What You Need to Know about Monitors

What Does “Response Time” Mean for Your Monitor?

Also referred to as “response rate” or “latency,” an LCD monitor's response time indicates how fast it can display moving images. Response time measures how quickly the monitor’s individual pixels can change colours (as indicated in milliseconds)—the lower the number, the faster the pixel change rate.

More formally defined, response time is the time it takes for an LCD pixel to change from a completely active black state, to a completely inactive white state and back again. However, in real-world use, pixels are rarely in an all-white or all-black state, so manufactures will often report the speed at which pixels change from colour to colour (also called “grey-to-grey” speed). The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) will soon introduce specifications to standardise response time reports, in an effort to make these numbers more comparable.

Faster Is Better

However response time is measured, faster is better when it comes to your viewing experience. If an LCD's response time is too slow, the display's pixels won't be able to keep up with the information sent from the computer's graphics card, and you'll see ghosting, streaking, and digital noise as a result. This is especially true for games, movies, and graphic applications.

While most manufacturers recommend a response time of around 12–15ms as a baseline for average use, response times are falling quickly as LCD technology becomes more advanced. For example, LG currently offers many LCD monitors with a response time of 5ms. Ultra-low response times help you get the most out of today’s cutting-edge games, videos, and graphics applications—and help you keep pace with the ever-faster applications of tomorrow.

The LG Design Philosophy for Monitors

Design plays a critical role in harmonising technology and human needs. In an effort to predict emerging needs and deliver innovative products to the public, LG has developed a comprehensive design philosophy for monitors that boils down to four basic elements: concept, style, interface, and finish.

Designing for the Future

At the LG Life Soft Research Lab, established almost 20 years ago, researchers, designers, and trend scouts work to predict the future by examining and identifying consumer desires; observing the public's interest in products; and developing design concepts and solutions based on this research.

This is how LG stays one step ahead of the game—we’re always working on products for the future. Our research is focused not only on new products and technological trends, but also on understanding customer and market behaviour.

LCD Monitor Design

LG has set a new standard for LCD monitors by focusing on the designs that consumers want and the features they demand. LG FLATRON and LG Fantasy monitors have cumulatively won seven iF and Reddot Product Design Awards for their keen ergonomics, unique design, and innovative LED backlight technology. These monitors also boast the exclusive LG f-EngineTM and Digital Fine Contrast (DFC) technologies, which optimise image quality, contrast ratio, and colour reproduction. LG monitors can adapt to the needs of business users, gamers, graphic artists, and multimedia enthusiasts.

What does the Energy Saving Recommended Mark mean?

Under the Energy Saving Recommended scheme, only products that meet strict criteria of energy efficiency can carry the Energy Saving Recommended logo. The criteria of the Energy Saving Recommended scheme are set by an independent panel and reviewed annually. The Energy Saving Trust® also tests a percentage of these products to ensure that where there’s a logo, there's a smarter choice. The Energy Saving Trust® aims to make it easy—whatever the product, whatever the labelling system—just look for the Energy Saving Recommended logo.

LG and Energy Efficiency

LG Electronics is one of the largest global companies of its kind. Because of this, we feel we have a social responsibility to actively take on the environmental issues that arise from the carbon output of our industry. We have implemented, and are continuing to perfect, two independent strategies to reduce the carbon footprint of our company:

1. Develop more environmentally friendly technologies in our factories
2. Continuously raise the energy efficiency of our products

LG helps consumers reduce greenhouse gas production by providing them with products that meet the Energy Saving Trust®’s Energy Saving Recommended standards. To learn more, visit the Energy Saving Trust®’s website

The Energy Saving Trust®’s website