AFTER USING A LAPTOP computer with a liquid crystal display (LCD) for a number of months and then moving back to a standard CRT monitor, I immediately became aware of just how easy on the eyes a good LCD can be. So naturally, I wasn’t complaining when one of the latest LCD monitors arrived on my desk for review.

Not too long ago, the high cost of LCD panels prohibited their use in desktop monitors, at least for the mass market. In addition, design improvements needed to be made in areas like colour saturation, image persistence and viewing angle before they could compete directly with CRT displays.

All that is now changing as improving manufacturing methods and technological advances push the price down and the display quality up.

If you’ve been on the lookout for a new computer or monitor lately, you will probably have noticed the steady increase in the variety of LCD monitors being offered for sale. Manufacturers such as Dell, IBM and Compaq are now offering LCD monitors as options with their systems.

Prices are on the way down but are still rather high by comparison – you’ll typically pay as much as 2-4 times more for an LCD monitor than for the "equivalent" conventional type. That’s outrageously expensive, I hear you say. But you do get a lot more (or should I say less?) for your money.

So what are the advantages of LCDs? Well, they don’t suffer from the many alignment problems that plague CRTs, like pincushion distortion, colour misconvergence, poor focus, etc. What’s more, they don’t emit potentially harmful radiation, they consume much less power and perhaps best of all, they’re incredibly thin!