LCDs or Liquid Crystals Displays have come a long way since their inception. There are many variety of different specifications available. So having a good knowlegde of LCDs will certainly make the job of choosing the LCD that suits your needs best a lot easier.

Technology

There are 3 main type of technologies that manufactures use to make LCD panels.

Twisted Nematic (TN)
The cheapest panels to produce (hence costing lesser) and have the fastest response time. However, the problem is that they have the poorest colour reproduction. Usually capable of only 18 bits of color as compared to the normal 24. TN panels tend to have poor viewing angles compared to other technologies.

Super In-Plane Switching (S-IPS)
Better viewing angles than TN panels but has relatively slower response time. Due the way IPS panels are made, a brighter backlight is needed to shine through the extra circuitry. Therefore, requires more power and has higher cost.

Vertical Alignment (VA)
VA comes in 2 flavours: Multi-Domain Vertical Alignment (MVA) and S-PVA, developed by Samsung. Generally, MVA/PVA panels have the highest contrast ratios.

Specifications

There are a few key specifications that you should look out for when buying a LCD panel.

Contrast-ratio
The ratio of the light intensity of the brightest possible color to the darkest possible color a display is capable of displaying simultaneously. The higher the contrast ratio, the better the display is.

Response Time
This is one key factor that the normal consumers will tend to look out for. To them, the faster the response time the better. At the point of writing, the current fastest response time is 2ms.

Gamers usually go for those with the fasters response time to minimise the “ghosting” effect.

One point to note: Faster response times do not equate to picture quality. When checking out the response time, do take note of whether it is B2W (black to white) or G2G (grey to grey). It is more important to look at G2G. This is because rarely do the colours shift to such great contrast as black to white.

Another point to note is that in order to achieve faster response time, many manufacturers turned to reducing the number of levels each color pixel render. This reduction in the number of intensity levels allows the response times to drop but has the drawback of reducing the overall number of colors that can be rendered. This is one of the main reasons why the color clarity of CRT monitors cannot be matched by an LCD panel.

Why buy LCD

Energy-saving
Although an LCD panel costs more than a CRT monitor upfront, the energy efficiency of the LCD panel would ensure that energy costs are lower in the long run. Take a look at this video from ZD Net. It shows why an LCD panel is more economical, mathematically.

LCD panels are much lighter than their CRT counterparts, takes up little desk space and generates lesser heat. Also, they look way cooler, especially with the Widescreen variants.

Hope this article helps. Happy shopping!

References: Atomic MPC | About.com | ZD Net | Apple | Wikipedia