Comments

Steve Mann wrote on 1/23/2012, 2:29 PM
There is no simple answer unless you have a lot of money.

If you can afford it, a Studio Reference Monitor from Sony or HP will be perfect.
http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/mkt-broadcast/mkt-broadcaststudio/?navId=4294966589+4294967292+4294966327+4294966325+4294965202&refine=416

Note that they are all LCD monitors.

If you are more in the real-world budget, there are two-types of LED monitors being marketed.

The true LEd monitor uses OLEDs for the image source. They are still very expensive because the yield of large OLED panels is still pretty low. Your iPAD and most smart phones are using OLED displays. These are very good for video reference because they can be accurately calibrated. Blacks are black and whites are pretty close.

The mid-range "LED Monitor" is really an LCD monitor, but with an array of LED's making up the backlight. They have one tri-color LED for a group of pixels in the LCD. These can be made in really large resolutions and can be properly calibrated. These monitors have one backlight LEd for 8X8 or 16X16 pixels. these can be made into very thin and low-power monitors. Cheaper ones can have one backlight LED for 64X64 LCD pixels.

Most of the "LED" monitors in the computer stores just replace the CFL backlight with a row of LED's. The only advantage is lower power consumption. As with most LCd monitors, they cannot be calibrated to reference levels. Black is an illusion and white is whatever color the LED backlight says is white.

I am sticking with my Dell monitors for now. The OLED monitors I've seen would blow your socks off in resolution, sharpness and contrast. But their poor yield is keeping them in the small-monitor use for now.
John_Cline wrote on 1/23/2012, 4:13 PM
"Your iPAD and most smart phones are using OLED displays."

The iPad does not use an OLED display and there are a few smartphone models use OLED displays but certainly not most of them.
Steve Mann wrote on 1/23/2012, 6:59 PM
You are correct about the iPad. Rumor is that the iPad 3 will, however.
Nokia and Samsung high-end smartphones use OLED displaye.
Geoff_Wood wrote on 1/23/2012, 8:14 PM
LED for sure. But note that most (all ?) desktop displays marketed as LED are in fact LCD with LED backlighting. Should be illgal to advertise these as LED.

geoff
Chienworks wrote on 1/23/2012, 9:42 PM
Yep, i've had to explain this many times to folks who were overzealously planning on buying an "LED TV". When i finally got them to understand what it actually meant they've all been appalled and made similar claims that it should be considered illegal advertising.

'Course, the really foolish thing is that i tell them this as they're standing there in the store ooh-ing and ahh-ing the amazingly lovely picture on the screen. Then after i tell them, suddenly the image is crud and worthless. Hmmmm. Did the image quality really change just because they learned how it was produced?
Geoff_Wood wrote on 1/23/2012, 10:33 PM
I was instrumental in having S.msung forced to describe their TVs as "LED-LCD". . Initially even the consumer rights people didn't undferstand.

Are there full-sized directly radiating LED desktop monitors available yet ? Be it OLED or whatever. ?

geoff
John_Cline wrote on 1/23/2012, 11:12 PM
Sony has a range of professional OLED monitors with HDMI inputs that could be used as a desktop computer monitor. They range from $2,725 for a 7" to $6,100 for a 25" to around $26,000 for their ultimate OLED 24.5" 12-bit monitors.

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-monitors/cat-oledmonitors/

Sony has also shown their "Crystal LED displays", they use 6 million front-mounted ultrafine RGB LEDs for the display. They can be considered a true LED TV.