Scott’s History of Computer Monitors

1995

Bought my very first computer when I moved out home. Paid $300 for a 14″ KTX CRT, and thought it was a pretty good price.

1998

Spent $950 on a 19″ CTX CRT that did 1600×1200 @ 75Hz, after shopped around for a long time. It was heavy, and the screen was not flat, but I had great time playing Quake 3 Arena finishing my thesis on it.

2000

Got a new job, who bought me a 15″ LCD monitor (for around $800 I think). It was flat, and it did not flicker. I was happy coding on that until I changed to another job…

2005

Bought a Dell UltraSharp 1905FP for half price due to a special deal we had with Dell. At $350 a pop it was a steal (someone in the office bought 9). And this thing was huge and had very good contrast for an LCD.

2006

It turns out that almost everyone at work has 2 Dell 1905FP/1907FP on the desk, because these 19 inchers were so cheap. They also don’t feel as big as they used to be…

Fast Forward to August 2007…

So what was my point? When I saw how much these new 24″ Acer LCD monitors are sold for at ShoppingSquare, I was shocked how much price has come down. The screen gets bigger and bigger, yet the price just drops lower and lower!

Here we have Acer AL2416WD 24″ LCD Monitor, where the slogan is “Everything is bigger and better on the Acer AL2416WD”. Yes, 24 inch running at 1920×1200 is very useful if you are doing any programming work that requires your text editor, runtime debugger, log console, reference manual and Slashdot opening all at the same time! The most famous 24 incher previously has been Dell’s UltraSharp 2407WFP, which is quite a state-of-art machine. However at $1,000+ it sides with the term “luxury” more than “necessity”.

Now, how much would an equivalent spec’ed Acer 24″ LCD monitor cost?

$800? $700? From ShoppingSquare’s newsletter I’ve learnt that it has dropped below $600 (price comparison from ShopBot)! You get:

• Max Resolution: 1920×1200
• Brightness: 500cd/m2
• Dot Pitch: 0.27mm
• Contrast Ratio: 1000:1
• Response Time: 6ms
• Input: D-Sub + DVI-D (with HDCP support)

Apparently Acer AL2416WD is not the only 24″ LCD monitor that dropped below $600. AOC 416V is another cheap 24 inch that you can buy in that price range (price comparison from ShopBot). The panel is not as good as Acer’s on paper — 160 degree viewing angel (Acer: 178 degree), 300 cd/m² brightness (Acer: 500 cd/m²), etc, but has a faster response time (5ms vs. Dell @ 6ms).

I guess the reason for its faster response time but a poor viewing angel is — it is a TN + film panel, which only has 18 bit colour (65k) instead of 24 bit (16m). That not it is going to be a show stopper if you are working on word processor or text editors most of the time. However for those who are picky about gradient shades in their latest BluRay disc, it is a compromise that should not be made.

So, is 24″ the best monitors to buy now? 27 inch, with the same resolution as the 24 inch but slightly bigger in geometry, has also come down in price. Maybe I should wait for that instead?

One thing for sure though. They will be bigger and cheaper next year.