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With so many movie enthusiasts and gamers out there the demand for multimedia LCDs is stronger than ever. This has meant that monitor manufacturers have had to rise to the challenge of producing LCDs that can rival the trusty old CRT – the firm favourite among these users up until recently.

I say recently because efforts have been made to make LCDs a true alternative to the traditional CRT-based television and PC monitor. One of the key stumbling blocks in matching an LCD’s performance to that of a CRT’s has been liquid crystal response time. Without going into too much detail a slow response time (considered to be around 30ms or more) can lead to what is commonly known as “motion smearing”, “after images” or a “blurring effect”. This is because liquid crystals tend to respond (twist) slowly to the applied electrical field that is switched in order to turn pixels off and on. Of course there’s a little more to it than that but in essence this twisting and switching takes longer than the time needed to display a single frame of, for instance, a movie sequence. By the time the next frame is displayed the liquid crystals can still be in transitional state thereby leaving an after image from the previous frame.

To minimise this, manufacturers including NEC Display Solutions, have gone back to their drawing boards and have analysed each element that goes into making an LCD with a fast response time. Everything from lower viscosity liquid crystals, narrower pixel cell spacing, and faster electrical and algorithmic processing (Overdrive/FeedForward Driving, Response Time Compensation, etc), have all been employed to bring down response times to around 8ms or even 4ms.

One such monitor that has a claimed 8ms response time is NEC’s MultiSync LCD1970GX. This is a 19in active matrix TFT LCD with a standard 1,280 x 1,024 native resolution. It is one of NEC’s first LCDs to be described as a multimedia display, marking a move by the company to focus on this market sector. In fact, NEC states that the “G” in the model number stands for “Gaming”, “Graphics”, and “Glossy” and indeed where the latter term is concerned there is a noticeable difference between this monitor and your average LCD.

That difference became apparent when I first setup the LCD1970GX and immediately commented on the fact that I needed a haircut. You see, as is common with a number of new notebook displays, NEC has gone for a very glossy, surface finish that some people either love or hate. I personally have a reserved opinion on this. For me it depends on the intended use of the display. For standard, text-based work in the business/office environment I couldn’t think of anything worse to use. It is simply too reflective and the glare from our office lighting is very noticeable. However, in an environment where the lighting can be controlled such as in the home, the display’s picture quality literally comes to life.

For instance, the shiny coating makes blacks appear very black whereas colours appear richly saturated. The high 400 cd/m2 brightness and 700:1 contrast ratio help enhance the LCD1970GX’s vibrancy too and in all honesty this is the closest I’ve seen an LCD get in emulating the look of a CRT monitor, including those undesirable reflections. I have to say though, that I remember criticising CRTs in the past for being over-reflective, which makes me wonder if these glossy LCDs will one day be using enhanced anti-glare coatings? Who’s to know?

As for the design of the monitor, it shares the looks and features of the NEC MultiSync LCD2070NX I reviewed before. It uses the same curvier chassis with an attractively thin pearlescent bezel, a height-adjustable (through 110mm) stand with cable routing, and a 340 degree swivelling base. It also comes complete with an integrated power supply with its own switch. Dual connectivity in the form of both a DVI-D and a D-SUB port also features as well as a handy four port USB2.0 hub for all those input gaming peripherals. On the downside, there's no pivot function and a DVI cable isn't supplied.

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