Flat-panel displays, which will someday replace most of the bulky monitors sitting on top of personal computers, took a big step forward last month when NEC Technologies Inc. cut the price on two 14.1-inch flat-panel displays: The deluxe MultiSync LCD400 dropped to $1,899 from $2,699, and the basic MultiSync LCD400V fell to $1,599 from $1,999.
Until now, almost all desktop PC monitors have resembled television sets, built around a big hunk of glass called a cathode-ray tube, or CRT. Because the tubes inside monitors are almost identical to TVs, they’re inexpensive–manufacturers achieve huge economies of scale by producing monitors and TVs simultaneously.
Laptop computers, in contrast, have always used flat-panel displays, since it doesn’t make sense to haul a CRT around in a shoulder bag. The technology used in today’s laptops is liquid-crystal display, or LCD.
LCD screens are much more difficult to manufacture than CRTs, which makes them much more expensive–a top-of-the-line laptop computer can cost as much as double its desktop equivalent, almost entirely due to the cost of the LCD screen.
It’s taken a long time to improve LCD manufacturing processes to the point where companies can produce screens big enough to match desktop CRT monitors, and the initial attempts were ridiculously expensive–NEC introduced its first desktop LCD display, measuring a paltry 13 diagonal inches, in 1993 for $13,000.
There’s still a way to go, of course. Indeed, it’s likely to be at least five years before flat-panel television sets are affordable because consumers want TV screens that are significantly bigger than what’s suitable for a PC.
So the low cost of CRTs will guarantee their survival for at least 20 years. A high-quality 15-inch CRT monitor, which typically has a 14.1-inch viewing area that’s equal to the LCD400, costs $300 to $500. Giant 30-inch CRTs are available for as little as $1,000.
But LCDs are rapidly narrowing the gap. Almost every company selling CRTs is beginning to offer flat panels, including Compaq, IBM, Panasonic, Sharp and ViewSonic. This competition will keep prices heading downward; NEC estimates 14.1-inch LCD panels should dip under $1,000 by late 1999.
What’s to like about an LCD display?
The most immediately obvious attraction is size. A typical 15-inch CRT is 18 inches deep from the front of the screen to the back of the casing where the cables hang down; the LCD400 is only 6.6 inches deep–opening up a lot of desk space. Flat panels are also much lighter, with the LCD400 weighing a mere 11.5 pounds.
Such slim profiles are especially important as the screen size gets bigger. NEC is now selling a 20.1-inch LCD display for an unapproachable $6,599. But it only weighs 22 pounds, while an equivalent 21-inch or 22-inch CRT is a back-breaking 80 to 100 pounds.
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LCD displays also consume about half as much electricity as the same size CRT.
The attraction of LCDs grows when you sit in front of one. LCD screens are perfectly flat, just like a sheet of paper but unlike the slightly curved face of a CRT that distorts objects at the edge.
I found text and images displayed on the LCD400 to be sharper and brighter than the same material viewed on my 3-year-old 15-inch NEC CRT monitor, with no edge fuzziness. And the LCD400 was light enough to slide back and forth across my desk to find the right viewing distance, something I can’t easily do with my heavy CRT.
But there are also several limitations to LCD flat panels.
First, of course, is the cost. I can’t afford nearly $2,000 for a monitor. Even if prices fall to $1,000, I’d still be likely to opt for a top-quality 17-inch CRT, which today doesn’t cost more than $700.
Then there’s the issue of resolution. CRTs allow you to pick how much you want to see on screen by setting the monitor to 640 x 480 pixels (everything appears big, but you don’t see as much), 800 by 600 pixels (a middle ground) or 1,024 by 768 pixels (everything appears small, but you see lots of material at once). LCDs are designed to work most effectively at only one resolution.
The LCD400, for example, has a “native” or “optimal” resolution of 1,024 by 768. You can set the monitor to 640 by 480 or 800 by 600, but this requires the display to perform some technical gymnastics, resulting in images that are unacceptably jagged.
At the 14.1-inch screen size, I prefer the 800 by 600 setting, but I had to settle for 1,024 by 768. There are ways to work around the problem–you can, for example, tell the Windows or Macintosh operating system and programs such as word processors to use larger type–although I still found myself frequently squinting at text that was too small for my near-sighted eyes.
By the way, none of this information about resolution is included in NEC’s too-slim instruction manual for the LCD400; the company needs to prepare documentation that doesn’t assume buyers already understand all the technical issues surrounding video displays.
LCD panels also don’t “update” the on-screen image as rapidly as a CRT. In other words, it takes an LCD longer to replace one image with another. This is not the same thing as “flicker” on CRTs, which results from not re-painting the screen frequently enough; LCDs actually have almost no flicker. But the slow updates mean you see unpleasant flashing when scrolling rapidly through a Web page or whipping a playing card across the screen during a session of Solitaire. For that reason, LCDs aren’t the best choice for trigger-happy recreational users who want to immerse themselves in action-packed adventure games.
LCD screens are hard to view from an angle; the image appears brightest only when you’re directly in front of the screen. NEC has a technology called “XtraView” in the LCD400, not included in the LCD400V, that increases the acceptable viewing angle. But the screen still grew very dark when viewed more than 45 degrees to one side, which could be a problem in households where two people are frequently at the keyboard, such as a parent and young child.
None of these problems, I believe, will prevent LCD flat panels from grabbing a big chunk of the market in a few years. Their reduced size and weight could also speed the movement of PCs into new places in the home. I could see myself putting an LCD on my kitchen counter or on an end table next to the family-room sofa, something I’d never contemplate with a CRT.