Acer releases new xSeries LCD monitors

Acer's recently carpet bombed the US with no less than five new LCD monitors in its entry-level xSeries lineup, with models ranging from 17- to 24-inches that are rather obliquely said to be designed for "multimedia, gaming and video applications." Since the specs on these two standard and three widescreen displays are average at best, we're not sure that pros in any of the above mentioned fields would really be interested -- but with prices ranging from $180 (17-inch x171s) to just $600 (24-inch widescreen x241Wsd), they could certainly give Dell, Samsung, and friends a run for their money. Specifically, the two square models (the 17-incher and 19-inch x191sd) share the exact same configuration save for maximum viewing angles, with both displays offering up 1,280 x 1,024 resolutions, eight millisecond response times, 700:1 contrast ratios, and 300cd/m² maximum brightness. The widescreen models do just a little bit better: the 19-inch x191Wsd and 22-inch x221Wsd rock 1,440 x 900 and 1,680 x 1,050 resolutions, respectively, along with five millisecond response times, 800:1 contrast ratios. and the same max brightness as their buddies; meanwhile, the 24-incher steps up the resolution to a pretty standard 1,920 x 1,200, contrast ratio to 1000:1, and brightness to 400cd/m², but retains the five millisecond response time of the other widescreens. Should be in stores now, so go nuts.

[Via PC Launches]

[Jesse S @ Mar 16th 2007 3:31PM]

And yet the 60Hz refresh time only allows a new image every 16ms.

What a waste.

[Kev50027 @ Mar 17th 2007 5:16AM]

You obviously don't know what you're talking about. The new "faster" 120 Hz LCDs make no real difference. According to many pros, there is no conceivable diff. between a 60 and 120 Hz LCD.

It's more marketing lingo that means nothing, sort of like the pixel response times, which are measured in so many different ways that it's impossible to compare displays without actually using both at the same time.

[teklikethis @ Mar 16th 2007 11:14PM]

acer is garbage. never buy them.

[kadajawi @ Mar 16th 2007 10:08PM]

Looks good though. I think so at least, hard to tell from that tiny pic there. Good thing, the Acers were pretty solid, but simply ugly.

[Jesse S @ Mar 17th 2007 10:07AM]

What are you talking about? 60Hz = 1 image every 16ms.

That means the 5ms response rate is worthless, it's always rounded up to 16ms anyway!

[Kev50027 @ Mar 17th 2007 7:41PM]

That's not how things work though, but to keep things simple, I'll agree with you that low pixel response rates mean nothing, because as i explained before, they are measured in so many ways (black to white, grey to grey, grey to white, grey to black, etc) and companies just use the measurement that gives them the best result, which may not represent the monitor's true capabilities.

[Jesse S @ Mar 17th 2007 9:27PM]

You're completely right. I'm not talking about advertised response times.

I'm just stating the fact that no matter what, 60Hz monitors only show 1 new image every 16ms, so it doesn't matter if you have a 1ms monitor, if it's connected at 60Hz.

[meyns @ Mar 18th 2007 2:44PM]

I don't know where you learned that stuff.
As everybody knows f=1/T.
T is time in seconds. f is frequency in hz
If f=60hz, then T=0.016666...s.
And if 1sec=100ms then 0.01666s=1.6666ms.
So theoretically the lowest would be 1.6666ms!!

[CMGOGO @ Apr 2nd 2007 4:54PM]

"If f=60hz, then T=0.016666...s.
And if 1sec=100ms then 0.01666s=1.6666ms.
So theoretically the lowest would be 1.6666ms!!"

Thats some sweet math. Just one problem. 1 second = 1000 ms.
So 16.6666ms is the correct response time.

[Boy-Genius @ Oct 8th 2007 7:03AM]

That's fantastic and all that, but the response time is a highly inflated measure, and ideal times are not real world times. For example, there are high-end S-IPS panels with 8ms response times and almost no ghosting, compared to supposedly 2ms TN panels, which are suppose to be faster, yet still ghost.

The difference between 60hz and 120hz? How likely is it your videocard is going to be breaking 60fps in any modern game at a decent resolution? You trade what you want, but if you've got the thousands to maintain a machine like that, why are you looking at Acer monitors?