14 DAY TRIAL // LED monitors are already getting as cheap as CCFL ones, so it is no surprise that reports would emerge saying that 2011 would be the year when LED nears, if not outright gains, dominance on the LCD monitor market.
LED backlights may have not been overly widespread until late 2009, but the technology kicked off seriously quickly once 2010 came around.
In fact, some panel makers completely moved over to this solution and left CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lights) well behind.
LED has another advantage in the fact that it has been getting cheaper, with 18-inch panels and below already sporting no price gap between themselves and those with CCFL.
What's more, during the second half of the year, it is expected that all LED monitors of up to 23 inches will get as cheap as their counterparts.
In tune with all this, a new Digitimes report says that about half (50%) of all monitors sold during the ongoing year (2011) will use light emitting diodes.
For those in need of any sort of reminder, LED can be said to exceed CCFL in virtually every way, not just that of power efficiency.
Granted, low energy use is its prime asset, but there is also the fact that panels designed with it have better brightness, contrast and overall higher image quality.
That said, dominance of this technology will be reached faster on the Taiwan market, where this sort of liquid crystal displays should come to account for over 60% of the total sold monitors by year's end.
All in all, there is a very high chance that CCFL products will be almost, of not totally removed from the worldwide market as early as 2012.
Of course, the speed with which this 'objective' is reached will depend on the speed with which the price gap disappears, but all signs point towards sooner instead of later.