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Slack LCD TV Market Means Cheaper Phones And Monitors
Shakrai writes "CNN and Business2 are running a story about the apparent failure of LCD TVs to make a major market impact and what it means for you. Specifically for us geeks it means cheaper cellular phones and laptops due to an oversupply of LCD manufacturing. Does this mean I can finally afford that 21" LCD monitor I've always wanted?"
When am I going to get my wide screen OEL TV?
I've been waiting YEARS for that.
I guess I'll have to settle with my cell phone for now . . .
You're all bastards!
$389 for a 15" LCD screen can hardly be justified when 19" CRT's are half that price. Glad to see this coming.
PDAs though must be another story.
Does this mean I can finally afford that 21" LCD monitor I've always wanted?
As a matter of fact, I am looking for the 20" (because there are no smaller LCD monitors which do 1600x1200) to cross the CHF 1000,- limit to acquire one.
In June, these were 1400,-
Now, they reached 1100,-
This might be next month.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Can anybody comment on the finest, cheapest LCD monitors available? I'm looking to get 2 or 3 of them for a kick-ass multi-monitor setup, but I don't want to get crap, nor spend $1200 a pop.
/.
I'd *like* 1600x1200, and I want 19"+
I open the floor to
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
Specifically for us geeks it means cheaper cellular phones and laptops due to an oversupply of LCD manufacturing.
I think LCDs are the kind of things that attract non-geeks too. I mean, we've been trying to use eye-candy to lure people into using linux for ages (and by ages I mean...a couple of years). So I think a lot of people are going to start buying LCDs if they become cheap. I mean, I know plenty of geeks who would love to have a 21" LCD too. Maybe I just hang around all geeks and so I have no true perception of what "normal" people are like. In any event it's good that the prices are being lowered.
I'm against picketing but I don't know how to show it.
Hmmm. You don't know much about business, do you?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Its really not suprising they haven't really taken off, who wants to pay $500 for a 15 inch LCD television/monitor when they can get a 40 inch widescreen flatscreen tube for the same price? To be honest I can't see much of a difference between Plasma, Projection and Tube televisions when I'm just watching regular broadcast cable anyway.
They were stupid if they thought they were going to make money on them. Have you seen an LCD TV? They are very very small and they are very expensive. I have seen them side by side with standard TV sets and the newer plasma and other expensive alternatives and they just don't look good.
I myself was suckered into buying a low-end 27" TV from Apex. It's only needed as a secondary TV but the price was right. Why should I spend $1000 on a 15" LCD when I can spend $200 on a 27" with DVD built in?
I purchased my first 15" LCD monitor over 2 years ago, and I'm still shocked how the prices have not changed all that much from then. Any price drop to get me a new 19" LCD is more than welcome with me.
id assume their more likely to accept a loss, and lower prices to reduce how much they do lose...
the apparent failure of LCD TVs to make a major market impact and what it means for you. Specifically for us geeks it means cheaper cellular phones and laptops due to an oversupply of LCD manufacturing.
Hmmm, oversupply of lcd manuf due to lack of interest in lcd tv's? Sounds like it means that cell phones with 15" lcd's will be on the market soon. Now you can really see how crappy your cell phone camera is.
At >$5,000 for a 40" LCD TV, exactly what market impact were they expecting? There are not too many folks out there with that kind of disposable income. I'd love to have a large, widescreen LCD TV, but I'm waiting for a good quality 42" model for $3,000. If another technology wins out because the LCD TVs can't find the right price/performance ratio, that's fine. It doesn't change the amount I have to spend on toys.
When is this going to become a viable reality? I really hate knowing that I will have to replace my laptop (column of damaged pixels), because there is no justifiably-priced means to simply replace the screen.
Perhaps a market for aftermarket LCD screens could taqake advantage of the surplus.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Just a guess, but it was more a Photoshopped image of the future. Didn't that big ol' Electrohome hanging from the ceiling look just a tad suspect?
Three Squirrels
I am not in the market for a cell phone, nor an LCD monitor.
But I would be very interested if this lowered the prices for laptops.
However, laptop prices depend on many other things (being a business tool for managers and such, rather than a consumer one, other expensive components, the aura of commanding a premium on the price, ...etc.)
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
I don't think corporations can do much about supply and demand...
they want more money per unit so they adjust the supply (dump a bunch of at a cheaper price).
then the supply is down and the demand is down and the price is higher
Get paid to code OSS
...from my 17 inch CRT to an LCD is when it offers a higher resolution, at a low price. Right now all the LCD monitors I see offer nothing in terms of "upgrades" to resolution, etc. I can't justify spending $300 to get some room behind my monitor that was otherwise not there and to have to downgrade resolutions. Its not like I'll find some use for new space behind a new LCD monitor, and my computer desk wouldn't work with said LCD on a wall.
"it means cheaper cellular phones and laptops"
"Does this mean I can finally afford that 21" LCD monitor I've always wanted?"
You really want a cell phone or a laptop with a 21" screen?
What are you smoking and not sharing?
You can routinely find 17" LCD's for $320.
Now that I've switched to LCD's, I'll NEVER go back to CRT's.
Besides, a 19" CRT has a viewable area not much bigger than a 17" LCD.
My eyes definitely prefer the LCD. I'm convinced I wouldn't need glasses if I'd switched to LCD's 3 or 4 years earlier (my vision spiraled downward rapidly after I became a programmer).
Wouldn't a phone with a 21" display be a bit cumbersome?
On the other hand...
"What's that in your pocket?"
"Twenty-one inches of pure happiness! Want to see it?"
And the steering wheel! That was never in any computer, business or home.
Looks suspect alright.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
What I've always been told about LCD tech (someone correct me if I am wrong) is that there is a reason why high-res LCD is so expensive: dead pixels. There are only so many that can be tolerated before the panel is useless, and they have to start over. The screens for phones are tiny, the chance of getting an unacceptable number of dead pixels (and increasing cost) is small.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
Somehow I don't think it's as easy as turning unused tv lcd producing factories into monitor and cell phone producing factories, but I may be wrong.
It seems to me this may be good for the short-term, but it's bad for the long term. Things become cheap (a stable cheap, not a short term cheap) because they're produced in massive quantities. If LCD TV's actually took off, you're see dramatically lower prices in LCD monitors over the long term. If LCD screens stay confined to the computer market, and don't become mainstream there, they'll remain relatively expensive over the long term. So this looks like bad news to me...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I've been looking at 17" LCDs quite a bit lately, but all the inexpensive ones only have analog in - sort of defeats the purpose. I'd really like a 17" Apple LCD to match my G4, but those are still going for ~500 on ebay. Anybody know of any sub-$400, 17" LCDs with digital inputs?
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
With the advent of new technologies like OLED screens, amongst other things, I'm surprised companies aren't eager to release them.
One reason I'd imagine there are so many LCD's overstocked is that LCD screens might have nice refresh rates, but the monitors which dont suffer excessive blurring which is bad for gamers, tend to be the ones which cost a few grand. And while LCD screens best benefit the development of large monitors, large LCD monitors cost so much barely anyone has one these days (I still know people using ancient 15" CRT monitors.. I'm one of them).
Maybe if they helped companies like Nvidia to work on algorithms which would help reduce the blurring effect by adjusting the brightness of a colour which only gets drawn for a milisecond to help reduce the blurring), or something better, it could give them a killer market.. Every gamer on the block would want one.
Personally, the dead pixel problems some of the Manufacturers have on their monitors is one thing that makes me highly cautious about the cheap LCD screens
This is _normal_. New technology is always relatively expensive and many manufacturers try to get in on the ground floor to capture market-share and enjoy the relatively large per unit gross profit. Then, whoops, we've made too many, there's a market glut, inventories are growing, gotta mov'em out so drop the price and oh, there _are_ a lot of consumers out there who'll buy them at the new improved price, so more get manufactured, economies of scale take the price even lower, and the cycle continues.
Happens every time....
As it happens, The Economist recently ran an article addressing some of these issues, particularly the "bang for the buck" of LCDs versus other display technologies. The article also provides context and perspective that should be of interest to those participating in this discussion. For convenience, the full text is reproduced below; it is also accessible online (may require paid subscription).
----
RATIONAL CONSUMER
Televisions go flat
Sep 16th 2004
From The Economist print edition
Consumer electronics: TVs based on bulky cathode-ray tubes are giving way to flat-panel models. How will the market evolve?
[Image]
TELEVISIONS, it seems, can never be too wide or too thin--and increasingly, they are wide and thin at the same time, thanks to the growing popularity of flat-panel televisions based on plasma and liquid-crystal display (LCD) technology. Flat-panel TVs are stylish, do not take up much room, and do justice to the crystal-clear images produced by DVD players, digital-cable boxes and games consoles. Sales of LCD TVs in particular are expected to account for an ever larger portion of the market (see chart) as consumers embrace these new technologies at the expense of bulky models based on old-fashioned cathode-ray tubes (CRTs). LCD-based models are expected to account for 18% of televisions sold in 2008, up from just 2.2% in 2003, according to iSuppli, a market-research firm.
LCD TVs are the latest example of a technology from the computer industry causing a stir in consumer electronics. For years, anyone who wanted to buy a flat-panel television had to buy a plasma screen, a large and expensive (a 42-inch model costs around $3,500) option. LCD technology, already used in flat-panel computer monitors and laptop displays, makes possible smaller, more affordable flat-panel TVs: a 17-inch model costs around $800, for example.
The prospect of a much bigger market has prompted new entrants, including PC-makers such as Dell and HP, and established consumer-electronics firms, such as Motorola and Westinghouse (both of which stopped making TVs decades ago) to start selling televisions alongside the established television-set manufacturers. For PC-makers, which already sell flat-panel monitors, diversifying into TVs is no big leap. For consumer-electronics firms, the appeal of flat-panel TVs is that they offer much higher margins than conventional televisions. During the late-2003 holiday season, makers of flat-panel TVs, both LCD and plasma, succeeded in creating a tremendous buzz around their products, says Riddhi Patel, an analyst at iSuppli.
But it did not translate into sales to the extent that the manufacturers had hoped. Although more people are now aware of flat-panel TVs, many are still deterred by their high prices. The expense is difficult to justify, particularly since a 30-inch LCD television can cost up to four times as much as a comparable CRT-based model, with no real difference in picture quality.
Flat-panel TV-makers have now, says Ms Patel, begun to cut their prices. For one thing, they are sitting on a lot of unsold inventory: the panel-makers made too many panels, the TV-makers built too many TVs, and the retailers ordered more than they could sell.
Prices are also expected to fall as production capacity is stepped up. Sharp opened a new "sixth generation" LCD factory in January. In May, Matsushita, the Japanese firm behind the Panasonic brand, announced that it would build the world's biggest plasma-display factory. And in July, Sony and Samsung announced that their joint-venture, a "seventh-generation" LCD factory at Tangjung in South Korea, would start operating next year. There is concern that this year's record investment in LCD plants could lead to overcapacity next year. For consumers, however, this is all g
Not really... Supply and demand say that the price will go down... That's the way it works for EVERYTHING. LCD's aren't going to be some special case... and dropping the price will not make them lose anything. Those things are so stinkin overpriced compared to what they cost to produce that even a 50% price cut would still turn a pretty high profit...
Well, it finally happened. I've been modded offtopic.
;-)
Didn't that big ol' Electrohome hanging from the ceiling look just a tad suspect?
Other than the fact that it was hanging crooked? No. I figured that they added it because the computer would integrate with home entertainment. i.e. The computer could accept tapes similar to the ones that Mr. Spock used to plug in.
Just a guess, but it was more a Photoshopped image of the future.
Maybe you're right. Who knows. It certainly *looks* like something they might have "dreamed up". Just like the Hydrogen-powered 747s that Popular Science was promising a few years back.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The margins on the larger LCD TV's are HUGE.
A friend of mine works at Sears, doing commission sales on home entertainment products. He'll make $300+ on the sale of 1 big LCD TV
25% off coupon?
Where at?
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
I love NewEgg, and I buy a ton of stuff from them. They're only slightly more expensive than the cheapest you can find, and they're super reliable. You can't buy LCDs from the though, and here's why:
Dead Pixels Policy: Replacement or Refund for 8 or more DEAD PIXELS ONLY!
I don't know about you, but even one dead pixel is unacceptable.
Hmm... seems you're right. Must have been a troll trying to see what kind of silliness they could get Slashdot to put on the front page.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I'm a bit of a videophile (audiophile too but lets not get into that).
Currently, the best available picture quality for direct view is still the venerable CRT. LCD and Plasma screens need video scalers to map the input signal to the display and these are rarely any good, certainly not in the consumer level equipment. Also, LCDs have very poor black level so the picture often looks rather grey. Plasma screens often have poor colour characteristics and also suffer from short lifespans. If you are considering one though, make sure you buy the Video Essentials DVD and learn how to use it so you can test any prospective purchase.
For projection systems the situation is somewhat different, a CRT projector while often capable of staggering picture quality is much harder to set up than an LCD or DLP projector and vastly more expensive. LCDs are generally less good than a DLP projector. DLP has better contrast ratio but may suffer from rainbow fringing if you get a single chip example. Correct calibration will fix this. LCDs have been much harder to calibrate well compared with a DLP in my experience and often suffer from uneven colour: several examples I tested looked slightly green on one side of the screen and blue on the other. Yuck.
There are other technologies coming along (OLED for instance) that look likely to change the landscape dramatically. I certainly wouldn't plunk down any money on an LCD TV. A plasma screen would also not be on my list as the picture just isn't big enough for movies IMHO. A good DLP based front projector supplemented by a standard CRT for normal TV will be far cheaper, and likely better quality than a plasma screen of half the size. The video scaler (Faroudja DDI) in my little DLP projector is much better quality than any of those I have seen in LCD or plasma screens and the projector cost a fraction of the price of the 40" examples.
I would certainly recommend buying a 16:9 set though (I got my first one back in '92 and people thought I was mad) but look at direct view CRT or rear/front projection DLP for the best bang for the buck I think.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
What the heck are they expecting when they sell LCD TV's for two to three times the cost of the SAME SIZE LCD monitor?
I can walk into Best Buy, buy a cheap 17" monitor for $250 - $300 after rebate, and put a TV tuner box from Viewsonic on it for $150, that's $400 for a 17" TV. If I walk over to the TV sections, the CHEAPEST 15" TV is almost $500. The 17" LCD TV's are between $650 - $900... one is priced over $1000. So what's the deal? Why the hell would I EVER buy an LCD TV? There's absolutely no reason to pay as much as they want for an LCD TV. They are overcharging something fierce, when LCD monitors are cheaper, it's obviously not the LCD that's costing more for the TV... it's just plain corporate greed.
So no... I sure as hell won't be buying an LCD TV anytime soon.
Ohhh, i see:
DELL
UltraSharp 2001FP 20.1-inch Flat Panel LCD Monitor with Height Adjustable Stand
$899.00
$719.20
[You Save $179.80]
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
I agree about LCD and Projection but I've just paid 1000 UKP for a 26" plasma and it's stunning. It reminds me of how I felt when I replaced my vinyl with CDs. The jump in clarity, specialy when watching DVDs, is exceptonal. The only problem, and I guess that I'm agreeing with your 'broadcast cable' comment, is that you become very aware of the broadcast quality.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Dell Canada charges 1350 CAD for that thing. The US price, converted, works out to under 1000 CAD.
I'm not impressed.
Check techbargains.comperiodically, the 2001FP makes frequent appearances there for a little over $700.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Cheaper does not neccesarily mean affordable.For eg. If it falls from $500 to 400-450 , I still cannot afford it. :-P
Don't we all want lovely 21" LCD's to watch our collection of DivX movies?? or play doom3.
Lord of the Binges.
While a 42-inch Sony Wega LCD TV retails for $10,000, a 42-inch plasma set can be had for about $4,500. LCD TVs accounted for a measly 3 percent of all sets sold in the United States in 2003.
I am a well-documented TV hater. One thing I could never understand were all the ads for TVs that cost $2k, $5k, and even $10k for the last couple of years. I thought that if they are advertising them people must be buying them. I'm interested to read that this isn't the case. But still, $4.5k for a TV? OMGWTFBBQ. Is Joey that much funnier on a $4.5k or even a $10k set?
No? Now I get the real joke.
Speak truth to power.
While a 42-inch Sony (SNE) Wega LCD TV retails for $10,000...
Uh, sure. But in practicality, I purchased a 60 inch Sony Wega LCD 2 weeks ago for $4500.
Come on! LCD's are thin. That is cool, but big whoop!
I can get a 19" CRT monitor that does 1600x1200 for $99. The refresh rate is 75Hz or more.
These LCD screens have slow response rate and don't offer near the resolution. If you expect me to trade in my CRT for a much more expensive monitor, then I better be upgrading. But, "thin" just isn't going to cut it for me to shell out that kind of money.
When the OLEDs come out, we'll talk.
The problem is that there is a 200+ dollar price difference between an LCD computer monitor and an LCD TV at the same size. This is ridiculous since the only real difference may be the addition of cheap speakers and a TV tuner.
You can get a 14" LCD monitor for less than $300 but the TV version is over $500. It's just not worth it. And of course price increases geometrically with size.
Economy of scale has not worked its magic the way it has with tube TVs (tube TVs are dirt-cheap these days).
You have captured the essence of the problem.
Further, when you look closely at an LCD television, you notice that the image quality is no better than the image produced by a CRT television. So, why would anyone the premium price for the LCD television?
People do want the convenience of an LCD, which uses much less space than a CRT. Yet, they also want improved picture quality in order to justify the price.
The answer is just around the corner: optical interference displays (OIDs). They produce far sharper and brighter images than an LCD. The OID also consumes less power than an LCD.
Umm... in general, corporations also want to dump inventory and take the loss now. Inventory is a bad thing... it's supply that you spent money to make and are spending money to keep. If you lose the inventory at a discounted price, at least you take in revenue and don't incur storage costs. See "Memory in the late 1990's" for another example.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
If we applied that formula to my paycheck I should be making over $12 an hour washing dishes... Seems dish washers still make less than $7.50 an hour and although my current job pays more, I have significntly more responsibility and education than I did when I washed dishes after school.
A Call For A New Slashdot Moderation Level!
Are these the same people who told us in the 80s that CD prices would come down as production ramped up?
-Rich
I'd like to add that when a small LCD is ruined by a group of bad pixels you have (assuming its a moderately large display, 128*64) just over 8000 good pixels wasted, not really all that many, but a 1280*1024 display, while still considered "damaged" with a few dead pixels you end up with over 1.3 million good pixels being "wasted"
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
And in my book, than number is 1.
A hate working on a monitor that has a little black dot in the middle of the screen. This is one advantage that CRTs still have over LCD. Maybe when resolutions get so his that a single missing pixel is effectively unnoticable, it won't bug me so much.
There was a survey a year or so ago (I don't know by whom and I don't feel like googling.. was up all night watching the 70s cop movies I picked up for $5 each on DVD [You the man, Shaft] and I'm cranky as a cat full of cut snakes), but most companies wouldn't replace and LCD until there were anywhere from 6 to 20 dead pixels.
Given how annoying one is, something with half a dozen or more would drive me nuts.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
IMHO It's just more lax production quality standards.
I *think* there are more dead pixels per 1000 units now than there were just a few years ago. I don't know many with an LCD that didn't ship with one. All brands. I don't remember that just a short while ago.
I personally would perfer some better quality. Ideally give me a choice: 0 dead pixel guarantee and I'll pay extra. If I don't care, I'll take the damaged goods and pay less.
I just don't think it's fair to be paying so much for damaged goods. These dead pixels are annoying. And you often need several to qualify for a replacement, regardless of position on the screen.
Was my post informative? Help me get a free flat screen by completing 1 silly little offer. I need one to go with my free iPod.
What you have is excess capacity of the creation of LCDs, and so the LCDs created will simply be ones for a different purpose. The production of LCD TVs will simply be lowered to match the demand such that price levels are approximately maintained. On the other hand production of LCDs for other gadgets for which the demand outstrips supply will be increased. This may lead to these items becoming slightly cheaper but there are many other factors involved in the pricing of a PDA or a phone (especially the latter given deep discounting already) that the price of these may not be greatly affected by a reduced screen cost.
It is worth remembering that very few manufacturers make LCDs for computer monitors, even though there are very many brands. In terms of the retailers they will only wish to drop prices if it leads to such additional sales that it increases their profit. However they would rather sell more items at their current profit level. Market saturation and distinguishing your product on the basis of cost from a competitors comes into play here. Sometimes cutting the price of your monitor may not only reduce the profit margin but harm sales if your brand is considered to be a premium one. There are a lot of complex factors at play here.
it means cheaper cellular phones and laptops
Why wouldn't it mean cheaper lcd tvs?
seems more logical to me.
I don't quite understand buying a big bulky TV for television/movie viewing.
Why not just buy a projector for about the cost and you can get a screen size that makes your 60" TV look pathetic! Situate the projector even just 10 feet back from the wall and you can produce a large (6 foot+) "screen".
Projectors...
*Are small, and light
*Project a massive screen size
*Cost as much as a nice TV
*Take just about any input Composite/*GA/S-Video/DVI
So what you have to replace the lamp after many thousands of hours of use. The cost-to-screensize make it worth it, to me.
It will take up very little space in your entertaining area, compared to a mammoth TV.
Plus, if your setup allows, it can double as your primary computer display. I've not written code on a screen that size, and I probavbly would not want to..but for games or movie viewing it is nice.
Lets see
19" LCD monitor $1000
20" LCD TV $1600
The look of the faces of the tards that don't know there is NO difference...PRICELESS!
Hey, maybe we need a colour coded scale which consumers can use as a quick reference guide to commercial terrorism.... ah forget it just invade!
Negative points are:
There are other thin TV techologies coming along, though, which may be better for TVs than LCD (but perhaps a bit too heavy for a monitor, compared to how useful LCDs are for monitors).
From the article is appears that they've gone from $26 to $18...
As an example, consider how many stores have big sales after Halloween, Christmas, etc. Much of the merchandise could be saved and sold the next year at much less of a discount, but the overhead of inventory makes that not pay off.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
It's no wonder LCD TV and Monitor sales havent taken off.
About the only thing LCD monitors or TVs have going for them is the footprint on your desk.
I hate the viewing angle problems, motion blur problems, the way "lower resolutions" look once they've been stretched.
I hate the way something really dark looks, like Doom 3 or watch Aliens or another dark movie. See all the bands of dark grey. Ick.
They still have all these problems, things have been improving, but still the picture on a quality CRT blows away any LCD I've ever seen.
They aren't even that much more energy efficient. The standalone TVs and monitors have backlights that are bright as hell to try and compensate for the viewing angle thing.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
It's just not worth spending the extra money on a 15" LCD television. Consider the market - most small televisions are put in the kitchen, a bedroom, or a utility/exercise type room. People don't really want to spend much money on such televisions. Furthermore, the space savings of a 15" LCD over a 15" CRT television isn't that huge. A 15" CRT will happily sit on a dresser or a shelf.
The real market for LCD televisions is for the large televisions. The difference in physical volume between a 34+" LCD and a 34+" CRT television is significant. And you can wall mount an LCD - the CRT will need some form of stand.
"It's excess capacity, not excess supply"
Nope. It's both.
From the article
"Predicts Erik Willey, senior product manager at display maker ViewSonic, 'We're going to see an oversupply for the foreseeable future.'"
Corps HATE losing money.
Right, because individuals just LOVE to lose it.
paintball
I suspect that these lack-lustre sales are made worse by recent laptop trends. I've an 18 month old laptop I intended to replace after 2 years. The old laptop has a great 1600x1200 UXGA LCD screen. While I could make use of the higher performance processors found in more recent notebooks and would welcome a DVD writer and larger hard disk - these concerns are secondary to my ability to display my work on-screen. Almost every high spec laptop today comes with a "Wide" screen - WUXGA or similar - these wide-formats just don't suit my needs. I use small fonts which become unreadable on WUXGA as the aspect ratio changes sufficiently to cause eyestrain - when I increase my font size sufficiently to read my data on WUXGA I've lost any horizontal resolution advantage I may have gained.
The reason for this move to wide format screens is (sadly) obvious (once you break out a calculator). Screens are marketed upon diagonal size - but manufacturing cost is more closely related to screen area. It is interesting to note that 15.4" wide LCD has almost exactly the same screen area as a 15" LCD of traditional ratios - yet even apparently savvy buyers are mislead to believe they are getting a larger screen.
Where are the UVXGA++ panels?
WTF gives? A TV that does the same resolution (and image quality) as a laptop from 1996 that costs as much as a entire laptop in 2004?
Please - someone explain.
Supply and demand say that the price will go down.
The free market works great if
There are various examples where those conditions are not met.
There are also a few other singular cases where the elasticity in the market can become strained, such as healthcare provision. If you're hurtin', you might be willing to pay a lot to feel better, not die, etc.
On the LCD issue, I'm looking at big LCD TVs, like the Sharp Aquos 45". I like the native hi-res and the tolerably good pixel response time, but they're only just beginning to come onto the market and I'm not sure how expensive they are - the mentioned projected intial retail prices around US$10K are too steep for me, but if the price goes down 30% I'd probably get one. Samsung also has a big LCD in this size range.
Anyone out there with either of those?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Things also become cheap because manufacturing technology improves, and it becomes cheaper to actually manufacture the item in the first place.
paintball
I bought my 27" CRT TV a few years back, with S-Vid input, etc. all that stuff, stereo speakers built-in, etc. for I think $280. It completely rules in terms of picture quality on a CRT, easily beating the crap out of any LCD that size. HOWEVER, it is a total pain to carry or move. If I could get the exact same resolution/quality in a thinner, easier to lug package, i would've paid maybe $50 more. Any plasma screen costs thousands, still, if you want one that looks as good as a CRT -- i.e. no ghosting or weird crispiness. The others make you sit directly in front of them, which is no good at all!
stuff |
Ok, there may be some excess supply (they made a few too many LCD TVs) but they seem to have dealt with the excess supply (stopped making too many TVs) are are left with excess capacity to make TVs, which is now being tasked to things there is not an excess of. (Well, I would argue that there are far too many smartphones already, but for entirely different reasons!)
Hmm. Every single LCD I've worked with with dead pixels fails with white spots, or individual colours (red/green/blue). Which is a LOT less distracting, given I mostly work with light backgrounds. Also, individual pixels are tiny.
Not to say that it's not irritating, but I'd hardly call it unworkable....
--
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I agree that the price difference is staggering, but I've found a 20" LCD at 1600x1200 is much more readable than a 21" CRT. Like others on this forum, I have a 1600x1200 15.1" laptop screen and it's incredibly readable. 1600x1200 on a 17" CRT (about the same screen size) is nowhere near as comfortable on the eyes.
For gaming and so many other applications, LCDs come up short. But for small text at high resolution, an an LCD is much sharper.
A hate working on a monitor that has a little black dot in the middle of the screen. ... or worse, a little white or colored dot because the pixel is stuck the other way round. Anyway, I definitely agree, this can be extremely annoying. Hopefully in a few years you won't have to put up even with dead pixels anymore - having more than a certain amount already gets you a replacement under the warranty.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
on the wedding
But why the heck would you borrow 7 grand to get married.
It's 1000 Swiss Francs, which works out to about $800 US. Still pretty steep, but not quite the psychological value of one grand.
Your mind is squeezed by a blast of pain!
I didn't spot that initially. It seems, then, they ViewSonic hadn't mastered just-in-time production, or had assumed that the LCD TV would be a rip-roaring success and they would need to create a large inventory to cope with initial demand.
The question remains, does ViewSonic actually make the LCDs themselves? If not then there are two issues here: one is overcapacity for production of LCD TV screens, which is the problem of the manufacturer of the LCDs, and oversupply by ViewSonic, which is downstream of LCD production. Maybe ViewSonic makes its own LCDs, but it seems that most LCDs are made by Philips-LG and Hyundai, with Matsushita, Toshiba and Hitcachi also being players. I don't know if ViewSonic is owned by any of these companies or which screens they use (very probably Hyundai, though).
Of course it's a fake; read the caption:
It purports to be a 50 year old article, but 50 years ago no-one used "needed" as an adjective, they used "necessary". They didn't arbitrarily begin sentences with "Also", and they would have hyphenated "not yet invented technology" correctly.
And we make enough to pay off all of our debt (except her student loans) in six months. We just didn't have the money *right now* like we were expecting. It took a little longer than estimated to find good paying jobs.
So I will soon be making enough money to "waste" (my fiancee's term for "spend on computer stuff"). That is, if I let her "waste" it too. ("Waste" being my term for spending it on clothes and decorative items.)
To be fair, she did buy me a Powerbook as a wedding present.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
While a 42-inch Sony (SNE) Wega LCD TV retails for $10,000, a 42-inch plasma set can be had for about $4,500.
Why don't they make plasma computer monitors?
Software Wars
Yup. In general, manufacturing setups have a given probablity of a N defects within a certain area. That probability is basically fixed at any given point of time. (As time goes on and manufacturing techniques improve, that probability goes down.)
So if you have a 10"x7.5" display (75 square inches), the probability of the display being useless is far higher than, say, a 2"x3" (6 square inch display). In this case, the probability of a defective panel is over 10 times higher, PLUS the cost of a defective panel is significantly higher too.
There are a couple of companies (such as Rainbow Displays, http://www.rainbowdisplays.com/) that have been trying to make large panels by tiling smaller panels together, because the price per square inch of a smaller panel is much lower than a larger one, but so far such technologies are nowhere near mainstream. (So far Rainbow only seems to be able to do it for relatively low-res displays - Good when you need a large display but not high resolution, such as an airport departures display, which is what is shown in the picture on their homepage.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I don't know if this is just myth/urban legend or not and I haven't been able to find anything to support it either way. My brother told me that it is now actually cheaper to manufacture LCD flat panel screens than it is to make CRTs. Not that it really matters because the costs are more tied to supply & demand than actual cost of production but still, I'm curious if it's true or not. Personally the skeptic in me is torn--on one hand, if it's true, than there must be collusion and price fixing going on by the big evil companies. But on the other, if it were true, if I ran a company that made LCDs, I'd slash the prices and sell so many of them that the huge gross profits would make the smaller margins irrelevant, and since no one is doing this it must not be true.
Vote Quimby.
That is true, but keep in mind that 4th Quarter numbers are, for some unknown reason, viewed to be the most important by investors. Companys know this, and therefore do whatever they can to make their 4th quarter numbers look nice and shiny. If they are going to discount and dump inventory, chances are they will do it during the first quarter.
Look for cheap LCD TV's right after christmas...
Why haven't I gotten an LCD TV yet? Because
I don't read AC A human right
I'm going to build my own projector when i can find a lcd at the right price. I'm looking at about $350 for a 1024x768 projector.
Check out lumenlab for good examples of DIY projectors.
Don't buy their "plans" though...information should be free, and IS free on many web sites (google "diy projector" for a start).
If i get really industrious i will try to have the projector open up so the lcd can be used without projecting.
Wait till you have a house and she starts to decorate -- then even a relatively heavy computer habit can look cheap :-)
Home Automation & Linux -- now I know I'm a geek
I've been planning for some time to tear the tile out above the bathtub faucets, frame a nice space in the wall, and put an LCD TV in there with some plexiglass over it. Simpsons while soaking, baby.
When I was younger, I'd read in the bathtub until I fell asleep. I guess I've degenerated since then.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
my 14" cellphone!
for more discussion check out LCD TV Reviews lots of talk about LCD TV's and Digital TV issues
Because the more crap that Hollywood puts out (Gigli anyone?) the less there is to watch on HBO/Cinemax/Showtime/et al.
What's the point of spending four digits when there isn't anything on worth watching?
Is there marketspeak for "DUUUH"?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Then you must be extremely concerned about the new P4s. The average 17" CRT runs at 130watts while the dual core P4s are expected to start at 200watts while idle. Not only is the CPU a hog, but in order to cool it you'll need to run a monster high speed fan. The power supply itself will cost you more than a 17" CRT monitor.
LCDs also last siginifcantly longer than CRTs.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
Response time has improved but is still slower for LCDs, however; brightness is now comparable to CRTs (with exception to t.v. models that overburn their tubes), and contrast is now as good or better than CRTs. Your viewing angle argument is also lacking. LCDs typically have a 170 degree viewing angle. This is more than sufficient for most people. It's also a much better viewing angle than you typically get with projection screen t.v. and some how those things sell like hotcakes.
:)
When it comes to television, CRTs still give the best picture over all other technologies. However, you would be hard pressed to argue that LCDs aren't competivive quality wise with the various projection screen sets. Apparently, people are willing to sacrifice quality for size. Since they don't make giant size LCD sets, LCD takes it on the chin from the CRTs.
Personally, I'm quite happy with my 250 lb. tube t.v.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
Certainly an LCD display is lighter and requires a lot smaller carton for shipping. This must account for something too as these things are coming from the far-east.
See my journal, I write things there
You mean it raises the question. To beg the question means to assume that what you are trying to prove is already true.
I have found a truly wonderful proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, but unfortunately this sig is too small to contain it.
I just purchased a new TV after using my Mitsubishi for 18 years. The problem had nothing to do with the CRT. The focusing electronics were deteriorating, but still good enough to watch. It had all the features available on most TVs today, including an amp for driving remote speakers. It cost me $400 then and the replacement CRT unit with the same features still costs $400.
Now, like many geeks, I'm not a huge sports fan unless it comes to CS tournaments.
But larger screens do allow for better sports viewing. Imagine trying to watch hockey on a 15 inch TV and trying to find the puck (if you even have remotely bad vision). There's a reason why sports bars invest in plasma TVs (but if, as you argue with movies, you drank 6 $2 beers every monday night (football) at a sports bar, it'd still take you ~10 years to afford a $6K TV).
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
There are several tv's including new Syntax Olivia tv is a good value. Dell also seems to be aggressively trying to drive price down. Coming OLED technology and the prices should be very reasonable in 3 years or so.
So the future looks good.
Laugh at my ignorance while I learn Rails - a Real ne
You don't happen to have a Trinitron monitor, do you?
Because I wouldn't want to ruin it.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
If you are too close they look grainy. My friend had one. It is really cool, but you have to sit so far away for it not to look pixelated.
All projectors are not created equal. A lot of LCD projectors (and LCD TVs) share that "through a screen-door" grain at close range. But not all.
DLP technology TVs and projectors don't look grainy at all, and they are the roughly the same price.
Plus can you get an HDTV projector?
Of course. Most projectors aimed at the home theater/TV market will display analog, SD (480i), ED (480p), and HD (720p/1080i) source material.
One cavaet is that many require external anolog or digital tuners, so you either need to purchase a terrestrial HD tuner (~$300), or get HD service from your cable/sat provider for a monthly premium.
Another cavaet is that true HD resolution projectors capable of native 1080i or 720p are still pricey, and the cheaper "HD" projectors down-convert HD images to something less. Joe Consumer would not notice a difference in most cases, but...
Also, then you have to deal with hanging it or mounting it soemwhere. It looks tacky
If you're planning a dedicated room, you can completely integrate the projector mount into the room architecture. Even If you're only updating a living room TV, it could be done in a non-tacky manner by any good AV installer.
The plasma and LCD OEMs overestimated demand at the initial price points last Xmas and early '04, so everyone except the consumers are sitting on a lot of stock.
A number of large LCD plants have or are about to come online, pushing down the prices for TV and computer displays.
Thus, LCDs in the 30 to 45 inch category are becoming price-competitive with plasma displays. However, plasmas still have performance advantages, especially when watching sports.
As a result, I think it's pretty obvious that those of us who held back at Costco last Xmas are going to reap rewards this time.
Luke, help me take this mask off
I do this all time....
I go look at the stuff in a store like BestBuy (specifically to see if it feels rights in my hands, etc) then I buy it on NewEgg for cheaper (and not taxes).
Occasionally when I just couldn't wait, I bought it at BestBuy AND at Newegg, and when the Newegg shipment arrives, I'd return the one I bought at BestBuy.
But I rarely ever buy anything at retail stores like BestBuy or CompUSA. Their prices are NEVER competitive.
I don't think corporations can do much about supply and demand...
Boy are you mistaken. Corporations can cause demand to increase. It's called Marketing. Every commercial, every radio spot, every advertisment, every billboard has as it's sole purpose to create demand for a product. Corporations can also affect the supply. Consider the OPEC oil cartel. They frequently adjust their production, and therefore the price of oil/gasoline.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Exactly. I've had problems watching tennis at home on my 21" sony. Can't really see the ball, unless they have superb cameras on the venue, or the court provides very good natural contrast (i.e. clay courts wich are brick-red vs green balls)
However, quite often their gain is your loss. Generally one doesn't gain from a corp (unless you're affiliated with it: shareholders etc), unless the corp is also gaining something. The best one can usually hope for is to "lose less" from one corp over another.
Those of us who are easily annoyed by the high pitched ringing CRT TVs make also like LCDs.
Also those negative points don't seem to really be a problem with the LCD in front of me.
sorry aobut that the real link is,
d ex .html
http://www.tomshardware.com/display/20030319/in
The answer is just around the corner: optical interference displays (OIDs). They produce far sharper and brighter images than an LCD. The OID also consumes less power than an LCD.
I wouldn't expect them to be very cheap at all though, Iridigm is the only company that makes them. Well, Qualcomm soon if you read that latest press release.
Possibly around the corner for phones, I'm not holding my breath for anything bigger. It does sound like neat tech though.
Sounds like a gaint light bright.
God exists, he spoke to me:
www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA
God spoke to me
This continues to be a chicken and the egg problem. Wsn't the whole idea of buying flat screen T.V.'s because of HDTV, 16x9 and digital broadcasts becoming the norm? They haven't yet. Why buy an expensive set now, and then an extra box in a year or two for digital broadcast compatability when hit shows are still available on POTS (plain old television sets :-D ).
Producers/broadcasters/advertisers don't want the shows shown excusively on the new digital channels, because such a small margin of their viewers/buyers have those sets. But consumers have no real incentive to get a wide/LCD/HDTV set as long as all their favorite shows are on the 4+ yr old set they have.
I personally would like to buy a new LCD TV and hang it on the wall. But they are too damn expensive! I'm predicting they will fall quite a bit after the digital broadcast law by the FCC goes into effect. Millions of consumers will find themselves needing to buy a converter or a new TV, and they will balk at the prices the way they are now.
Why don't they make plasma computer monitors?
They used to make them for laptops in the 90s, and as monochrome desktop displays for early graphics stuff. They were known as gas plasma displays. In laptop land they were quickly superceded by LCDs, which had improved battery life. In desktop land they were replaced by colour CRTs which were cheaper and refreshed faster.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
PS2 outputs 480p. And 480p has nothing to do with widescreen. You can have 4:3 480i, 4:3 480p, 16:9 480i and 16:9 480p.
Yup. But at the time PS2 had almost no widescreen games, whereas everything I wanted on the XBOX supported widescreen. Likewise, I didn't see anything to allow the PS2 to push 480p - at least at the time I bought my XBOX.
Any game can be viewed in widescreen, although some are designed to look right in 16:9, some aren't. This is true on Xbox and PS2. Thus many of your games are highly distorted.
Nope, they all look fine. And yes, I can tell the difference.
But why the !@#*@ are you arguing and trying to tell me what my games look like on my tv? More to the point, why did I just waste my time replying?
[sigh]
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
This wouldn't be a fair test, of course. LCD technology may have the potential to be more long lived, but there are all sorts of other components that may fail even if the LCD component itself is still going strong and technology gets outdated rapidly and repair or replacement of an LCD screen may not be economic or even possible 5 years after initial production.
With my wife's screen and mine I'd be comparing a relatively budget monitor (the LCD) with one supplied originally with a $3000 UNIX workstation that may have better build quality in all the peripheral bits such as power regulation and the like.
The fact that you don't believe it doesn't make it any less true. From what I have heard, color LCD costs around 30 dollars/euros, which is quite a large portion of the price - between 20% and 30% of the low-end models.
Especially when you consider the fact that assembling, transporting and the retailer get their fair share, you'll see that a five-dollar price cut could make a huge impact on mobile phone manufacturers' profit margins.
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