LG L1920PQ

[Spacecomber]

I recently picked up an LG 1920PQ from NewEgg. The specifications at first had me thinking that this was going to be some sort of MVA or IPS panel, but now that I've had a chance to use it a bit, I'm almost certain that this is a TN panel LCD. To my eyes, it shows the tell-tale signs of a quickly darkening image when you look at the screen from an angle below straight-on and the screen takes on a slightly yellowish tinge when viewed from an extreme side angle. The 8ms response time seems about right, but this monitor is advertised as being capable of 16.7 million colors and having 170 degree viewing angles for both horizontal and vertical angles.

I'm skeptical about the 16.7 million colors, now, and I can see for myself that the vertical viewing angles are less than the horizontal angles.

Anyway, this seems to be a decent TN panel, but otherwise nothing special. Does anyone else have any comments or information regarding this monitor?

Space

 

[Spacecomber]

I contacted LG customer support with my question about what sort of panel might be used in this monitor. They informed me that it uses an LG-made IPS panel. I'm still unconvinced, because the viewing angles just don't look like what you'd expect from an IPS panel. I also visited the LG-Philips web site to check on the characteristics of their 19" panels. They list a couple of 6-bit + FRC panels, which would appear to be TN panels, and one S-IPS panel. However, the S-IPS panel's specifications do not match up with the specs of the L1920PQ (the S-IPS panel listed on the LG-Philips site has wider viewing angles and a slower response time than the LCD in question).

Maybe I'm just showing my ignorance, but I'm still unconvinced that this is anything other than a TN panel LCD.

Space

 

[jfunk]

Just ordered one last night. I'm curious now too.

LG seems very up front about which panels are 6-bit and 8-bit on their site, and they clearly state in the specs of this model on their site that it is indeed 8-bit. I certainly hope this is true, as it's the main reason I went with this vs. the VX922.

I have seen one other thread somewhere (not sure if it was here or another site), where another user stated that they were told by LG that it was an IPS panel, although he was not able to confirm this in anyway. Seemed more likely to be a MVA panel though with the 8ms response, I think most (all?) IPS's are higher than that.

Well, I guess I'll be happy either way if the IQ is nicer than the VX922 and it is still fast enough to not have major ghosting. Otherwise I'll just wish I went with the Viewsonic. On the other hand, LG support seems to be superb whereas I've heard a lot of complaints about warranty service from VS.

 

[Spacecomber]

I'd be interested in what you think of this LCD, when you get it. I certainly am not saying its a bad monitor; it just seems more like a good TN panel than a IPS panel. I've never heard of IPS panels having that tendency to darken as you look at them from below head-on, and I can't detect any of the purplish hue that an IPS panel usually displays when viewed from the side. So, if this is an IPS panel, it's atypical compared to what I'm use to seeing.

When I bought this panel, NewEgg was selling it for around $260; so, I can't really complain about having paid too much, even if it turns out to be a TN panel. I got it for someone who will be using it as an office computer, and I think it will be fine for that purpose.

Space

 

[drwho9437]

Space,

Are you the one who posted the Newegg review of it. I pretty much have the same concerns as you however, I am after an S-IPS panel for image work.

LG's panel parts website show NO panels that match the specs of the L1920PQ. The VA is listed at 700 as I remember, but the angle of the TNs are all less than that, while the S-IPS is 780. Thus to me its an open question. I wish manufactures would just list the panel tech. It would make my life easier...

 

[Spacecomber]

Yeah, I did write a NewEgg review questioning what sort of panel this monitor comes with. I really don't know what it uses, since I'm not comfortable trying to open it up. It may be somesort of variation on the IPS panel that leaves it with characteristics more like those of a TN panel. Certainly, LG claims that this is a S-IPS panel of their manufacture.

What I can talk about is my own experience of looking at it. This monitor's horizontal viewing angles are very good, but the vertical viewing angles are dramatically less forgiving. This monitor also tends to look too bright, with washed out or bleached out looking colors, at least as it comes out of the box. I've been trying to tweak the brightness, contrast, and gamma settings in order to give the colors better saturation. The brightness setting seems to do surprisingly little when going all the way from 0 to 100 on its scale, and the monitors gamma adjustment only allows three settings (one step up or down from the default).

I tried using the display adjustment wizard that is part of Nividia's video control panel, and this really made apparent to me how sensitive this screen is to slight differences in your viewing angle. If you are familiar with this Nvidia utility, you know that it requires you try to match colored bands to help adjust the color gammas. This is very difficult to do on this monitor, because even moving your head up and down slightly has a noticable impact on the shade of a color.

The botttom-line, at least for me at this point, is that this monitor would be fine for things like text editing, web-browsing, watching movies (especially with it's good horizontal viewing angles and bright image), and gaming (the 8ms response time seems about right), but I don't think that it will be very satisfactory for photo editing, because the color shades change too quickly with shifts in your vertical viewing angle.

Since I really don't know a good way to distinguish a high quality 6-bit + FRC monitor from a true 8-bit monitor, just by looking at the image, I can't really say much about whether this monitor is or isn't capable of 16.7 million colors.

If I had something like a Samsung 940B (which uses a TN panel), it would be interesting to compare it with the L1920PQ, side by side.

Space

 

[Dkcode]

Im using a NEC LCD2080UXi which uses a 8bit S-IPS pannel and i used to own a TN 6bit Viewsonic VP171B (16msec version) which i sold to my friend. Have you tried looking for dithering on your new monitor to try and tell if it is only 16.2m colours mixed up to 16.7? I know after using the LCD2080UXi and using the old VP171B i can clearly tell where the dithering takes place.

 

[jfunk]

Got mine yesterday. Haven't fully tested it yet, but based on first impressions:

1. Vertical viewing angle is most certainly not 170. Just slouching slightly vs sitting up straight makes a big difference in colors. Horizontal viewing angles seem good though.

2. Decent amount of backlight bleeding on top and bottom.

3. Color looks great.

4. No real banding issues. themillbank.com shows banding on their white-black gradient, but it's not too bad (it's as good as I've seen that site look on any LCD I've tried). The bands are present, but are uniform in size (small) and the color progresses normally (ie - looks nothing like the terrible image that site produces on my friend's 2007fpw). Other color gradiant tests I looked at showed no visible banding at all.

5. Could not detect any ghosting in about a 1/2 hour of COD2.


Thus far I'm quite pleased for the price. I can definately see the vertical viewing angle being a problem for a lot of people, but it doesn't bother me much. I think it was a good compromise between a faster 6-bit panel and a slow 8-bit panel, especially for the price. Seems hard to find an 8-bit 19" for a decent price that isn't super slow.

Anything specific you want me to check?

j

 

[Spacecomber]

I appreciate the feedback on your experience with this monitor. It pretty well is in keeping with mine, which at least helps convince me that I wasn't somehow getting some oddball results.

It sounds like perhaps your monitor show less what I would consider too much brightness. But, this may also just be a subjective feeling. I tend to run my monitors at lower brightness levels, in general. I don't have the monitor hooked up at the moment (I actually picked this up for someone else's system); but I think I ended up with the brightness and the contrast both set to something in the 50 to 60 range, and I used my video card's control panel to turn down the gamma a small amount. Using the monitor's gamma adjustment to lower the gamma seemed to be a bit too much; so, I used the video card's color correction, instead.

I sure would love to know more about the panel that this monitor is using. It seems to be rather unique. The range of color production seems to be good. Using the DisplayMate trial version, it shows all the steps in the color gradients, except for the last or darkest one, for each of the different color bands. The horizontal viewing angles are great, the response time is good, and only the vertical viewing angle stands out as a weakness. The price it has been selling at makes it quite affordable.

With regard to being able to find a real standout monitor in the 19" size, I suspect that the range of 19" panels being made is essentially the same as those available in the 17" size range, which means about 90% (guesstimating) of them are TN panels. This seems to make sense, since the 19" are just "stretched" 17" panels. I'm afraid that we are to the point, now, where you really only find truly better panels by going up to LCDs that are 20" or bigger.

Space

 

[jfunk]

The brightness was certainly high for me too. I had to turn it down, but I also think it's not affecting me as much because of the way I'm viewing it. The desk I use is rather high, so my eye level is only about 25% of the way up from the bottom. The brightness is a lot lower looking up at it from an angle like that than it is when I look at it head on.

 

[drwho9437]

I looked at one of these at a best buy (at least I think it was this model) and I can say it wasn't TN. As it didn't go black at low angles, it could be MVA/PVA or IPS I don't know.
That said I think LG might be like dell and use whatever panels they have the most of for their LCDs. I tired accessing the service menu via the normal hold down the menu button turn it on trick but no luck on BB panel. If you can figure out of to get the the service menu I think that will tell you for certain space.

 

[Spacecomber]

I don't know if it was the same monitor or not. The darkening of the screen from a viewing angle below head-on is pretty noticable with the L1920PQ. The only models listed on the BB website from LG are the L1952T, L1932TQ, and L1970HR. Of course what is available in a local store may be different from what they show online.

I think that there was an earlier L1920P (without the Q?) that used a 25ms MVA panel.