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Introduction

While the Kate Moss look may be out (there are rumors that she is pregnant again), slim and sexy is still a driving theme for PC hardware upgrades, especially on the display side. When we have looked at LCDs in the past, one of the major qualms is blurring and color reproduction. Most modern LCDs do not really have ghosting problems anymore but they still tend to have a motion blur type effect because refresh rates are still not all the way there. The last gamer oriented LCD we looked at was Samsung's 172x which had a claimed refresh rate of 12ms. It provided a good gaming experience but somehow, it still had a LCD look to it. Objects in motion were never as crisp as a high quality CRT but performed very well for an LCD.

BenQ, formerly known as Acer, is arguably one of the largest LCD manufacturers right now. Its LCD panels are even bought by the likes of Dell who rebadge it and sell it under their brand name. In the past few months, BenQ has been one of the companies that seems to have really pushed the boundaries as far as LCD production goes with continued announcements of faster LCDs sporting faster and faster response times. In fact, they recently announced a 4ms model that is due to hit the market in the second half of this year. Today we take a look at the BenQ FP71G+, a LCD with a claimed response time of 8ms aimed specifically at gamers. We'll take it to task and see how it stacks up and if it may be finally time to replace the venerable CRT.

Specifications

The FP71G+ is a definite no frills package. Gone are some of the amenities found on flatscreens like USB ports and integrated speakers. Dot pitch is the same as other 17" LCD panels. The inability to pivot may be a detriment to those who have grown accustomed to such a function on other panels - for me personally is not much of an issue as I find horizontal space more useful than vertical. With a claimed 16.2 Million displayed colors, it seems to imply that this is a 8-bit panel (2^8 = 256 colors per channel for RGB. 256^3 = 16.2 million). One of the big knocks against LCDs in general is color reproduction - the color gamut of a LCD is not nearly as large as a CRT. This is exacerbated by the fact that there are LCDs that do not do 16.2 million colors. Another concern for some users is that there is only an analog input - how that affects image quality (if at all) will remain to be seen.