If you are thinking of buying a new set of personal computer, or you want to upgrade your tube-type monitor (also known as CRT for Cathode Ray Tube), you may want to consider a flat screen monitor. In cases of upgrade, you can easily attach a flat screen monitor to your video card, just as you can in a CRT monitor. Flat screen monitor is a great solution if space on your desk or table is very limited.

In addition to its advantage of taking up very little space, flat screen monitors are also glare tolerant. Flat screen monitors have also a different measurement compared to that of tube-type monitors. The reason for this is because a flat screen monitor displays its images all the way to the edge of screen, while traditional CRT monitors do not have such capability. For example, a CRT monitor with 21-in viewing area may actually give you a viewable screen of 18 to 20 diagonal inches. A 21-inch flat screen monitor, on the other hand, will give you a viewable area which is very close to 21 inches.

Flat screen monitors use liquid crystal display (LCD) technology which you commonly find in laptop computers. The original image quality of LCD flat screen monitors was not as bright, clear and sharp as that of traditional CRTs. Flat screen monitors were not suitable to high end use then. In recent years, however, the technology has been improved and that led to the development of TFT (thin-film transistor) LCD technology in flat screen monitors. You can also find LCD flat screen monitors that use MIM or metal-insulator-metal technology. This kind of technology may not give the same high quality images as those of TFT flat screen monitors, but they are less costly. Both TFT and MIM flat screen monitors control the liquid crystals and their light filtering properties by using a grid or matrix.

The principle behind the LCD technology used in flat screen monitors is that liquid crystal cells are distributed all over the screen, and each one of the cells can be chemically modified by an electric current to change the cell’s light absorption properties. Light is projected through the crystals, and each one absorbs the light differently, so that you see the light that is not absorbed. The composite of becomes a visible image in your flat screen monitor.

All liquid crystal cells are of the same color; the flat screen monitor is inherently monochromatic, not colored. The color in your flat screen monitor is only added by placing a color filter between your eyes and the liquid crystals. This filter screens out the colors that you should be actually seeing. Because of this, only the correct color is allowed to pass through in your flat screen monitor.

There are a number of advantages to using flat screen monitors over the traditional CRT monitors. Flat screen monitors consume less power, and they do not emit radiation like their CRT cousins. You get better color in a flat screen monitor and the images are clearer, easing eye-strain. If you ask those people who have used flat screen monitors, they would most likely tell you that they do not want to return to CRT monitors anymore.

The only disadvantage in choosing a flat screen monitor is the initial cost that you will incur in buying one. Flat screen monitors are more expensive than the CRT alternatives. A flat screen monitor often costs two to three times more for the same-size CRT monitor. But with the prices of LCD flat screen monitors coming down (compared to the time when they were first introduced in the market), while at the same time the quality is going up, you will find that flat screen monitors are worth the money, just from the recovery of desk space alone.