The LCD Panel vs. The Crossbow

Ev!LOnE was one of several readers to point out an interesting LCD stress test: "ASUS recently came out with Asus LS201 — a TFT monitor with a protective panel made of crystal-sapphire. What I didn't imagine was the amount of punishment that thing can take. Apparently some Ukrainians shared the same concern and went for a test." Translation not necessary, but some clues about the narration would be appreciated in comments.

DANGER!

[TheMiddleRoad (1153113)]

Do not use this monitor when you are frustrated. Banging your fist against the screen will result in broken fingers.

Re:DANGER!

[by Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere in Redmond...
Steve Ballmer clicks "Buy"

Re:DANGER!

[noidentity (188756)]

WARNING: Do not pound on screen with remaining hand.

Wii Have A Solution

[0rionx (915503)]

Forget fists...

Finally we have a display that's safe for Wii-users!

Blendtec

[werdnapk (706357)]

Will it blend?

Re:Blendtec

[wizardforce (1005805)]

in former soviet ukraine, monitor blends you

Re:

[calebt3 (1098475)]

Too big for the blender.

hmmmm....

[DMoylan (65079)]

well if he can cock the crossbow with just his hand then it's not a very powerful crossbow. try a 90lb long bow and get back to me.

like that monitor though. wonder if it would survive a sledge hammer to the screen. i've seen monitors taking a few punches from angry windows users.

Re:hmmmm....

[KillerCow (213458)]

well if he can cock the crossbow with just his hand then it's not a very powerful crossbow. try a 90lb long bow and get back to me.

You must have pretty tough working conditions. We've never felt the need to put "ability to withstand 90lb long bow attack" on any of our purchasing forms.

This monitor is for pussies!

[TheMiddleRoad (1153113)]

Yeah! What kind of weak-ass monitor can only take a couple hits from a 90lb pull crossbow? Shit, I hit my LCD with a 280b pull all the time. Just the other day, I put ten rounds with my 9mm into it. It's still standing! I put a youtube up of it. 50,000,000 hits in two hours. SUCK IT DOWN!

if only...

[MarkRose (820682)]

I'm sure Big Blue would have love it [wikipedia.org]!

I am in AWE

[retiredtwice (1128097)]

While that left me agape, I keep having visions of police with these things strapped on the front and back flashing subliminal messages and doubling as bulletproof vests.

I do wonder how they do against a bullet (slow bullet like an ordinary 38), maybe you need to double them ...

Re:I am in AWE

[kypper (446750)]

It would be cooler to have mini video cameras on the back of the cop routed to the chest monitor so that it looked like you were looking right through him. In dark lighting that could be really interesting.

smarter monitor

[ILuvRamen (1026668)]

I'm gonna build one with a built in crossbow so the user knows if they shoot at it, it'll return fire. That will prevent the user from damaging it in the first place. Don't build tough, build smart lol.

Re:smarter monitor

[Burning Plastic (153446)]

No need to build - Shop smart - Shop S-Mart.

Hard core!

[fedx (549787)]

In most offices I've worked in your monitor just has to withstand NERF darts and the occasional hacky-sack attack. I take it Ukranian office wars are a little bit more serious with their choice of weapons.

Good but..

[by Anonymous Coward]

It's no titanium. Or is it? :)

I don't get it

[dangitman (862676)]

They make a nice monitor, with expensive materials, and then they put it on a shoddy non-tilting stand? WTF? What an insane world we live in. Why the hell does anybody even make non-tilting display stands?

Re:I don't get it

[Lumpy (12016)]

Because most of us don't use a stand if you get a high end monitor. I use monitor arms, I could not even imagine wasting desk space with the stands let alone having to suffer with looking at them that low.

People blow $599.00 on a "premium" LCD monitor and then bitch about paying $199.00 for a decent arm that will outlast 12 monitors and give you real freedom. Hell get decent LCD arm and the speakers are even off the desk mounted off the arms as well.

Re:I don't get it

[dangitman (862676)]

Because most of us don't use a stand if you get a high end monitor. I use monitor arms,

I think you're kidding yourself if you think that most people do this, even most purchasers of a "high end" monitor. It is a distinctly minority item, even among high-end purchases. Personally, I do use a monitor arm in my office, but I'm one of the very few. And there are plenty of situations where a monitor arm isn't feasible or practical.

Re:

[dangitman (862676)]

That has two problems - you have to spend more money, when they could have simply added a hinge for very little cost, that would suit most users fine. The other problem is the waste involved in throwing away more plastic because the display is shipped with an inferior (and often unusable) stand. We already throw away enough plastic crap, why add to that mountain?

cNet UK review. We scratched it.

[caferace (442)]

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/monitors/0,39029456,49290999,00.htm [cnet.co.uk]

One such product is the Asus LS201 -- a TFT monitor with a protective panel made of crystal-sapphire. Our Asus rep says not only is it scratch-proof, but it's also 'punch-proof'. We were dared to hit it as hard as we could and told it wouldn't break.

Never ones to shirk from a challenge, we formed an orderly queue and gleefully punched the hell out of our first LS201 sample. Unfortunately one of our punchers was wearing a ring, and the offending jewellery left a 2cm scratch on the supposedly scratch-proof monitor.

Asus sent us a replacement and politely asked us to remove any jewellery before we let rip. We duly obliged, but instead of emerging unscathed, the LS201 developed a small, unidentifiable blemish below the protective panel. It wasn't a scratch or a dent -- it looked more like a small piece of fluff.

Our verdict: the LS201 will not shatter into a million pieces when punched (don't try this at home). It's therefore ideal if you're the type of person who likes to attack inanimate objects, or just drop blameless pieces of technology. But it's most definitely not scratch-proof -- we don't care what the stickers say.

Re:

[Zironic (1112127)]

About the jewelry, it was most likely diamond or another saphire, makes sense that that would scratch it. However it should resist all kinds metals.

Re:cNet UK review. We scratched it.

[rolfwind (528248)]

Sapphire Crystal has a hardness of 9 on the mohs scale -- it's hard to scratch. I assume that the piece of jewelry of had a diamond -- the hardest natural substance known. They may be other stones, that scratched it, but not many.

Re:cNet UK review. We scratched it.

[MMC Monster (602931)]

Reminds me of the commercial about the detergent that would get any stain out of carpeting, or your money back. Someone sent in a swatch of carpet "stained" by battery acid. They made a print add out of it about a decade ago. (Sorry, I can't remember the name of the product.)

Not too surprising

[the eric conspiracy (20178)]

During the Vietnam war some US helicopters were using synthetic sapphire crystals for bullet-proof windows.

It's nice they have gotten the process cheap enough for LCD screens. Definitely won't scratch when you clean it with ordinary cleaners.

Why doesn't the iPhone have this?

[Animats (122034)]

That kind of toughness makes real sense in expensive mobile devices. I was surprised that the iPhone didn't come with a sapphire or diamond screen.

This isn't exotic technology today. The typical supermarket checkout scanner uses sapphire [seamarkinternational.com] or diamond [diamonex.com] coating on the glass. That's why it can survive years of canned goods (and, for Home Depot, hand tools) being scraped across the scanner. In the checkout scanner world, plain glass lasts 2-4 weeks. For diamond, the makers claim 9 years. The sapphire vendor offers a lifetime warranty.

Translation

[Strange Quark Star (1157447)]

First, it's Russian he is speaking, despite the commercial being Ukrainian. The only thing worth translating he says at about 1:00 : "The thing is, that the coating of the monitor is out of the ordinary. In theory, it should withstand extreme stress, some even say it is bullet-proof. That's exactly what we wanted to check. The monitor has survived the shoot, but since the manufacturer gave it to us for tearing apart, we decided to literally kill it. For this we have a crossbow and crossbow arrows." In the end he concludes that this is probably the most resilient monitor in the world.

Listen up, Lenovo!

[n1hilist (997601)]

.. and put this tech into the next Thinkpad! .. with LED backlighting, kthnx

A far more rigorous test

[Blancmange (195140)]

Ship it across the United States and back using FedEx, in a cardboard box marked "Fragile."

Translations.

[UncHellMatt (790153)]

I found a book of simple Russian phrases to try and figure out that video. It seems that the announcer's record is scratched, and his hovercraft is full of eels. ...bouncy bouncy.

Re:Translations.

[dysfunct (940221)]

Your geek card is hereby revoked [youtube.com]

The Obvious Question

[dynamo (6127)]

I just have to know -- Will It Blend?

crossbow+1

[bumby (589283)]

Resisting a normal arrow from a crossbow is nice and all, but how does it handle a fire arrow from a crassbow+1?

Re:lets see....

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

You do realize that, sooner or later, one of us is going to find you and kill you, don't you?

Re:lets see....

[novakyu (636495)]

I just have fohooCOWtville.myminicity.com (remove herbivore) blocked in my Privoxy [privoxy.org] setup. It certainly reduces fear of these nasty links.

And, oh yes, if there's a fund setup to catch and kill these bastards, I fully support it.

Or just DDOS ripway.com (or is it h1.ripway.com), I guess.

Re:

[Walt Dismal (534799)]

Note to self: Ukrainians do NOT understand how to play video games. Rewrite instructions to say, when the game requires you to shoot someone onscreen, we do NOT mean shoot the screen. Really. Also tell the Poles there is a Delete key for word processing, and WhiteOut is not actually a good idea.

Re:Crossbow Strength

[wizardforce (1005805)]

That crossbow seemed pretty weak.

even so, you probably wouldn't want this to happen your your flat screen monitor and that's the point, by the looks of it, this monitor is *better* at withstanding abuse in comparison to the average one most people would be buying.

Re:Crossbow Strength

[dvice_null (981029)]

Yeah. You only need to get attacked by a crossbow about 5 times and that monitor has paid itself off.

Re:Crossbow Strength

[John Miles (108215)]

That looked a lot like the handmade crossbows fabricated by "Iolo the Bard," a well-known SCA figure in Austin circa 1990 (and inspiration for the character of Iolo in the Ultima games.)

Iolo's bows weren't made to be competitive with modern polonium-doped nanocrystalline bolt launchers or whatever, but to recall the craft of medieval weaponsmiths. Still more than enough to shoot your eye out with.

I agree with the other poster who suggested that these LCDs are coming to police riot shields near you. That's just too cool an idea to pass up. Shove enough images of flowers and frolicking puppies in their faces, and the Black Bloc crowd will surrender without a fight, right?

Re:Crossbow Strength

[Ian Alexander (997430)]

I agree with the other poster who suggested that these LCDs are coming to police riot shields near you. That's just too cool an idea to pass up. Shove enough images of flowers and frolicking puppies in their faces, and the Black Bloc crowd will surrender without a fight, right?

Why show puppies and flowers when you can sell that space for advertising?

Re:Crossbow Strength

[Descalzo (898339)]

"Call Mike Maloney, Bail Bonds. 555-FREE"

Re:Crossbow Strength

[ozmanjusri (601766)]

Shove enough images of flowers and frolicking puppies in their faces, and the Black Bloc crowd will surrender without a fight, right?

...and if that doesn't work, there's always goatse, tubgirl and lemonparty?

Re:Crossbow Strength

[Bandman (86149)]

I think that you are, somehow, missing the point.

I don't give a damn how strong the crossbow is. He shot it at the monitor and it bounced off

Re:Crossbow Strength

[Frnknstn (663642)]

I totally agree with your post, except for the general sentiment of it, your implied conclusions, and almost every single point you tried to make.

I guess that means I didn't really agree with you much.

Well, why not take your best crossbows and your superior bows and fire them at your own LCD screens and compare your results? You can use any background color you like.

You may need someone to help you aim, as your vision might not be as good as you think, otherwise you may have noticed some other things in that video. Things like the part where the marker is removed from a part of the screen that was displaying white, not red. Or perhaps the part where the same bolts that were able to disable the screen penetrate a half-inch into a sheet of wood. Or perhaps the part where the screen is struck with a hammer.

According to you, this screen fared poorly as "the deep red background that the screen displayed, for example, will tend to hide scratches". Seriously, try these tests yourself. See if any color except black will hide the scratches on your monitors.

Re:Weeeeee.....

[pushing-robot (1037830)]

These displays should have a sticker:

Warning: Rebounding Wiimotes may cause severe injury.

Re:Cleavage

[rts008 (812749)]

Yeah, I see cleavage on my monitor all the time, but it never seems to harm the screen.

Mason Williams's Classical Gas

[mosel-saar-ruwer (732341)]

can claim prior art

The Ukrainians' background music was Mason Williams's Classical Gas:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/clipserve/B000000ED3001001/0/ [amazon.com]

I wonder if they have to pay these things called "royalties" in the Ukraine?

Here is a translation

[Zeinfeld (263942)]

Been a long time since I used my Russian, here is a (very rough) translation

Welcome to TechnoDay. Is your monitor possessed? How can you tell and if so what can you do about it?

We took a standard LCD monitor that had become possessed after an all night LAN-party playing oblivion. (some discussion about exorcism I could not make out)

We tried writing (the exorcism?) on the screen in permanent marker. But the state of demonic possession prevented the ink from sticking, it just wiped off with a small amount of holy water.

We tried smashing the monitor with a hammer.

Research on Wikipedia told us that the only way to undo the demonic possession was with a silver tipped arrow. Fortunately I was able to win a crossbow on EBay, but the arrows supplied are steel, not silver.

You can see the power of the crossbow shooting into wood. Now lets try against the monitor. One! Two!

As you can see Wikipedia was right, if you are faced with demonic possession you have to go with the silver, steel simply does not work. We will try that next week.

Re:I need to get this for an old customer.

[Carnildo (712617)]

CRTs are pretty durable. A typical CRT screen is already holding back a few thousand pounds of atmospheric force; a mere punch or two isn't going to bother it.