Budget LCD Monitor Round-up

An anonymous reader writes "FiringSquad has just posted a new 8-monitor budget LCD round-up. It starts off like a traditional review, but their discussion of color accuracy is the best I've ever seen."

Comments

FP

[rudeboy1]

I still think CRTs are better, ESPECIALLY for the money, and the clarity, color, etc.

Re:Why no digital DVI only budget monitors?

[LWATCDR]

Simple.
Lowest common denominator.
All video cards come with an analog port or a DVI to analog adapter. So if you have to pick one port analog works with the largest selection of cards.

Re:laptop LCDs

[Storlek]

There's no way to just plug an LCD panel into a video card because it works on a lower level than a vga/dvi signal; there has to be something in between the two to adapt the signal to the LCD's resolution and generally do some black magic. In short, yes, you do need to get a controller, but it's still a bit cheaper than buying a whole new LCD, and on top of that it's a learning experience, and something fun to do in your spare time.

This page might be useful reading.

Re:Why no digital DVI only budget monitors?

[Dogtanian]

I guess they make more money if they force people who want DVI to buy a more expensive monitor, DVI gives them a reason to set higher prices.

BINGO.

Suppose it costs a lot of money to develop a monitor, and a company is relying on profits from expensive (high profit-margin) models to make that back.

Of course, most people can't afford that, and are choosing between low-end monitors. The company could make their low end LCDs more competitive by including the new technology (assuming the production cost is not high); but that would result in cannibalisation of sales of their expensive monitors.

But... if they do something like not including DVI input, the low-end users aren't too bothered, and professional users still buy the expensive models. Result; company makes its development money back, and those that genuinely wouldn't have bought the expensive monitor anyway get better performance than they would have otherwise.