Westside guy said:
It is quite apparent even at first glance. When we recently (at work) all got LCD monitors, everyone else had to use the VGA input; I connected via DVI directly from my Powerbook. My boss - who didn't at the time know I had a direct DVI connection - came in and immediately asked why his screen didn't look as crisp as mine did.
Now his was being driven by XP, while mine of course was OS X; but this quality difference didn't show up when we were all using CRTs. Everything just looked better on my monitor. I don't know how to quantify it, but it just did.
He has since ordered DVI video cards for all of our group's boxes.
Here's my experience.
I have two LCD panels hooked up to my Powermac. One is a Samsung 17-inch that has VGA input only, and the other is a Gateway 18-inch that is connected with DVI.
To me, the image crispness and clarity are exactly the same.
The key is, if you get a VGA-only LCD, to get one that has good processing capabilities and the ability to automatically adjust the picture for maximum clarity, etc. On my Samsung, there is a button on the front labeled "Auto", which automatically runs a series of adjustments to how the VGA signal is processed and displayed. I cannot tell one bit of difference between the VGA and DVI signal.
People who complain that their VGA LCD panels don't look as good as their DVI panels have their VGA panels configured improperly. Either their VGA LCD panel does not have an automatic image processor, they havn't used it, or they are trying to run their LCD monitor at a non-native resolution.
Remember, running any LCD monitor in its nonnative resolution will DESTROY the picture quality.
In conclusion, if you are worried about quality on a VGA-only LCD panel, just make sure the panel has some sort of decent automatically-adjusting feature, and ALWAYS run at native resolution. All too often I see people running their panels at nonnative resolution, and it looks like dogpoo. They are astonished at how much better their picture is once i show them how to run their panel at native resolution.