X-bit labs

February 2004 Hardware News Overview (page 9)

Category: Editorial

by Andy Yaschenko

[ 02/23/2004 | 06:37 PM ]

Monitors

As usual, the junior model introduced in January had a diagonal of 17 inches. Well, it was actually the single model of the series. Sony announced its SDM-HS73P, a 17” LCD monitor with a proprietary coating of the screen called Onyx-black that should provide for an excellent color reproduction, brightness and contrast. The brightness of 400nit is really good for a 17” box, but not extraordinary. Add also 16msec response time and 160° viewing angles.

I would also like to single out the third modification of the 17” model BenQ FP767 where the manufacturer emphasizes another parameter: the pixel response time is as low as 12msec, which is the best responsiveness among LCD monitors of today. The rest of the characteristics are above the average: 500:1 contrast ratio, 300nit brightness, 0.264mm point.

The parameters of upcoming monitors from Xerox will be around those, too. The company gives its brand, but won’t produce anything – they’ll give it all over to the Taiwanese. Proview Technology is rumored to have drawn the lucky number – the order should be hefty enough. 13 LCD monitors under the Xerox brand are going to be priced starting at $399. The price is expected to go down in the second half of the year.

  

At least, DisplayResearch promises a total price collapse: 17 and 19” LCD monitors will be getting cheaper starting from the second-third quarter when 5-th generation production lines start working. So the price for panels will be reducing by $3-5 monthly. Sale prices for 15” panels, according to DisplayResearch, would remain the same at best, as the demand for them still exceeds supply.

The G5 production lines should say their word in this year. The manufacturers hope to increase their shipments by 40-90% per year, in fact, by a half. And that’s only the beginning. The amount of capital investment in this area will be as high as $9.42 million in 2004! They have already started transferring to equipment for making 6G wafers.

Samsung is among the first: the $2.3 billion chunk of the total of $6.7 the company is going to invest into the production this year is intended for building and equipping its 6G fab, which is going to start working in the second half of 2005. The factory will be mostly concerned with LCD TV-sets.

Such devices are becoming ever more popular. Sharp, the leading manufacturer of LCD TV-sets today, plans to triple its production volume at the Japan fab by adding two new lines to the existing one. Accordingly, the production volume will grow from the current 15 thousand to 45 thousand panels per year. It’s more than half a million TV-sets with a diagonal of 26”.