The Sony 46Z4100 was the first large LCD monitor that I felt may be good enough for my use. It was the fastest I could visually find in a three year search and I felt it was a good LCD. It offered the highest level of clarity and resolution of any LCD I've found, and may be perfect for digital graphic artists. Be it on a wall with 30 other monitors, the Z4100 models stand out among the others with an incredibly sharper higher definition picture that doesn't blur as much as others in action scenes. It's light, easy to mount and is attractive to the significant other. The menu is not complicated but for unknown reasons has lost some features when using component inputs (such as advanced picture options menu) compared the Sony's economy models. The picture presentation offered from flat panels is clear and almost shadow mask free (incredibly small black lines separating the pixels) when viewed at the appropriate distance but color is saturated and unrealistic, whites are almost chromic. The Z4100 does very good in that respect and is much less offensive than others, almost perfect.

There is a negative side to all LCDs, so this is constructive criticism. The black levels of the Z4100 are satisfactory for daytime use but is unusable at night for serious monitoring like most LCDs. The processing is delayed compared to CRTs (not to be confused with motion blur) so serious gamers or Computer Animation Artists who demand speed might want to spend some time testing the monitor before buying, as the on screen action is delayed behind your controller buttons input. Another issue; many fortunate people cannot see fast enough to pick up on the motion blur inherent in the LCD topology but those who can, hate panel TVs. I'm particularly sensitive to it and can see the blur drag as much as 7 inches across an LCD screen in heavy action scenes. To better understand why this happens, when LCDs are "on" they become dark or colored. When they are off they are clear. The problem is the transition from OFF to ON and OFF again is many times slower than a cathode ray tube and with many LCDs there is no black frame between picture frames to help. With 120Hz turned on this is helped a small degree but looks horribly fake with movies. The very best 1080 hi-definition CRTs previously from Loewe, Sony and Panasonic offered a much, much better picture though the price, size and weight may be forbidding for some.

In conclusion the Z4100 was the cleanest LCD I've found widely available, and if you want an LCD monitor I recommend the Z4100. Performance of this line compared to other LCDs is fantastic.