Originally posted by: NSA Lummox
a larger dot pitch is worse my friend
dot pitch = distance between dots = clarity/sharpness of image.
you want the distance between the dots to be as small as possible. both those figures are good for lcd's though.
Not quite. On a CRT, dot pitch determines the maximum resolution a screen can display sharply. Increase the resolution beyond the screen dot pitch limits, and the electron gun simply won't be able to hit the pixels accurately and you're blurring pixels together (the blurring occurs in the analog domain). A high-end 19" CRT has a tighter dot pitch than a lower-end 19" CRT.
LCD is what's called a "fixed pixel" display. Every pixel is sharply defined, like squares on a graph paper. If the resolution is too low for the dot pitch, the image is stretched. If the resolution is too high, there's no way to display the image, since LCD's / fixed pixel displays are inherently fully digital. (1)
Therefore, dot pitch doesn't have the same meaning in the LCD world as it does for CRT's. Every LCD, when fed its native resolution is 100% "sharp." Since you're addressing every square on the graph paper individually, you can create perfectly sharp single-pixel-wide lines, and geometric shapes with sharply defined edges.
However, a dot pitch still controls the size of screen elements. On a .258mm screen, a 32x32 icon is 8.256mm diagonal. On a .269mm screen, it's just as sharp - every single pixel is as defined, but it's 8.608mm diagonal. So, things are bigger and a little easier to see.
LCD dot pitch is a function of LCD size and resolution, nothing more and nothing less.
If dot pitch meant clarity, then as the size of the display grows, it becomes less clear if resolution remains the same. That obviously doesn't make sense - a 19" 1280x1024 screen is easier to read than a 17" 1280x1024 screen.
(1) Plasma enthusiasts will be quick to point out that the color / brightness on an LCD is indeed analog-controlled, the variable voltage controls each crystal's light transmission, whereas plasma pixels are controlled by rapidly turning them on and off, which is a digital process. For the purposes of this discussion, we're just concerned with pixel addressing.