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The first thing you will notice when you unpack the LG Flatron L1980Q is it's quality finish. The base is a shiny chrome color. The display casing is smooth and clean looking. The next thing you will notice is the 8ms response time. This 19" feature packed display is a little more expensive such as the Samsung 193p we reviewed a while back. Even more with the LG L1980Q, it's worth every penny!! The L1980Q features excellent viewing angles, giving you a clear picture as you work or have others looking over your shoulder watching you play (or work.). The 8ms response time and incorporated image enhancement chip make this LCD one of the best in the market for gaming, multimedia use, and plain old web browsing and office use. AutoPivot and AutoMirror functions allow you to swivel and pivot the display if you like to change things up a bit when reading long documents or have a reason to quickly tilt the display backwards to show a presentation.
Click on picture to enlarge image
The brightness and image quality of this LCD is amazing. LG recently developed a feature called the f_engine and the industry's FIRST Picture-Quality Enhancement Chip. The "f"in FLATRON f-Engine represents "fine", as well as fine color, fine image, and fine view, thus implementing a greatly enhanced picture quality. The electronics giant uses DAFI (Digital Adaptive Fine Image) technology in the FLATRON f-Engine, which does not affect color, but enhances brightness and contrast. Initially undertaken last year, the company has just recently completed the development of the technology. The DAFI technology includes a RCM (Real Color Management) function to express vivid natural colors, an ACE (Adaptive Color and Contrast Enhancement) function to enhance brightness and contrast, and enables dynamic mobile imaging. The technology is ideal for mobile imaging in TV, film, mobile games, and animation.

Specifications

Model Display Type Pixel Pitch Max Color Display Size Viewing Angle Resolutions Supported Recommended Resolution Response Time
Flatron L1980Q Color Active Matrix TFT LCD Screen 0.294mm x 0.294mm Pixel 16.2 Million (6 Bits + FRC) 19" Horizontal: 160 , Vertical: x 350 up to 70Hz, 640 x 480 up to 75Hz, 720 x 400 up to 70Hz, 800 x 600 up to 75Hz, 832 x 624 up to 75Hz, 1024 x 768 up to 75Hz, 1280 x 1024 up to 75Hz 1280 x 1024 8ms
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Contrast Ratio Brightness Panel Surface
500:1 250cd/m2 Hard Coating 3H, Anti-Glare Brightness, Contrast, Gamma, Horizontal/Vertical Position, Clock, Phase, OSD Position, f-Engine(Preset modes), Color Temp (9300K, 6500K, User), Language, Factory Reset, ADC Calibration, Auto Input Analog RGB 15-Pin D-SUB and DVI-D Horizontal: 30-83kHz Vertical: 56-75Hz 16.6" x 10.3" x 16.1" (WxDxH)

User Controls

Input Video Signal Signal Cable Frequency Dimensions Adding It All Up

I thought the Samsung SyncMaster 193p was going to be the best quality LCD I would ever see. The LG L1980Q not only matches that quality, it adds an 8ms response time to it. Making this display the complete package. Sure you can buy a less expensive 19" LCD with a 16, 12, or even a 8ms response time. But you will not find one with as good of looks and quality with the super fast response time this unit has. The only drawback we found, which isn't a big deal, was the vertical adjustment on the stand was limited. If you like your display high, you will have to put it on a monitor stand. With the large 19" viewing area most users will be happy with the height adjustments available. We took the L1980Q with us to game on at PDX LAN in late March. Sitting right next to us we had gamers with Viewsonic and Dell 17", 19", and 20" LCD displays that are popular among gamers. Every person that walked by this LG LCD had to stop and look at it and ask about it. The display catches your eye with the quality finish and excellent picture. The brightness and clarity was unmatched even by the Viewsonic VG710s we took with us. Want to get your gaming rig noticed, put one of these next to it!!! People will stop and might even notice your modded case after drooling over the LG L1980Q 19" LCD. Because of the excellent quality and super-fast 8ms response time, we are awarding the LG Flatron L1980Q LCD the UpgradAdvisor. com Recommended Upgrade seal of approval!!!
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LG L1980Q Flatron Slim 19" Monitor review @ TechSpot

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July 28, 2005

LG L1980Q Flatron Slim 19" Monitor review @ TechSpot Security researcher quits job to defy Cisco AOL tests mobile search Windows Vista Beta 1 arrives Tiny PCs goes into administration Mozilla's Firefox has been downloaded 75 million times Vonage to offer Motorola VT2442 voice-over-IP gateway to customers VIA warns of Serial ATA II incompatibility Nero announces NeroLINUX 2.0.0.2 Latest 100 Comments
LG L1980Q Flatron Slim 19" Monitor review
By Paul Bouthiller on July 28th, 2005 Editor: Julio Franco Manufacturer: LG Electronics Product: L1980Q Flatron Slim 19" Monitor Find LCD monitor prices
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Like any other major product in its virgin state, the introduction of LCD monitors into the mainstream required hurdling several obstacles, with the highest one being price. High prices, small screens, dead pixels, reliability, response time, color intensity, and the grainy look, all made previous LCD monitors not very practical for the average PC buyer. The cons definitely outweighed the pros, but its still always been difficult to resist the space saving design of the LCD monitor. Todays LCD monitors are competitively priced, offer outstanding reliability, and look better than ever. The problems that once plagued the LCD industry are now corrected, and the new trend is focused on functionality and great looks. The LG 1980Q 19 LCD monitor we are testing today looks absolutely gorgeous, and offers a plethora of different features that are sure to make your LCD monitor experience a good one.
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Some Company Background

LG is an innovative electronics company that dates back to 1958, when Goldstar was established in Korea. They created the first radio, television, refrigerator, air conditioner and telephone in Korea over a ten year span. Goldstar was the first in the electronics industry to reach export of $100 million to the United States, and created their sales subsidiary in the U.S. in 1978. In 1995, Goldstar changed their name to LG, which is what they keep using today. After acquiring Zenith and participating in a joint venture with Philips, LGPhilips Displays was produced. LG currently employees over 55,000 people, and its primary focus is on Digital TV, CD/DVD drives, PCs, monitors, and mobile headsets.

Whats Included

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I have reviewed quite a few LG products in the past, and they usually dont miss a beat when it comes to included items. In the box were the monitor, DVI cable, D-SUB cable, power supply, and even a wall mount attachment (with anchors and screws). Two sets of instructions were included, an easy setup guide which was very large and colorful, and a small driver installation guide. There are also two disks, one with drivers and the other contains Forte Manager software. Here is a look from behind:
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And now from the side:

Auto pivot/mirror function
The most significant feature that will separate this monitor from others is the fact that it can tilt and rotate in any direction. The base of the monitor is connected to a swivel, which enables the user to position the monitor in any fashion. This type of movement may be used in a meeting type of environment, from a presenter that is possibly sharing information on his/her screen.
http://www.techspot.com/reviews/hardware/lg_flatron1980q/ (3 of 5)7/28/2005 11:06:55 AM
Ultra Slim Design (2.8 Folded Height) Integrated LCD Picture-Enhancing F-Engine Chip Heat-Sensor Power On/Off Button and Controls control switches without actually depressing a button Auto-Pivot / If you can see this, your browser doesn't understand Auto-Mirror IFRAME. Functions Auto-pivot is used when spinning the monitor around. This isnt new technology, but previous you had to adjust your display settings to achieve portrait mode. The monitors hardware accomplishes this automatically, and works great. The auto-mirror function flips the screen content when you turn the display over. This is controlled by software, but still works pretty good. When you flip the monitor over horizontally, the picture automatically flips so folks viewing the monitor from behind will see the display in the proper format. TCO 99 Low-Emission Complaint

As the manufacturer specs read, the LG L1980Q goes a step further with its tilt and rotation capabilities. Software included in the package allows screen content to be automatically placed for best readability depending on how you place the monitor. Also I should add that when shopping for LG monitors you will notice there are various 19 models referenced similarly. In order to avoid confusion we contacted LG who were kind of enough of putting it very clear terms. The monitor we received for review is the L1980Q which is pretty much the same as the L1981Q, the only difference being the power button where L1981Q's button is plush (-), so multiple monitors can be tiled together like the ones at the Wall Street trading floor. There is also available a L1980U model which works at a slightly slower response time at 12ms, while the former two work at 8ms.

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LCD Overview

Monitors have come a long way since they were coupled with computers in the 1970s. IBM introduced their first color monitor back in 1981; it could render 4 colors with a maximum resolution of 320 x 200. The next progression was EGA, which allowed up to 16 colors back in 1984. From there we had VGA, UVGA, and the still popular UXGA which can support resolutions of up to 1600 x 1200, and over 16 millions colors. Another big leap in technology was the introduction of multi-scan monitors, which gave the end user the ability to change resolutions and frequencies on the fly. Traditional monitors used analog displays, which meant the digital signal coming from the graphics card had to be translated to an analog signal in order for the monitor to work. This technology also takes up more space, due to the fact that the picture is beamed onto the screen. In order for the beam to fully
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extend, it needs to be a certain distance from the display. A good example of this would be a projector. The further the projector is positioned from the wall, the larger the picture. LCD technology started back in 1888, invented by an Australian called Friedrich Reinitzer. He melted cholesteryl benzoate, and let it cool. Upon cooling, he noticed that the liquid turned blue before finally crystallizing. The then crude discovery had no use as of yet, up until RCA made the first experimental LCD back in 1968. One advantage If you can see this, your browser doesn't understand of using LCD IFRAME. technology is the fact that the signal always stays digital, which means the signal is cleaner. Power consumption is also drastically lower. While the typical CRT monitor consumes 110 watts, LCD monitors consume 30-40 watts on average. The monitor can be sometimes the largest consumption device of a computer workstation, and typically attributes to 80% usage of the systems electricity. Not to sound repetitive, but the size reduction is probably the biggest draw. Because we no longer need the light beam, monitor size can be dramatically smaller. The term LCD refers to liquid crystal display. An LCD contains tiny liquid crystals, and there are several different types. These crystals react to changes in voltage, and twist according. Depending on the angle, they allow light emitted from behind them to surface. The crystals do not have the ability to create the light themselves, so computer monitors have built in florescent tubes located in different areas which direct light beams to the crystals. There are two types of LCD monitors: Passive Matrix and Active Matrix, the later being the most common type because of speed. Active Matrix displays use TFTs (thin filmed resistors). TFTs are very tiny transistors and capacitors that are switched on and off to achieve different colors. There are rows of these TFTs on the screen, and each row displays a different color when turned on. There are three colors: Red, Blue, and Green. Remember, its the twisting of the crystal that actually allows the light to bypass the crystal and become displayed. By controlling voltage to the crystal, we can control how much we twist it, which is used to adjust its brightness. Most displays have 256 levels of brightness, which means the crystals can be twisted or untwisted into 256 different positions. By doing this, we create what they call a grey scale. The grey scale is used to create all of our different colors and shades we see on the monitor. Each color has 256 different shades, which means we can make 16.8 million different colors! To do this, we need a large number of transistors. Depending on the size of the screen, a typical LCD monitor uses more than 3 million transistors! One transistor bites the dust, and WHAM a bad pixel. This explains why its so common, and why most manufacturers allow 5 or so bad pixels before they will even warranty the unit. You also should be aware that

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the larger the monitor, the bigger your chance is of having a bad pixel. Take 1280 x 1024 and times that by 3 (the 3 different colors). You should have gotten 3,932,160, which is a lot of transistors! The numbers are definitely not on the LCD manufacturers side. Its such a problem with larger units that over 30% of the screens are tossed in the factory because of irregularities.
Samsung SyncMaster 915N Black 19" LCD Monitor
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Installation and System Specs
Basic installation went smooth, and the included setup guide should be adequate for even the entry level computer user. I chose to install the unit on my desk, replacing my BenQ FP931 for the review. The software installed without a glitch. One thing I did notice is the large space the monitor takes up. The base of the monitor is completely round, and measures 10 in diameter. My BenQ monitors base only measures in at 6. That may not sound like a big difference, but is the cable placement that compounds the extra space. The cable connects to the rear of the platform, which causes it to protrude about 3 more inches forward. When you do the math, that ends up taking up 7 more desk space. I can put 2 BenQ monitors front to back and still have an extra inch of desk space when compared to the LG 1980. The on-screen setup menu is pretty straight forward. I took a picture of the first screen that appears upon depressing the menu button to give you a first hand look at what to expect:
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Monitor Specifications

Display Type Display Area Display Colors 19.0" (19.0" VIS) Active Matrix TFT LCD Screen 14.8" x 11.9" (376mm x 301mm) 16.2 Million (6 Bits + FRC)
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Screen Type/Size Pixel Configuration Surface Treatment Maximum Resolution Brightness Contrast Ratio Response Time Pixel Pitch Viewing Angle Input Signal Input Terminals Memory Modes Tilt/Swivel Dimensions With Base (WxDxH)
19" RGB Stripe Hard Coating 3H, Anti-Glare 1280 x 1024 250cd/m2 (Typical) 500:1 (Typical) 8ms (Typical) 0.294mm x 0.294mm H: 160 Deg., V: 160 Deg. RGB Analog 15-Pin D-SUB and DVI-D 13 Factory Preset, 10 User-Settable Tilt: Down 0 Deg. /Up 157 Deg. 16.6" x 10.3" x 16.1" (422mm x 261mm x 410mm) Folded 16.6" x 2.8" x 14.1" (422mm x 71mmx 358mm)

Warranty

All LG LCD monitors come with a 3 year warranty. As far as dead pixels go, its usually up to the place where you buy the unit from. LGs warranty does not include dead pixel information. If you buy it from Newegg for example, they allow up to eight dead pixels before a warranty unit will be issued. If you call LG direct, you are more likely to get them to bend. I had one dead pixel on this unit, and upon contacting a customer agent, I could have gotten a new one through a swap method.
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Play Time

Its now time to get down to business. After loading up Windows XP, my first impressions on the output were good. The automatic adjustments worked well, and the color was sharp and refined. I found the monitor to be very bright compared to my BenQ. It didnt take me long to adjust the colors to my liking, the out of the box defaults were very close. The colors look brilliant! This is the first thing that slapped me in the face. Compared to my BenQ and Dell laptop, the colors seemed brighter and deeper. This is one of the most important factors that twist me when it comes to LCDs. CRT monitors have brilliant colors, but the visuals are just not as crisp. In my opinion, the LGs color brilliance matches that of a high quality CRT.

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The overall looks rank among the highest Ive ever seen in an LCD monitor. The shinny silver base looks very elegant against the thin, flat black screen which is accented by a thin silver strip on the outside. The hind of the unit is absolutely gorgeous. Its finished with an ultra-glossy white scheme, accented by a sliver ring with the LG logo encrusted in chrome. Its almost a shame that this part of the monitor doesnt get exposed, because its easy to tell a lot of detail went into making it. I played a little If you can see this, your browser doesn't understand Doom, and the IFRAME. visuals were nothing less than stunning. I then switched to analog mode, so I could play a little Xbox on the monitor as well. The LG monitor shines in analog mode, so much that it was difficult to tell the difference. The next test was DVD quality. Empire Strikes back was my pick; and the visuals were excellent. There was no streaking, and the colors were nice and bright. The viewing angle did not impair the visual quality of this monitor. I tried moving around while looking at material displayed on-screen, but all were satisfactory. I was overall very impressed with the performance of the L1980Q. The one thing that really annoyed me were the control and on/off buttons however. The LG monitor comes with heat sensitive buttons, so its not necessary to actually touch them to activate an action, this could be considered a rather neat feature to have, however in my experience I found them to be the worse feature of the monitor. I dont know about you, but my desk collects things throughout the day, moving papers and such back and forth. I found myself shutting the monitor off at least once a day, usually more often than that by accident. This is especially aggravating when you are trying to tilt or flip the monitor. The buttons are located where you would place your hand to position the screen. Every time I did it, it either shut off or displayed menu controls. It might not be such a big deal, I just dont understand why they bothered, or at least why not tested it for ergonomics properly, if that is what they intended.
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Final Thoughts

The LG1980Q is an absolutely gorgeous looking monitor. On the exterior, the shiny silver is sleek looking, and the white rear of the monitor seems to contrast perfectly. The screen itself is extremely thin, and very versatile. The monitor output looked wonderful while gaming with no ghosting noticed to cramp the experience. Those are all positive factors that make us recommend this monitor; however that doesnt mean it didnt come with its shortcomings. Could we say the monitor seemed over-engineered for the average home user? For example, while some may find the tilt feature very useful, in my case this is something I would never use. Whenever I shuffled things around the desk, the monitor would end up spinning a little, having to move it back to place every now and

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then. I really hated the heat sensitive buttons. I already went on about them, but I just had to stress how I feel these should have gone under further testing before replacing the standard push buttons. My third complaint is about desk space. Those going from CRT to LCD will still find it to be a super spacesaver, but comparing apples with apples the L1980Q takes a lot of room for a flat panel. Last but not least is price. While this monitor has loads of options others only dreamed of, you will be paying a premium for the LG L1980Q. At an average price of $550, its more expensive than many other competing brands that sell for around $400, joining the leagues of brands like Sony that tend to price its products higher than the average. The good news is that Newegg has come to rescue and seems to be the only online merchant offering a big discount through a mail-in rebate which lowers the monitors price to a much more competitive $420!
Having all that said, the LG L1980Q still makes for a phenomenal choice in my book thanks to its drop-dead looks and beautiful output. Now, if you are willing to live with some of the quirks I explained above, or if you will make good use of the auto-pivot feature, this will become an even better choice that justifies the small premium you are paying. If you are in the market for an LCD monitor that will woo your clients and friends, the LG could be for you. If you are the average home user or gamer looking to gain some desk space, you may want to go for something cheaper. In my humble opinion, all those fancy options can be a pain if you dont plan on using them.
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