040P really behaves like a fast VA monitor!

We phoned LG, who confirmed that the L2040P does feature an IPS panel. They added that that if anyone else would have asked the question they would definitively answered IPS. Because it was us, it was a bit more disconcerting. They said they would contact the Korean division to check on this information but still haven´t received an answer.

In this type of situation, the easiest solution is to find a screwdriver and take a look for yourself. The only problem is, in this case undoing to monitor to a look at the panel would ruin the product. We were very lucky to be the first to test a monitor that will be released at best at the end of 2005/early 2006. So, we weren´t going to break it.

Still, there is a trick, which sometimes works with LG monitors. Switch off the monitor by pressing simultaneously the Menu control and a hidden menu can appear showing the panel type. This was partly the case here. The menu displayed the panel manufacturer but not the component reference. It stated AU-Optronics and to our knowledge, AU doesn´t produce IPS panels. In this case it would probably be the M201UN02, an 8 ms response time 4/3 format P-MVA panel.

We were confronted with a real problem. Here was a monitor which will soon hit stores and is presented as an IPS, while it is in fact, and tests confirm, a P-MVA.
A second problem arose after studying the menu. We saw an option which when activated gave us the option of manually modifying the panel origin. Three options are available: AUO, standard choice, Fujitsu and LGP (for LG-Philips). If we think about it, the reason for this choice is a bit frightening. This monitor would be sold, depending on the manufacturer stock, as a different panel. Some will have the same as us, an AUO 8 ms Premium-MVA. Color adjustments are good, reaction time far better than IPS monitors. Except for viewing angles (see further) it is the best choice available.
Others will have in their monitor an IPS panel. If it is the same since our last tests, reaction time will be less, the contrast ratio lower, black less deep, but with wider viewing angles. Movie quality might also be less good.
Others who aren´t as lucky will get the Fujitsu, a severe punishment. We remind you that we tested their latest 8 and 12 ms panels in our last big 19" monitor survey, 4, 6, 8 ms, TN, IPS, VA.... Two monitors included Fujitsu panels the Iiyama H1900 and Sony SDM-HS95P and had lower reaction times than the others. LG is still enquiring and will come back to us ASAP to shed some light on this situation, which is a bit of a problem for everyone.

In the meantime, here is a comparison of these two monitors with some of our references.

Samsung S-PVA 6 ms panel: Samsung SyncMaster 770P

The result is comparable to that provided by AUO P-MVA 8 ms panels. It’s good but a bit lower that fast TN monitors.

AU-Optronics TN 4 ms panel: BenQ FP91V
At its best the image is perfect. Those who have a good sight will barely see a transparent image behind the main object. At its worst there are two simultaneous images. This is really difficult to see and capture as it only briefly appears on the monitor. Most pictures were closer to the first result.


CRT: Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 930SB

Reaction test 2: 3D design, dark scenes in games

This time we looked at afterglow with two opposite colors, white and black. This can represent the afterglow generated when a scene in a game goes from dark to white or is even of interest to graphic designers when an object moves in wire frame mode in a different colored background.

AU-Optronics P-MVA 8 ms panel: Belinea 10 20 35W
NC S-IPS 16 ms panel: LG L2040P

We made this test before contacting LG but our suspicions began to rise. The result is much too similar with the two monitors.

As always, here are a few additional performances to compare with these fine monitors. They have great results even if their reaction time is a bit lower than fast TNs:

Samsung S-PVA 6 ms panel: Samsung SyncMaster 770P
AU-Optronics TN 4 ms panel: BenQ FP91V
Afterglow is steady and almost equals zero with this 4ms. This shows the enormous progress made this year. The afterglow is much lower than the one observed with a cathode monitor:

CRT : Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 930SB

Films, viewing angles

Movies

One has 4/3 format and the other is wide. The Belinea is apparently better for DVDs. It will provide a bigger image: 40.7 cm long for LG as compared to 43.3 cm for the 10 20 35W.

In terms of quality, once again it’s extremely close. As usual with overdrive panels there is a twinkling effect, less than the IPS but much more than MVA 25ms panels. We don’t miss the MVA 25ms as these monitors had very high afterglow effects. (We have even recently ordered a recent MVA 25ms and a little twinkling is much better than afterglow).


None of the monitors, however, seems to be compatible with the new HDCP norm, which is indispensable to display protected HD movies (Blue-Ray, HD-DVD). This isn´t currently a problem, but some day you might be frustrated after having bought the HD edition of your favourite movie and your monitor display the error message, "security requirements to display the content aren´t reached". At best, you will see it in lower resolution. Great!

Viewing angles

Photos are taken from 50°. The monitor’s usual characteristics are:

TN panels: lower viewing angle turns to black

IPS panel: widest viewing angles, almost no degradation at 50°

VA panel: above viewing angle and the side mainly tends to whiten a bit.

Here are the results of the two monitors tested here:

AU-Optronics panel: Belinea 10 20 35W
??? ??? ms panel: LG Flatron L2040P

This test really revealed the panel’s identity. The LG monitor doesn´t behave like an IPS, but like a true VA. So, here’s our question:

What whitens from the side and above, has a very deep black, and has much higher reaction time than previous ISP 16 ms monitors.

The answer is an ISP panel according to LG and a P-MVA according to us. As explained in the previous pages, it’s impossible to open the monitor and not break the bezel, so we had to access a hidden menu, which seems to confirm our opinion. The panel included is an AU-Optronics and the manufacturer doesn´t have any IPS panels so far. For comparison, here is the result of a real IPS monitor.

LG-Philips S-IPS 16 ms panel: Philips 200P4SS

And here is a TN monitor. It´s easy to recognize, because the inferior viewing angle turns black :
AU-Optronics TN 4 ms panel: BenQ FP91V

Conclusion

Conclusion

Our first expectation was in reaction time. For this aspect it’s a real success, and they are comparable to the previous fast VA 17, 19 and 24" monitors we tested. They have similar viewing angles and reaction time in games. LG wins this contest because their standard color quality is much better. It is, however, much more expensive.

And still we can´t recommend it and it’s even the opposite. For now avoid it. We don´t know if the monitor you will buy will be comparable to the one tested here. As we said in our tests, the L2040P’s results are very surprising. LG´s attitude is even stranger if, as we suspect, it is in fact equipped with a P-MVA panel and not a S-IPS. The choices in the hidden menu disparage us even more. We are happy in the end to have received this panel, but unfortunately there is no guarantee that monitors in stores until the end of December will feature the same components. By the hidden data found in the OS, we guess that there will be at least three (simultaneous) versions released.

Based on this fact, even if the monitor is really good and we like its color quality, LG headquarters deserves a red card if they have deliberately masked the real origin of the panel to their subsidiaries. This policy based on available stocks isn´t acceptable for any manufacturers, especially LG, which sells expensive products to faithful customers who look for IPS panels. Users which recieve the same panel will be pleased by the result, more so, we think, than with an IPS. This isn´t what they were expecting, however, and hardcore IPS supporters might be very disappointed especially if they were planning on using it for its viewing angles.

In the end, Belinea, with its 10 19 20 will benefit and release a monitor, which will certainly have great sales.




Take a look at the manufacturers´ dead pixel policies!