19" WideScreen LCD > Acer AL1916W(asd) colors?

I'm looking to replace an old CRT with a new 19" Widescreen LCD and, given my low budget, have come up with a pretty nice contender and was wondering if anyone could help fill in some gaps and offer some recommendations to help me make my decision.
>> The most important question I have, regarding the Acer AL1916W(asd), is the colors. I am unble to find a reliable source to confirm if it is actually 16.7million colors (24-bit) or not as this would be a real deal breaker. Does anyone know or able to confirm this?

And if anyone has any first-hand experience with this monitor (this is the DVI & VGA model) it would be much appreciated - I read a lot of reviews and aside on this model and most are pretty positive aside from some tradeoffs such as bag viewing angles and colors but in general, for the $190CDN price, it seems like a good buy.
Any information, comments, feedback, and/or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thanks.

You will probably get more responses if you post this topic in the Flat Panel / LCD section:

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/ce/ [...] rum-9.html

Unfortunately you cannot go by that alone. Manufacturers typically state both 16.2M and 16.7M colors for 6-bit panels to confuse customers. 16.8M colors is probably a typo, it most likely should have been 16.7M colors.

A good indication if a panel is 6-bit or 8-bit is the response time. As of right now any LCD panel that lists a response time of 5ms or faster are 6-bit TN panels. The fastest response time for an 8-bit panel is 6ms.

The only way to determine if a panel is using 6-bit or 8-bit technology is to do research. Like many people will say:

"Google is your friend..."

Here is one site that lists some monitors and the type of panels they use:

http://axofiber.no-ip.org/inside/m [...] els.en.htm

The accuracy of the list depends on how the information was obtained.

You should also browse [H]ardforum as well since their LCD forum is very active:

http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=78


8-bit panels are more expensive for a reason. The panels cost more to manufacture.

LCDs using 6-bit panels can produce up to 16.2M colors thru dithering. Some manufacturers list them as 16.7M (same as 8-bit panels) to confuse potential buyers.

You need to understand how exponents work. The exponent is the number of times a number is multiplied by itself. Also you need to know that a bit is binary. 0 = off, 1 = on.

6-bit panels really produces less than 16.2M colors. A lot less. Monitors have 3 primary colors used to make all possible colors; Blue, Green Red. In a 6-bit monitor each of the three colors uses 6 bits to determine the number of shades. A 6-bit monitor produces 64 shades of each color. 2^6 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64. Therefore, the monitor can produce 64 shades of Blue, Green, Red. That means 64^3 or 64 x 64 x 64 = 262,144 "real" colors can be made. Thru a process called dithering, the other 16M colors are estimate by "guessing" what they should be.

8-bit panels can actually produce 16.7M colors. 2^8 = 256. That's 256 shades of each color. That means 256^3 or 256 x 256 x 256 = 16.7M colors.