TrustedReviews have looked at the Samsung SyncMaster XL20 LED Backlight Monitor. This monitor uses an LED backlight rather than conventional Cold Cathode Florescent Lamps (CCFLs) found in almost every other desktop LCD display. Using LEDs over CCFLs brings with it a number of advantages, the most fundamental of which is that the LEDs are able to create a much purer white level, and thus, a much larger colour gamut.

Whereas standard monitors can only produce around 82 per cent of the NTSC standard, the XL20 can display 114 per cent, the full area of the Adobe RGB natural colour space. More significant is where that increased range is - in the areas of greens and reds, which really should make an impact on how accurately and vividly images are rendered on screen. This is of key importance for a colour critical workflow situation. There's no point spending ages getting the colour for a product right on screen only for it to come out quite differently when it's manufactured or printed.

LEDs have other advantages too. There's virtually no warm up time required so you don't have to wait for your monitor to stabilise to get correct colours. Next, they are more eco- friendly, in that they don't contain mercury. Thirdly, they're more robust as they're much less susceptible to sudden failure or burnout. They can fade over time, but even with regular use you're looking at many years of benefiting from your LED backlit screen.