Displays

LCD Monitors Getting Expensive

The "back to school" season begins

By Alexandru Pancescu, Hardware Editor

20th of August 2007, 10:27 GMT

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As the back to school season approaches, and the demand for computer hardware aimed at students grows, liquid crystal display (LCDs for short) monitor makers and vendors are increasing their price tags by a few dollars all across the product lines. According to the news site DigiTimes, the most affected monitor models are the ones of 19 and 22 inch that will continue to grow in price in

September.

As the LCD monitor industry appears to be in a growing period, the joint venture formed by the companies LG and Philips is reported to start move in equipment needed by its eight generation, 8G for short, production plant that is going to start LCD panel manufacturing in early 2008. The new LG and Philips plant will manufacture 2,200�2,500mm glass substrates for LCD monitors and TV sets.

It is said that the LG.Philips LCD company plans to invest more than one billion dollars to build the production plant which will have a monthly capacity of 50,000 substrates. Another big name on the LCD market, Samsung, plans to expand its 8G production lines too, as the company will set up a second 8G factory as a joint venture between Samsung and Sony which will have a monthly production of 50,000 panels.

The sudden interest of some of the biggest names in the LCD business in the eighth generation fabrication technology comes as a surprise after a conference held at the beginning of the year, where Ron Wirahadiraksa, president and chief executive officer of LG.Philips LCD, stated that his company is not interested in the large LCD panel industry, as that market segment is not cost effective. Moreover, the company did not foresee any large demand for 50-inch and-above-panels and it said that it would continue to invest in the 5.5G production plant. However, a month ago, at an investors' conference, the executives from LG.Philips LCD said that the company canceled its investments into the 5.5G plant and it will only focus on 8G production that is due to start in the first months of 2009.

TAGS:

LCD | monitor | computer | panel | screen

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User opinions:

Comment #1 by: phreakincool on 22 Aug 2008, 15:02 GMT

reply to this comment

I'm always amazed at the short-sightedness of these highly over-paid execs. Bill Gates was quoted in 1981 saying, "Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM." 15 years later he was quoted as saying,"Windows 95 needs at least 8 MB RAM."

The point is, you can never tell what the future holds. But by looking at current trends, you can kind of guess. Looking at the popularity of the iPhone/iPod productss, people obviously want larger screens on their mobile devices. With the popularity of multimedia apps, movies, DVR/PVR, TV capture cards, online MMOs, and such, people will probably want bigger widescreen LCDs for their PCs. I'm finding my 20" LCD to be completely lacking in dekstop space and I'm looking at least a 30" for it's replacement.

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