Step Up for a Good Look at Bargain LCDs

A plethora of flat-panel monitors tempt with small prices, giant screens.

Sean Captain, PCWorld.com

NEW YORK-- New PCs may have been scarce at this year's PC Expo (now part of TechXNY), but new LCD monitors are popping up everywhere. Featuring lower prices and brighter images, these monitors may have what it takes to convince consumers it's time to upgrade to a thin screen.

Plenty of large, pricey screens still are on display, but more vendors--including Eizo Nanao, Sceptre, Systemax, and Viewsonic--are offering new, low-cost 15-inch LCD panels.

Five hundred dollars is the new price tag to aim for on 15-inch screens, which have a viewable area almost equal to traditional 17-inch CRT monitors. Several companies have begun breaking that symbolic price barrier, and now even makers of high-end screens are inching close to the magic number.

LCDs on a Thin Wallet

The low-price winner at this year's Expo is the 15-inch LCD from Systemax, with a $399 street price. Sceptre also has a new 15-inch X5 monitor, which comes with either a white bezel for a street price of $449, or a charcoal-gray case for $499. Like most of the new monitors on display at the show, the X5 includes built-in stereo speakers.

Another Sceptre monitor, the X5 Agama, drops the speakers but adds the capability to rotate from landscape to portrait mode. It also sells for $449, but requires software priced at about $50 to flip images when the screen rotates.

Sceptre sells comparable 17-inch versions of both monitor types for $899. All the models should be available in mid-July.

Viewsonic introduced two 15-inch LCD monitors, as well as several larger models. The 15-inch VA500m comes in a standard beige case with built-in stereo speakers and is expected to sell for $450 when it hits the street in July. Its big sibling, the 17-inch VA700m, is expected to carry a price of $649 when it ships in July.

Fashion Statements Available

For high-tech slaves to fashion, Viewsonic's VX500 dresses a 15-inch screen in a smart-looking silver frame with a slim black base. It also incorporates a screen technology called multi-domain vertical alignment. Developed by screen maker Fujitsu, MVA leads to brighter colors, higher contrast, and images that refresh two to three times faster to avoid the trails that follow moving objects on older LCDs, according to Viewsonic's senior product manager Herb Berkwits.

The VX500 is expected to be available in July, priced about $700.

Eizo Nanao creeps close to the magic $500 price tag with its upcoming FlexScan L365 monitor, a 15-inch LCD expected to sell for $550 when it ships in early August.

The 15-inch FlexScan L365 offers the same 1024 by 768 native resolution as the award-winning L330 and adds integrated stereo speakers and dual inputs (a DVI digital port and a standard 15-pin analog connection). The L365 is expected to eventually replace the L330.

The L365 matches the Viewsonic VX500's high contrast ratio of 400:1.

Also Available: Sweet Sixteen

With 15-inch monitor prices dropping, some buyers may be tempted to jump to a bigger screen, but they often pay a premium by going to 17-inch models. As a compromise for buyers with big dreams but little extra cash, some vendors are coming out with 16-inch panels. Sharp, for example, released its $849 16-inch LL-T1610W in May.

Sixteen-inch glass panels made by Sharp are also showing up in new monitors from Eizo and Sony. Eizo's 16-inch L461, released in early June, comes in a thin, black bezel case and currently sells for a street price of between $900 and $950.

The L461 incorporates a new chip that lets it scale smoothly to desktop sizes below its native 1280-by-1024 resolution. Most LCD monitors exhibit ugly artifacts when running below their native level because they do a poor job of stretching pixels of an image to cover more pixels on the monitor. The L461's scaling chip gives lower resolutions a slightly blurry look, but one that's preferable to the stair-step artifacts usually associated with scaling on LCD monitors.

Eizo claims that the $900 L461 is the only 16-inch SXGA LCD on the market, and expects it to compete with 17-inch panels costing between $1000 and $1300.

At Expo, Sony introduced its own 16-inch model, the Multiscan M61, which has a light, muted gray bezel with built-in speakers and is expected to sell for $850 when it becomes available in July.

Starring on the Big Screen

While the smaller LCDs may be financially appealing, several new giant screens will likely capture users' hearts. Viewsonic's 18-inch VP180m features a new case design inherited from Viewsonic's acquisition of phone-maker Nokia's display division last year.

Without Viewsonic's signature seven-button controls, the VP180m features a large combination button and dial that lets you jog through menu options and click to adjust screen settings. Equipped with built-in speakers, the VP180 is expected to sell for about $2000 when it ships in late August or September.

Viewsonic also premiered a 20.1-inch screen, the VP201mb, and a 23.1-incher, the VP230mb, which the company says is the world's largest LCD computer monitor.

The VP201mb is expected to sell for $3295, but you'll pay $1000 for every inch beyond that. The 23.1-inch VP231mb is expected to hit the street at $6235. Housed in sleek, black bezels, both monitors feature high-contrast MVA screens and are targeted at engineering and graphics professionals who require a lot of prime visual real estate.

Viewsonic representatives point out that the 23-inch screen can help desktop publishers by displaying two legal-size pages side-by-side.

Making the Big Choices

Another screen giant, Eizo Nanao's 20.8-inch Medical Display monitor, offers a very high resolution of 2048 by 1536 and a high 400:1 contrast ratio. The panel is targeted primarily at radiologists who need ultra-fine detail for viewing images such as X-rays and MRI scans.

The Medical Display is expected to sell for just under $10,000, which Eizo says is a good price for radiologists, who typically spend up to $20,000 for multiple high-quality CRT setups. Illuminating the giant three-megapixel display is not an easy--or economical--task. For now, Eizo needs to use specialty digital graphics cards that sell for about $4000 each.

Eizo representatives say they will delay selling the Medical Monitor until they find cheaper graphics cards, which may come to market in the next few months.

Finally, TV fans may sit up in their easy chairs upon seeing Sharp's new Aquos brand of LCD televisions. You can choose from a trio: The 13-inch unit costs $1599; the 15-inch, $2299; and the 20-inch, $3999. The silver-framed TVs all come with stereo speakers.

Eric Dahl of PC World also contributed to this report.