LCD Overtaking CRT 317
prostoalex writes "IDC has a new report out, claiming that revenues for LCDs by the end of this year will top the CRT revenues. The only market not susceptible to the shift will be gaming and graphics-intensive applications, where the refresh rates of LCDs are not satisfactory yet."
I should get one (Score:-1, Interesting)
A bit decieving (Score:2, Interesting)
Its not the refresh rates (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
It'll happen about the time you can get a LCD screen of a comparable quality to a CRT, for the same price.
I was checking out LCDs. I'd love to have one, but for the 800 bucks I'd shell out for a decent 15" LCD, I could get a top of the line 19" CRT, and a bigger desk to fit it on.
I'm no fan of CRTs, they're big, hot, and annoying. But I just dont have the cheese for a good LCD.
but more importantly (Score:1, Interesting)
This can only mean that they are getting more mainstream.
Health benefits (Score:2, Interesting)
It was only a matter of time (Score:4, Interesting)
Second, the new wave in desktop computing appears to be smaller, thinner machines. Almost every computer advertisement these days sells LCD displays, because they look pretty and save space, so they make for good advertising -- and as a result they sell better.
Finally, of course, this is the year of the laptop. (Steve Jobs said so, it has to be true!) I'm afraid I can't provide any hard evidence, but I think the percentage of total computers sold that are laptops is increasing at a pretty fast clip, and that of course boosts LCD revenues.
All told, there are plenty of reasons LCDs have gained in popularity; this isn't that much of a shocker.
-- shayborg
My LCD Experance (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:But... (Score:5, Interesting)
I do agree that this is likely caused by LCDs being more expensive and thus generating the same revenue on fewer units (I believe this is the point you were getting at).
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing is, once you use an LCD screen for any length of time, you just can't go back to a CRT. A CRT feels like it's burning your retinas out compared to a good LCD screen. At least for me the LCD produces much less eye strain. My Latitude's UXGA 1600x1200 screen is simply stunning.
What I'm really waiting for is more screens with at least 1600x1200 resolution. I can't believe my tiny 15" laptop screen supports it but you can't buy a 18" or 19" LCD that will do 1600x1200 for less than the price of my whole laptop. I don't understand that. Who would buy a 19" or even 20" LCD that only does 1280x1024? Ugh. A 19" LCD's screen size is pretty close to what a 21" CRT monitor offers.
But the lines are blurring.. (Score:5, Interesting)
> gaming and graphics-intensive applications, where
> the refresh rates of LCDs are not satisfactory yet
It's getting harder and harder these days to complain about refresh on an LCD. Granted it's not as good as a tried and true CRT, but the point is that LCD's running at native resolution are doing quite well. To the point that an average person won't notice any difference between a CRT and an LCD.
My better half owns a recent LCD. She plays plenty of games on it, from everquest to the latest sim city title to crappy web based flash games. I haven't yet taken the chance to "stress test" with a round of quake but for the most part I've been pleasantly surprised to how well the LCD responds to modern games. The images are bright, reasonably crisp, and it does all this over a crappy legacy analog vga port.
Maybe a "videophile" will find stuff to complain about, but I've found myself quite impressed by the performance an LCD can offer. These days I consider them equal to a CRT.
Re:I should get one (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess the manufacturing process has reached a point where they can get it perfect most of the time (my laptop has a bad pixel in the upper right corner but that doesn't bother me).
I was worried that I'd get one with some dead pixels and hafta go through the hassle of returning it, but then again, I heard that Dell has a pretty good return policy for that kind of thing.
So anyways, a month and $1000 later (they were 15" ones) and I am entirely satisfied with my 2 lcd monitors... I might even tell my parents to buy one for their computer... I say go for it!
Pro's vs Cons (Score:3, Interesting)
Pro's:
- Small form factor
- More power efficient
Cons:- poor color support
- poor resolution
- poor refresh rates
- easily damage
- blown pixels irreparable
- additive color model
- poor viewing angle
- expensive
so why should i want to buy one again, because it seems LCD hasnt got much going for it on the desktopLarge companies are already adopting LCDs (Score:5, Interesting)
Cheap CRTs have the notoriety of having short "brightness" spans so much that a company would rather purchase a more expensive brand name just to ensure that the longevity of the display device will be sufficient.
The company I work for alone has begun the mass upgrade of computers throughout the building. So far, it's about a 8:2 ratio of LCDs to CRTs. Even so, the CRT purchases are for individuals who require 21" screens. The average LCD purchase is for a 17" screen.
The banks in the city I work in have begun adopting LCD screens over the small CRT monitors to reduce the amount of breaks necessary by tellers to relieve eye-stress, theoretically increasing productivity.
Hospitals (a big corporate customer base) have begun the mass adoption of LCD screens because they take much less space than their CRT counterparts and produce a much smaller amount of electrical interface when turned on or off.
These are just a few examples of how LCDs are more practical and efficient - spearheading the adoption of LCDs as the display of choice.
Re:Its not the refresh rates (Score:1, Interesting)
LCDs have their uses, certainly, and perhaps are best for the majority of computing. CRTs still have their niche
Re:I should get one (Score:5, Interesting)
I love my LCD but reality is that ghosting (blurring of moving images) is very noticeable on LCDs. They are nowhere near CRTs for watching movies and such. However, for text work (99% of my time) I love it. The decision boils down to WHAT you do with your PC. If you game or do a lot of multimedia, it's not as good as a CRT. In my case, I couldn't go back to CRTs since I'd lose the "crispness" of text on an LCD.
some LCD's are good enough for games (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't know what people are talking about when they say that LCD's are not ready for games. I don't notice any ghosts or any other strange artifacts when I play games.
Not just refresh rate (Score:1, Interesting)
not quite. For gaming it may be refresh rate- for "graphics-intensive applications"(which I take to mean photo/graphics editing, prepress, etc.), the problem is mostly that CRTs blow away LCDs on color quality and consistency. My laptop's screen takes a while to "warm up" the backlighting tube, and you get a color and brightness change. They're also grossly inferior in resolution on the desktop market; 15"(17" crt equivalent) can only do 1024x768. My 17" monitor can do 1600x1200. If you want 1280x1024, you gotta get a 17" LCD(19" CRT equivalent.) That's LAME. Why are NONE of the laptop screens, with great resolutions, making it to the desktop market?
You also get wildly changing brightness/gamma/color depending upon the viewing angle, so bad that the top of the image can look different from the bottom of the image. Move your head slightly, boom, change. No such problem with CRTS; you can look at them at almost any angle.
Whatever happened to that technology whereby they switched to an intermediate color (gross simplification: instead of A -> B, go A->E->B) to get faster response? I think it was mitsubishi that had it? Let me guess, they found people were happy with shitty refresh rates for now, so wait a bit to milk even more $ out of people by making them buy new screens later.
Lastly- profit margins, of course they're higher. The things are bloody expensive and the "latest" "thing", despite being inferior in EVERY regard except a)pixel positioning(only with digital output) b)power use c)desktop space.
They loose on price, color rendition, viewability, and resolution.
Re:CRT Disposal (Score:4, Interesting)
Where? I'll take 3.
But seriously, that's how tech is. Your $700 LCD you buy today will be worth jack-squat in 3 years.
I havent bought a 'new' CRT in a few years, I found a guy who reconditions them and resells 'em on the cheap with a 3 year parts and labor guarantee. His work is top-notch, and I've grabbed some really choice Diamondtron monitors from him.
Though I still havent found a (decent) 21" for under 100 bucks.
Advances in Display Technologies (Score:2, Interesting)
While I agree with a the posts pointing out that LCDs are much more expensive than CRTs; however, this does state that LCDs are getting pretty decent market penetration.
The one main issue I currently see if LCDs, is that they are really good at a specific resolution/refresh rate and everything else either has borders or looks crappy. CRTs also have this limitation; however, looking at a CRT running too high for it's dotpitch looks alot better than a LCD doing the same.
Hopefully, we will begin to see the ability of the OS to run at a specified resolution, and then scale everything to a proporanite amount. I know work is being done on this, but the greater need for it can push development along.
For those of you who aren't sure what I'm taking about try this. Set your monitor to 800x600, then 1024x768, and so on going higher and higher. As you can see everything begins to shrink down in size the higher you go. With scaling it would work differently.
Let's say your monitor's native resolution is 1280x960. You will always run at this resolution; however, the everything is scaled. If you have it scaled to 640x480, everything would be 2x the size it would normally be. Sure having 1/2, and 1/3 of sizes and make things look odd, but it's better than what we currently have.
As for games using this technology. You could have a 3d game. It's running in 1280x960, everything is the same size as at 640x480; however, everything can be alot sharper looking. Some games currently do this, but most still have there HUDs shrink the higher you go. With this 2d objects can also be scaled easily. Also it won't be the responibilty of the game to do this, the OS and display drivers will handle it.
Finally by having the display drivers doing the calculations for scaling, other effects can be added. If anyone has tried any emulators such as the SNES ones, you will see that there are a variety of rendering options. You can select how images are stretched/scaled or more advanced things like Super Eagle that antialias 2D and give it a unique look. Since the display driver is doing the rendering of the scaling, these other effects could be added. Most likely they could even be done in hardware on your graphics card.
With all that said will I be buying a LCD display soon? Nope, I'll wait until they can do 1600x1200/85Hz. I need my games to run smooth. :)
Have any of you used Apple's new displays? (Score:2, Interesting)
I've got a digital 17" Studio Display on my desk at work. It's incredible: very bright colors, no flicker, wide viewing angle, zero distortion, one-cable connect (for video, power and USB) and 1280x1024 resolution.
At my other job we have a digital Dell Ultrasharp, and while still better than most CRT's, it isn't nearly as nice as the Apple display.
We've got a coupla 15" iMacs and 15" studio displays as well, though, and the picture isn't nearly as nice on those.
Oh, and there are rumors of Apple introducing a 30" model with the next revision of their displays.
Re:not only reason... (Score:1, Interesting)
I recently switched from a 17" CRT (very nice samsung) to a 17" KDS LCD, and I'll never go back.
If I'd switched earlier I'm 100% my eye site would be much better (signifiganct decline in the last couple years, in direct proportion to my time spend staring at a CRT).
BA
Re:My resolution gripe (Score:1, Interesting)
Dell's high-end laptops with their 15" 16x12 and 15.5" 19x12 screens are what I'm looking for, minus the computer portion (too big and heavy for a laptop, too slow and limited for a desktop IMHO). Why doesn't anyone make desktop LCDs using those LCD panels (or similar high-res low-size panels)? They'd probably sell at least as many of them as their $1000+ 20+" behemoths.
Re:My resolution gripe (Score:3, Interesting)
How often do you move your monitor (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:not only reason... (Score:5, Interesting)
I do a lot of programming, and having a good quality screen for text would help quite a bit.
Re:not only reason... (Score:3, Interesting)
15" LCDs of good quality can be purchased for about $500, if you want an 18" or 19" you're looking at closer to $900 and up.
Depending on what you put into the computer, you actually can get a P4 3Ghz machine (albeit crippled by a low amount of/wrong type of RAM, a small/slow HDD, cruddy video, etc. Basically--the type of machine you'd buy in a consumer-oriented ie: Mhz rules store...) for $900.
So, $900 for a 19" LCD monitor, or for half of your new P4 system (non-crippled) Unless you've got a lot of money to spare, it's not that tough of a call. Particularly since the LCD still has pretty hefty limitations when it comes to graphics/gaming, and since the quality will not rival that of a $300 19" CRT. (Although you'd be less likely to pull every muscle in your back getting it from the car to your desk.)
-Sara
Re:My resolution gripe (Score:3, Interesting)
Umm, why are you changing the screen size and not the browser size? Try Mike Lin's [mlin.net] WindowSizer [mlin.net] to resize your browser to an exact size.