You don't need 2 ms reaction time trust me.
If LCDs truly had 2ms response time then you'd need it, all the display forums would go ape****; it may not solve all the issues but would significantly help. Most of the 2-5ms or whatever are the Grey-to-Grey marketing terms sometimes White-to-White or Black-to-Black depending on the manufacturer. So yes the LCD panel is that fast for those colors/shades but in reality most LCDs have a response time of anywhere between 35-300ms. Your average TN panel probably has anywhere between 35-100ms response time, IPS anywhere between 45-150ms, and VA trailing behind with 75-250ms(one of the reasons why VA usually come with very aggressive overdrive). In simplest terms despite the marketing usage of GtG 2-5ms which is an actual response time, the question becomes what about the response time for the other colors, shades of colors, and mixtures of colors. And that's where you get your response time from the actual individual response.
The 120hz monitors though seem to be noticeably faster than the average and seem to have a response time in the 35-80ms region. As some people have put it after using 120Hz+ on a CRT, the 120Hz LCDs feel closer in performance to 100hz CRT than 120hz despite the monitors electronics working AT 120hz.
Remember response time is the amount of time it takes pixels to change state; all display technologies have a response time. CRTs for example tend to operate in the nanosecond-to-microsecond response time, only time CRTs enter the millisecond range is when they get older and or are of lower quality. Or they experience the blur phenomena, despite CRTs not have motion blur or if they do at a significantly reduced level compared to other display technologies. They do experience a color blurring though that's merely due to the transient phosphors as they "cool down" which does extend into the millisecond range at times and based on quality and age can become more noticeable.
Yeah, but is it worth giving up quality in other facets of the panel? Color, viewing angle, brightness, etc?
Do you sit in front of the computer or to the side, most will say in front so viewing angles are more important in the vertical aspect i.e. sitting a little above the monitor to give you a commanding view for ergonomics. Now if your using a multi-monitor setup like an eyefinity or surround then I can understand but even then most seem to angle the monitors inwards a bit.
The real major loss is color that's the most obvious and along with that color detail is lost. But brightness that's not so different for the panels unless the difference in bulbs(CCFL or LED), in fact you can argue TN tend to be more brighter due to the fact there's no anti-glare coating or glossy screen in the case of some TN, plus TN panels tend to have for some manufacturers a better static contrast ratio than IPS panels usually at the 950-1030:1 ratio it's not unheard of for a lot of TN panels to be at or close to the 1000:1 static ratio they can reach. IPS tend to top out at around 650-750 area and usually require a lot of tweaking to even get a better amount and in some cases it involves sacrificing either some color or black detail plus with the anti-glare coating and considering how aggressive some IPS monitors use, it makes it a lot harder to reach those static ratios.
In other words, I'll let you early adopters get the kinks worked out and enjoy a nice traditional display in the mean time ;-)
How is a higher refresh rate any different than the refresh rates we currently use such as 60Hz. Since when does adding 60 more Hertz to a monitor make it so magical and so extreme it needs the kinks to be removed. Plain and simple LCD panels are the limiting factor, millisecond response time plus sample-and-hold technologies inhibit and reduce the truer rendering of the higher refresh rate on top of adding ghosting and blurring both responsive blurring and sample-and-hold blur. The funny thing about the 120hz monitors is they
show even more so just how slow the LCDs are compared to the electronics on the panel which are working at 120hz while the pixels are incapable of responding that quickly to different states unless somehow what your rendering a specific color and or shade of color which somehow happens to be the panels fastest transitional color and or shade of color.
It's funny that refresh rate is so debated. I really don't understand what's there to debate, unless you mean sacrifices then I agree LCDs sacrifice for different things sure they have their positives but there's always going to be a negative. Reminds me of running into a few forums a number of years ago, were there were rumors of higher refresh rate panels and even 90Hz IPS panels and rumors of 90Hz being implemented into 30" 2560x1600 panels to make up for some of the slowness of both the response time and the framerate hit of such a large resolution. And for those who saw and posted on there they were just like "Release that now, I want it, it may not fix all the issues but would certainly help" even one guy saying "I'd kill for a 90Hz 1600p monitor". But now it's like some
strange magical word that needs to be debated ad-nausium; Should I get 120hz, Do I need 120hz, What's so special about 120hz etc.etc. again are there sacrifices to 120hz compared to IPS, yes.
There is no kinks and there is no
"traditional display" whatever that means. Refresh rates are truly a
"Traditional part of the display" and will always be so until there is some continuous streaming technology(even then I wouldn't be surprised if there is some refresh rate due to how atoms work) and on CRTs due response time of the CRT, the refresh rate dictates the response time. So if your using your CRT at 200Hz your response time is 5ms and always 5ms for every single pixel or if your using your CRT at 144hz it's 6.94ms and always 6.94ms for every single pixel; color and or shade of color.
I dont care for 3D at all
Neither do the majority of people who buy 120hz LCD monitors, they don't give two ****s about 3D vision. They buy them for the close to CRT performance; that's the problem with LCDs too much sacrifices you either choose Image Quality + Slowness or Speed+Reduction in IQ.
