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What is the difference between S-IPS, MVA, VA and TN LCD Technology
Can someone explain to me the difference between these LCD Monitor types? S-IPS, MVA, VA and TN LCD?
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N Film, MVA, PVA and IPS - Panel Technologies
Simon Baker, updated 24 Dec 2006
TN Film (Twisted Nematic + Film) panels are the mostly widely used in the TFT market, with smaller sized screens (15", 17" and 19") being almost exclusively limited to this technology. The TN Film panels are made by many different manufacturers, with the big names all having a share in the market (Samsung, LG.Philips, AU Optronics) and being backed up by the other companies including BOE HyDis, CMO, CPT etc. TN Film has always been so widely used because it is comparatively cheap to produce panels based on this technology. As such, manufacturers have been able to keep costs of their displays down by using these panels. The other main reason for using TN Film is that it is fundamentally a responsive technology in terms of pixel latency. It has long been the choice for "gamers" screens and response times have long been, and still are today, the lowest out of all the technologies (at least on paper).
TN Film is characterized by it's low response times, and with the advent of overdrive / RTC technology, grey to grey transitions are also very fast now. The problem with TN Film is that viewing angles are pretty restrictive, especially vertically and this is evident be a severe darkening of the image, especially if you look at the screen from below. Movie playback can be a bit noisy too and black depth is also not as good as with other panel technologies due to the crystal alignment. However, in recent years, black depth has improved somewhat and is generally pretty good on modern screens, especially where dynamic contrast technologies are also used. TN Film is only a true 6-bit technology, but is able to offer a 16.2 million, and now even a 16.7 million, colour palette thanks to dithering and Frame Rate Control methods.
VA (Vertical Alignment) technology was developed by Fujitsu in 1996. Small viewing angles were its main disadvantage. This problem was solved by dividing each pixel into domains which worked synchronously. This lead the birth of&.
MVA (Multidomain Vertical Alignment) technology, developed by Fujitsu in 1998 as a compromise between TN Film and IPS technologies. On the one hand, MVA provided a full response time of 25 milliseconds (that was impossible at the time with IPS, and not easily achievable with TN), and on the other hand, MVA matrices had wide viewing angles of 160 - 170 degrees, and thus can compete with IPS in that parameter. The viewing angles are also very good in the vertical field (an area where TN panels suffer a great deal) as well as the horizontal field. MVA technology also provides high contrast ratios, which IPS and TN Film can't quite meet (without technologies like DFC at least).
In MVA panels, the crystals in the domains are oriented differently, so if one domain lets light pass through, the neighboring domain will have the crystals at an angle and will shutter the light (of course, save for the display of white color, in which case all the crystals are placed almost in parallel to the matrix plane).
The problem with MVA panels was that traditionally; the response time is not as good as TN film panels. Sadly, the response time grows dramatically when theres a smaller difference between the pixels initial and final states. Thus, such matrices are practically unsuitable for dynamic games, i.e. for home use. Of course, suitability is a subjective category, and some people may be quite satisfied with the image produced by an MVA matrix, but they are objectively slower than TN as well as IPS matrices anyway.
With the introduction of overdrive technologies, the manufacturers launched a new breed of...
Premium MVA panels (P-MVA) from AU Optronics, and Super MVA (S-MVA) from Chi Mei Optoelectronics and Fujitsu. These offer improved response times across grey to grey transitions which is a great improvement in the MVA market. While responsiveness is still not quite as fast as TN film panels, the improvement is obvious.
The color-reproduction properties of the MVA technology proved to be deficient, too. Such panels give you vivid and bright colors, but due to the peculiarities of the domain technology many subtle color tones (dark tones often) are lost when you are looking at the screen strictly perpendicularly. When you deflect your line of sight just a little, the colors are all here again. This is a characteristic VA panel contrast shift and some users pick up on this and might find it distracting. The panel manufacturers sometimes claim a wider gamut range, but these are rather qualities of the color filters and backlighting rather than of the matrix. Thus, MVA matrices are somewhere between IPS and TN technologies as concerns color reproduction. On the one hand, they are better than TN matrices in this respect, but on the other hand the above-described shortcoming prevents them from challenging IPS matrices. Traditionally MVA panels offered 8-Bit colour depth (a true 16.7 million colours) but it seems that some modern versions are only offering 6-Bit with FRC (see articles section for more info). Black depth is a strong point of MVA panels, being able to produce some of the deepest blacks in the market.
MVA panels also offer some comparatively good movie playback with noise and artifacts quite low compared with other technologies. The application of overdrive doesn't help in this area, but MVA panels are pretty much the only ones which haven't suffered greatly in movie playback as a result. Many of the MVA panels are still pretty good in this area, sadly something which overdriven TN Film, IPS and PVA panels can't offer.
Advanced MVA (A-MVA) - Next Generation VA Technology
AU Optronics have recently been working on their next generation of MVA panel technology, termed 'Advanced MVA' (A-MVA). This is designed to offer improved performance including reduced colour washout conquer the significant problem of color distortion with traditional wide viewing angle technology. This technology creates more domains than conventional multi-domain vertical alignment (MVA) LCDs and reduces the variation of transmittance in oblique angles. It productively improves color washout and provides better image quality in oblique angles than conventional VA LCDs. Also, it has been widely recognized worldwide that AMVA technology is one of the few ways to provide optimized image quality through multiple domains.
In addition, A-MVA provides an extra-high contrast ratio of greater than 1200:1 (reaching 2500:1 at time of writing) by optimized color-resist implementation and a new pixel design. The result is a more comfortable viewing experience for the consumer, even on dimmer images. This high contrast technology can also achieve wide viewing angles of up to 178 degrees. AMVA, which the Company believes to be the most competitive solution in low color washout technology, has been applied to AUO TV panels ranging from 32" up to 42", and has attracted widespread attention among global brand-name TV customers in the United States, Europe and Japan.
Further reading: Fujitsu - Super High Quality MVA (June 1999)
Chi Mei Optoelectronics - S-MVA Online Information
AU Optronics A-MVA Press Release
AU Optronics AMVA Technology and Product Information
PVA technology (Patterned Vertical Alignment) was developed by Samsung as an alternative to MVA. The parameters and the development ways of PVA and MVA are so different that PVA can be truly regarded as an independent technology.
The liquid crystals in a PVA matrix have the same structure as in a MVA one domains with varying orientation of the crystals allow keeping the same color, almost irrespective of the users line of sight. In fact, the viewing angles (as traditionally measured by the reduction of the contrast ratio to 10:1) are limited not by the matrix, but rather by the plastic framing around the screen. Colour reproduction is not perfect, too, like with MVA matrices: when you are looking straight at the screen, the matrix loses some shades, which return after you deflect your line of sight from the perpendicular a little.
Alas, theres the same problem with PVA matrices as with MVA ones their response time grows considerably when theres a smaller difference between the initial and final states of the pixel. Again, PVA panels are not as responsive as TN film panels. With the introduction of MagicSpeed (Samsung's overdrive), response times have been greatly improved and are comparable to MVA panels in this regard on similarly spec-ed panels. They still remain a little behind TN Film panels in gaming use, but the overdrive really has helped improve in this area.
The contrast ratio parameter is really good with the PVA technology though. First, PVA matrices are manufactured by Samsung alone, so there cant be any variation in quality between different manufacturers. Second, Samsung is actively working to improve the contrast ratio and with some results already: monitors with PVA matrices (they mostly come from Samsung, too) typically have a contrast ratio of anywhere between 600:1 and 1000:1. Generally speaking, PVA matrices are the only matrix type today for which the declared contrast values are often true (sometimes the real characteristic is even better than specified). Black depth is good, and again they offer much better measurements in this area than TN Film. MVA and IPS are improving, but tend to be a little more exaggerated on paper than PVA which are generally quite reliable in this spec.
Overall, PVA matrices could be said to be an improved version of MVA. Without any new defects, save for those already present in the MVA technology, PVA matrices feature slightly improved viewing angles, better contrast ratios and a much more predictable production quality due to their being manufactured on the facilities of one manufacturer only. Movie playback is perhaps one area which is a weak point for PVA, especially on Samsung's overdriven panels. Noise and artifacts are common unfortunately and the panels lose out fo MVA in this regard. While traditionally PVA panels offered 8-bit colour depth, it seems some modern panels might well use FRC/dithering methods along with a 6-bit panel. This is likely to be in an effort to keep manufacturing and production costs down, but is a disappointment to some users.
Samsung have produced a new breed of...
Super Patterned Vertical Alignment (S-PVA) panels. Most of these are based on the introduction of Magic Speed (the Samsung equivalent to Overdrive), which offer improved response times over traditional PVA matrices. Note that some PVA panels still used this technology, but S-PVA panels almost certainly feature it. Like P-MVA panels, these are really just an extension of the existing technology, but with the MagicSpeed technology, they have managed to make them more suitable for gaming than the older panels. One other difference is that the liquid crystal cell structure is a boomerang shape, splitting each sub pixel into two different sections with each aligned in opposite directions. This is said to help improve viewing angles and colour reproduction when viewed from the side.
Further reading: Samsung Whitepaper - PVA and S-PVA
The IPS (In Plane Switching) technology was developed by Hitachi in 1996 to solve the two plagues of TN-matrices: small viewing angles and low-quality color reproduction. The name In-Plane Switching comes from the crystals in the cells of the IPS panel lying always in the same plane and being always parallel to the panels plane (if we dont take into account the minor interference from the electrodes). When voltage is applied to a cell, the crystals of that cell all make a 90-degrees turn. By the way, an IPS panel lets the backlight pass through in its active state and shutters it in its passive state (when no voltage is applied), so if a thin-film transistor crashes, the corresponding pixel will always remain black, unlike with TN matrices.
IPS matrices differ from TN ones not only in the structure of the crystals, but also in the placement of the electrodes both electrodes are on one wafer and take more space than electrodes of TN matrices. This leads to a lower contrast and brightness of the matrix.
The original IPS technology became a foundation for several improvements: Super-IPS (S-IPS), Dual Domain IPS (DD-IPS), and Advanced Coplanar Electrode (ACE). The latter two technologies belong to IBM (DD-IPS) and Samsung (ACE) and are in fact unavailable in shops. The manufacture of ACE panels is halted, while DD-IPS panels are coming from IDTech, the joint venture of IBM and Chi Mei Optoelectronics these expensive models with high resolutions occupy their own niche, which but slightly overlaps with the common consumer market. NEC is also manufacturing IPS panels under such brands as A-SFT, A-AFT, SA-SFT and SA-AFT, but they are in fact nothing more than variations and further developments of the S-IPS technology. Enhanced S-IPS is the term given to LG.Philips' latest generation of panels using this technology. More information can be found about the improvements in the technology here, with a ODC (overdrive) technology playing a key role. Advanced Super IPS (AS-IPS) is also a term being used as well, but is just a term for the new Enhanced S-IPS panels used in models by NEC.
S-IPS panels have gained the widest recognition, mostly due to the efforts of another joint venture LG.Philips LCD, which is outputting rather inexpensive and high-quality 19 , 20 and now larger matrices. Besides the high price, the response time was among the serious drawbacks of the IPS technology first panels were as slow as 60ms on the official black-to-white-to-back transitions (and even slower on gray-to-gray ones!). Fortunately, the engineers dragged the full response time down to 25 milliseconds later, and this total is equally divided between pixel rise and pixel fall times. Moreover, the response time doesnt greatly grow up on black-to-gray transitions compared to the specification, so some older S-IPS matrices could challenge TN Film panels in this parameter (before overdrive anyway). For a while, S-IPS panels remained ar ~16ms as their best response time on paper. However, overdrive has caught up with this technology (what LG.Philips call ODC - Over Driving Circuitry) after it's success with TN Film, PVA and MVA panels. IPS has re-emerged offering some excellent quoted response times as well as excellent responsiveness in practice. Some modern IPS panels are even as responsive as the fastest TN Film panels in real use!
The IPS technology has always been better than TN+Film in terms of color reproduction and viewing angles. In fact, S-IPS matrices leave no chance to other LCD technologies in the color-reproduction quality. They have soft and pleasant colors, which are natural and close to high-quality CRT monitors. Thats why nearly all LCD monitors for professional work with color are based on S-IPS matrices, starting from relatively inexpensive to hi-end models of the Eizo ColorEdge series with integrated tools for custom hardware color-calibration.
The viewing angles are a treat after TN matrices: you cant notice any distortions of the image, sitting in front of an IPS matrix. Theres only one specific defect when youre looking at the screen from a side, black color acquires a characteristic violet hue (by the way, this defect allows telling an IPS matrix from any other), but the manufacturers are improving on this. In most cases, this is an insignificant defect anyway. Viewing angles are wider than PVA and MVA even and are signified by their listed specs commonly of 178/178 instead of 176/176. Only a guide on paper, but in reality, viewing angles are better on S-IPS based screens.
The only real problem of the S-IPS technology traditionally was the low contrast ratio (about 200:1, like that of an average TN+Film matrix). In means you see a dark gray instead of pure black. Thats not noticeable at daylight, but if youre working in a dimly lit room, you may be disappointed at the highlighting of the black color (coupled with the characteristic violet hue when youre viewing the screen from a side). Black depth was often a problem with S-IPS panels. However, contrast ratios have been improved significantly, and black depth is much better as a result. Whether or not black depth is as good as PVA / MVA panels is debatable, but technologies like Digital Fine Contrast DFC are helping to make blacks better as well. One area which remains problematic for modern IPS panels is movie playback, again with noise being present, and only accentuated by the heavy application of overdrive technologies.
Further reading: LG.Philips Whitepaper - Enhanced Super IPS (Dec 2005)
Simon Baker, updated 24 Dec 2006
TN Film (Twisted Nematic + Film) panels are the mostly widely used in the TFT market, with smaller sized screens (15", 17" and 19") being almost exclusively limited to this technology. The TN Film panels are made by many different manufacturers, with the big names all having a share in the market (Samsung, LG.Philips, AU Optronics) and being backed up by the other companies including BOE HyDis, CMO, CPT etc. TN Film has always been so widely used because it is comparatively cheap to produce panels based on this technology. As such, manufacturers have been able to keep costs of their displays down by using these panels. The other main reason for using TN Film is that it is fundamentally a responsive technology in terms of pixel latency. It has long been the choice for "gamers" screens and response times have long been, and still are today, the lowest out of all the technologies (at least on paper).
TN Film is characterized by it's low response times, and with the advent of overdrive / RTC technology, grey to grey transitions are also very fast now. The problem with TN Film is that viewing angles are pretty restrictive, especially vertically and this is evident be a severe darkening of the image, especially if you look at the screen from below. Movie playback can be a bit noisy too and black depth is also not as good as with other panel technologies due to the crystal alignment. However, in recent years, black depth has improved somewhat and is generally pretty good on modern screens, especially where dynamic contrast technologies are also used. TN Film is only a true 6-bit technology, but is able to offer a 16.2 million, and now even a 16.7 million, colour palette thanks to dithering and Frame Rate Control methods.
VA (Vertical Alignment) technology was developed by Fujitsu in 1996. Small viewing angles were its main disadvantage. This problem was solved by dividing each pixel into domains which worked synchronously. This lead the birth of&.
MVA (Multidomain Vertical Alignment) technology, developed by Fujitsu in 1998 as a compromise between TN Film and IPS technologies. On the one hand, MVA provided a full response time of 25 milliseconds (that was impossible at the time with IPS, and not easily achievable with TN), and on the other hand, MVA matrices had wide viewing angles of 160 - 170 degrees, and thus can compete with IPS in that parameter. The viewing angles are also very good in the vertical field (an area where TN panels suffer a great deal) as well as the horizontal field. MVA technology also provides high contrast ratios, which IPS and TN Film can't quite meet (without technologies like DFC at least).
In MVA panels, the crystals in the domains are oriented differently, so if one domain lets light pass through, the neighboring domain will have the crystals at an angle and will shutter the light (of course, save for the display of white color, in which case all the crystals are placed almost in parallel to the matrix plane).
The problem with MVA panels was that traditionally; the response time is not as good as TN film panels. Sadly, the response time grows dramatically when theres a smaller difference between the pixels initial and final states. Thus, such matrices are practically unsuitable for dynamic games, i.e. for home use. Of course, suitability is a subjective category, and some people may be quite satisfied with the image produced by an MVA matrix, but they are objectively slower than TN as well as IPS matrices anyway.
With the introduction of overdrive technologies, the manufacturers launched a new breed of...
Premium MVA panels (P-MVA) from AU Optronics, and Super MVA (S-MVA) from Chi Mei Optoelectronics and Fujitsu. These offer improved response times across grey to grey transitions which is a great improvement in the MVA market. While responsiveness is still not quite as fast as TN film panels, the improvement is obvious.
The color-reproduction properties of the MVA technology proved to be deficient, too. Such panels give you vivid and bright colors, but due to the peculiarities of the domain technology many subtle color tones (dark tones often) are lost when you are looking at the screen strictly perpendicularly. When you deflect your line of sight just a little, the colors are all here again. This is a characteristic VA panel contrast shift and some users pick up on this and might find it distracting. The panel manufacturers sometimes claim a wider gamut range, but these are rather qualities of the color filters and backlighting rather than of the matrix. Thus, MVA matrices are somewhere between IPS and TN technologies as concerns color reproduction. On the one hand, they are better than TN matrices in this respect, but on the other hand the above-described shortcoming prevents them from challenging IPS matrices. Traditionally MVA panels offered 8-Bit colour depth (a true 16.7 million colours) but it seems that some modern versions are only offering 6-Bit with FRC (see articles section for more info). Black depth is a strong point of MVA panels, being able to produce some of the deepest blacks in the market.
MVA panels also offer some comparatively good movie playback with noise and artifacts quite low compared with other technologies. The application of overdrive doesn't help in this area, but MVA panels are pretty much the only ones which haven't suffered greatly in movie playback as a result. Many of the MVA panels are still pretty good in this area, sadly something which overdriven TN Film, IPS and PVA panels can't offer.
Advanced MVA (A-MVA) - Next Generation VA Technology
AU Optronics have recently been working on their next generation of MVA panel technology, termed 'Advanced MVA' (A-MVA). This is designed to offer improved performance including reduced colour washout conquer the significant problem of color distortion with traditional wide viewing angle technology. This technology creates more domains than conventional multi-domain vertical alignment (MVA) LCDs and reduces the variation of transmittance in oblique angles. It productively improves color washout and provides better image quality in oblique angles than conventional VA LCDs. Also, it has been widely recognized worldwide that AMVA technology is one of the few ways to provide optimized image quality through multiple domains.
In addition, A-MVA provides an extra-high contrast ratio of greater than 1200:1 (reaching 2500:1 at time of writing) by optimized color-resist implementation and a new pixel design. The result is a more comfortable viewing experience for the consumer, even on dimmer images. This high contrast technology can also achieve wide viewing angles of up to 178 degrees. AMVA, which the Company believes to be the most competitive solution in low color washout technology, has been applied to AUO TV panels ranging from 32" up to 42", and has attracted widespread attention among global brand-name TV customers in the United States, Europe and Japan.
Further reading: Fujitsu - Super High Quality MVA (June 1999)
Chi Mei Optoelectronics - S-MVA Online Information
AU Optronics A-MVA Press Release
AU Optronics AMVA Technology and Product Information
PVA technology (Patterned Vertical Alignment) was developed by Samsung as an alternative to MVA. The parameters and the development ways of PVA and MVA are so different that PVA can be truly regarded as an independent technology.
The liquid crystals in a PVA matrix have the same structure as in a MVA one domains with varying orientation of the crystals allow keeping the same color, almost irrespective of the users line of sight. In fact, the viewing angles (as traditionally measured by the reduction of the contrast ratio to 10:1) are limited not by the matrix, but rather by the plastic framing around the screen. Colour reproduction is not perfect, too, like with MVA matrices: when you are looking straight at the screen, the matrix loses some shades, which return after you deflect your line of sight from the perpendicular a little.
Alas, theres the same problem with PVA matrices as with MVA ones their response time grows considerably when theres a smaller difference between the initial and final states of the pixel. Again, PVA panels are not as responsive as TN film panels. With the introduction of MagicSpeed (Samsung's overdrive), response times have been greatly improved and are comparable to MVA panels in this regard on similarly spec-ed panels. They still remain a little behind TN Film panels in gaming use, but the overdrive really has helped improve in this area.
The contrast ratio parameter is really good with the PVA technology though. First, PVA matrices are manufactured by Samsung alone, so there cant be any variation in quality between different manufacturers. Second, Samsung is actively working to improve the contrast ratio and with some results already: monitors with PVA matrices (they mostly come from Samsung, too) typically have a contrast ratio of anywhere between 600:1 and 1000:1. Generally speaking, PVA matrices are the only matrix type today for which the declared contrast values are often true (sometimes the real characteristic is even better than specified). Black depth is good, and again they offer much better measurements in this area than TN Film. MVA and IPS are improving, but tend to be a little more exaggerated on paper than PVA which are generally quite reliable in this spec.
Overall, PVA matrices could be said to be an improved version of MVA. Without any new defects, save for those already present in the MVA technology, PVA matrices feature slightly improved viewing angles, better contrast ratios and a much more predictable production quality due to their being manufactured on the facilities of one manufacturer only. Movie playback is perhaps one area which is a weak point for PVA, especially on Samsung's overdriven panels. Noise and artifacts are common unfortunately and the panels lose out fo MVA in this regard. While traditionally PVA panels offered 8-bit colour depth, it seems some modern panels might well use FRC/dithering methods along with a 6-bit panel. This is likely to be in an effort to keep manufacturing and production costs down, but is a disappointment to some users.
Samsung have produced a new breed of...
Super Patterned Vertical Alignment (S-PVA) panels. Most of these are based on the introduction of Magic Speed (the Samsung equivalent to Overdrive), which offer improved response times over traditional PVA matrices. Note that some PVA panels still used this technology, but S-PVA panels almost certainly feature it. Like P-MVA panels, these are really just an extension of the existing technology, but with the MagicSpeed technology, they have managed to make them more suitable for gaming than the older panels. One other difference is that the liquid crystal cell structure is a boomerang shape, splitting each sub pixel into two different sections with each aligned in opposite directions. This is said to help improve viewing angles and colour reproduction when viewed from the side.
Further reading: Samsung Whitepaper - PVA and S-PVA
The IPS (In Plane Switching) technology was developed by Hitachi in 1996 to solve the two plagues of TN-matrices: small viewing angles and low-quality color reproduction. The name In-Plane Switching comes from the crystals in the cells of the IPS panel lying always in the same plane and being always parallel to the panels plane (if we dont take into account the minor interference from the electrodes). When voltage is applied to a cell, the crystals of that cell all make a 90-degrees turn. By the way, an IPS panel lets the backlight pass through in its active state and shutters it in its passive state (when no voltage is applied), so if a thin-film transistor crashes, the corresponding pixel will always remain black, unlike with TN matrices.
IPS matrices differ from TN ones not only in the structure of the crystals, but also in the placement of the electrodes both electrodes are on one wafer and take more space than electrodes of TN matrices. This leads to a lower contrast and brightness of the matrix.
The original IPS technology became a foundation for several improvements: Super-IPS (S-IPS), Dual Domain IPS (DD-IPS), and Advanced Coplanar Electrode (ACE). The latter two technologies belong to IBM (DD-IPS) and Samsung (ACE) and are in fact unavailable in shops. The manufacture of ACE panels is halted, while DD-IPS panels are coming from IDTech, the joint venture of IBM and Chi Mei Optoelectronics these expensive models with high resolutions occupy their own niche, which but slightly overlaps with the common consumer market. NEC is also manufacturing IPS panels under such brands as A-SFT, A-AFT, SA-SFT and SA-AFT, but they are in fact nothing more than variations and further developments of the S-IPS technology. Enhanced S-IPS is the term given to LG.Philips' latest generation of panels using this technology. More information can be found about the improvements in the technology here, with a ODC (overdrive) technology playing a key role. Advanced Super IPS (AS-IPS) is also a term being used as well, but is just a term for the new Enhanced S-IPS panels used in models by NEC.
S-IPS panels have gained the widest recognition, mostly due to the efforts of another joint venture LG.Philips LCD, which is outputting rather inexpensive and high-quality 19 , 20 and now larger matrices. Besides the high price, the response time was among the serious drawbacks of the IPS technology first panels were as slow as 60ms on the official black-to-white-to-back transitions (and even slower on gray-to-gray ones!). Fortunately, the engineers dragged the full response time down to 25 milliseconds later, and this total is equally divided between pixel rise and pixel fall times. Moreover, the response time doesnt greatly grow up on black-to-gray transitions compared to the specification, so some older S-IPS matrices could challenge TN Film panels in this parameter (before overdrive anyway). For a while, S-IPS panels remained ar ~16ms as their best response time on paper. However, overdrive has caught up with this technology (what LG.Philips call ODC - Over Driving Circuitry) after it's success with TN Film, PVA and MVA panels. IPS has re-emerged offering some excellent quoted response times as well as excellent responsiveness in practice. Some modern IPS panels are even as responsive as the fastest TN Film panels in real use!
The IPS technology has always been better than TN+Film in terms of color reproduction and viewing angles. In fact, S-IPS matrices leave no chance to other LCD technologies in the color-reproduction quality. They have soft and pleasant colors, which are natural and close to high-quality CRT monitors. Thats why nearly all LCD monitors for professional work with color are based on S-IPS matrices, starting from relatively inexpensive to hi-end models of the Eizo ColorEdge series with integrated tools for custom hardware color-calibration.
The viewing angles are a treat after TN matrices: you cant notice any distortions of the image, sitting in front of an IPS matrix. Theres only one specific defect when youre looking at the screen from a side, black color acquires a characteristic violet hue (by the way, this defect allows telling an IPS matrix from any other), but the manufacturers are improving on this. In most cases, this is an insignificant defect anyway. Viewing angles are wider than PVA and MVA even and are signified by their listed specs commonly of 178/178 instead of 176/176. Only a guide on paper, but in reality, viewing angles are better on S-IPS based screens.
The only real problem of the S-IPS technology traditionally was the low contrast ratio (about 200:1, like that of an average TN+Film matrix). In means you see a dark gray instead of pure black. Thats not noticeable at daylight, but if youre working in a dimly lit room, you may be disappointed at the highlighting of the black color (coupled with the characteristic violet hue when youre viewing the screen from a side). Black depth was often a problem with S-IPS panels. However, contrast ratios have been improved significantly, and black depth is much better as a result. Whether or not black depth is as good as PVA / MVA panels is debatable, but technologies like Digital Fine Contrast DFC are helping to make blacks better as well. One area which remains problematic for modern IPS panels is movie playback, again with noise being present, and only accentuated by the heavy application of overdrive technologies.
Further reading: LG.Philips Whitepaper - Enhanced Super IPS (Dec 2005)
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