While the price of LCD screens drop to comparable pricing levels with CRTs and sales are on the rise, technologically they are held back because at the end of the day the picture delivered by an LCD limits its application compared to a CRT. Sure, LCDs are easier on the eyes, lack flicker and offer stronger uniformity, but they are limited by their response times. This makes LCDs great for business or 2D applications, but for gamers or home entertainment they've always lacked the redraw speed required. Fortunately, this too, is about to change.

The new Diamond View DV159 LCD from Mitsubishi is the first of an upcoming slew of flat panel displays that features a key change in the specifications: 16ms response time. While screen size and resolutions are key differentiators between LCDs, the 16ms response time is going to lift those screens that feature it above the others that don't. This is because such a fast response time makes an LCD more comparable to a CRT and better for applications such as video editing, gaming and watching DVDs.

While this fast response time, 15in viewable area and 400:1 contrast ratio work wonders for the Diamond View DV159, the unit's 250 cd/m² brightness and maximum native resolution of 1,024 x 768 are fairly uninspiring.

Testing with DisplayMate revealed no defects or major problems, although the maximum brightness is not that great, leaving some darkened colours in the gradient tests. In real-world applications this slightly darkened screen was irritating, but not so annoying that you wouldn't adjust.

Its last real benefit is price: with 16ms response time, this is well worth the $789 Mitsubishi is asking for it.