TN Panel – A Brief Explanation

Twisted Nematic is a panel technology widely used by display manufacturers. This display technology is popularly used in the manufacture of gaming monitors, because of the advantages it offers in building low cost and responsive monitors.

The TN technology is both superior and inferior in different aspects to its rival IPS and VA technologies.

It should be noted, that TN technology has vastly improved over the years to cover some of its shortfalls. The new TN monitors are a much better version of the older TN monitors.

At the same time, a lot of TN monitors selling in the market nowadays are still plagued with poor colors and viewing angles because the display manufacturers have opted for cheaper implementations to save costs.

TN panel is a preferred choice for a gaming monitor because of the advantages it offers in certain aspects.

A TN panel is capable of producing an ultra-high refresh rate that makes a game run smoothly. The high refresh rate also reduces input lag incurred by the monitor, making the monitor more responsive.

Another prized feature of TN panel that makes it extremely suitable for gaming is its rapid response time.  Response time is simply the amount of time it takes for a pixel to transition from one color shade to another. A fast-action game typically has a lot happening on the screen that requires the pixels to change their state rapidly as the game moves on from one frame to the next. TN panels for example boast extremely rapid response times of around 1ms i.e. it takes around 1ms for the pixels to change their state as the games move from one frame to the next.

It is no surprise that TN panels are recommended as a primary choice for gamers in every Gaming Monitor Buying Guide.

Where there are many advantages of a TN panel, there are some notable shortfalls also. The color reproduction in TN panels is not as good as that of an IPS panel.  TN panels are also not suitable for viewing from wider angles.