Finally, Apple is giving you the option of paying US$50 to get an “Antiglare Widescreen Display” for the 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro. Yesterday, I visited an Apple Store to check out the iPhone 3GS‘ picture and video-taking capabilities. Let’s just say I wasn’t impressed with the selectable autofocus–I didn’t really see a single picture with nice bokeh after taking a dozen pictures. I did like the video–very impressive for a phone. After fiddling with the iPhone I went to the MacBook section and toyed with the 17-inch MacBook Pro with the antiglare option. The antiglare display is nice and significantly reduces reflections and glare. The aluminum-like bezel looks pretty ugly though next to an edge-to-edge cover glassed version. So I was wondering: Why can’t Apple (or Corning) coat the cover glass with an antiglare treatment?
I’m also wondering if we’re being ripped off. Do you remember when everyone was charging $50 for the optional glare display?
Dell‘s ST2310 is a 23-inch monitor that makes use of a TN LCD featuring a 1920 x 1080 resolution, 250 cd/m2 of brightness, 5ms response time and a 50,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. That last stat means absolutely nothing. Connectivity options are plenty: VGA, DVI, HDMI, audio in & out. I’m pretty sure you can’t swivel (unless you swivel the whole monitor with base) or adjust the height. Tilt? Probably. The only thing that is unique about some Dell monitors is that they have a fairly slim bezel, as is the case for the ST2310. For an otherwise absolutely ho-hum 23-inch monitor from Dell it’ll cost you US$229. Not bad actually.
Source: Engadget
Nope, I don’t get a commission from www.monoprice.com. But I do feel good when I help a fellow shopper save some money. Read on and find out how you can save a boatload of your hard-earned money. Whether you have a PC or a TV you’ll need some kind of cable that didn’t come in the box. I’m not sure about the exact figure but most branded PC or TV cables have a profit margin of 100-percent or more built into the price. As you’ll soon find out later in this post the difference between getting a cable from MonoPrice rather than Best Buy can save you more than $65!
SAVE For instance, for the PC you might need one of these cables: VGA-to-DVI, VGA-to-HDMI, VGA-to-VGA, VGA-to-DisplayPort, DVI-to-VGA, DVI-to-HDMI, DVI-to-DisplayPort, DisplayPort-to-DVI, etc. You get the point. Often times when you go to Best Buy or Fry’s Electronics the branded cables can cost an arm and a leg. Let’s look at an example.
A Dynex-branded 6.5 feet DVI-to-HDMI cable at Best Buy costs US$49.99. At MonoPrice a “HDMI DVI Cable 28AWG – 6ft w/Ferrite Cores (Gold Plated)” costs just $3.56. That is a huge difference in price! You save more than $45 buying from MonoPrice. (Yes, I do realize you’ll need to figure in the shipping & handling costs but you’ll still come out way ahead!)
Digital is Digital Another factoid that needs to be out in the open is this: all digital cables are about the same. Cables with endings such as DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, etc. are digital cables and you don’t need to get a Monster cable or a Dynex cable for more than 10x the price. On the other hand you should spend a bit more money on analog cables. An example would be a VGA-to-VGA cable, which is an analog cable. Unless you have old monitors and TVs (which I do!) most of you won’t even need to bother with analog cables.
TV Cables Too On the TV side the same logic applies. Get the best component, composite, S-Video cables you can afford. But don’t even think about paying more than about $5 for a HDMI-to-HDMI cable. Let’s look at another example.
The “Rocketfish – 8′ HDMI Digital Audio/Video Cable for PlayStation 3″ costs $69.99 at Best Buy. At MonoPrice the “High Speed HDMI 1.3a Category 2 Certified Cable 28AWG – 8ft w/Ferrite Cores (Gold Plated Connectors) – BLACK” costs just $4.02. The Rocketfish-branded cable costs more than 17x! By the way, don’t get carried away by that “for PlayStation 3″ marketing text–you can use any HDMI cable to connect your PlayStation 3 to a digital TV with a HDMI connection.
Save yourself a boatload of money by buying your cables at MonoPrice!
OLED-info is reporting that Nokia will be launching more OLED smartphones in 2009. Currently Nokia is shipping the N85 that sports a 2.6-inch Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED) and coming soon will be the N86. OLED has its benefits. OLED allows for thinner displays and the contrast is outstanding: black is really black, not dark gray. With the right user interface (making most of the background black) the OLED display can consume much less power allowing the smartphone/mobile phone to last much longer compared to a backlit-LCD.
OLED Panel Suppliers Two companies supply OLED displays to Nokia according to DigiTimes. They are Samsung and TPO. Unfortunately, according to OLED-Info, TPO is experiencing some technical issues and the company has not been able to supply the AMOLED displays to Nokia. TPO is currently developing and will launch its first OLED display with a 800 x 480 resolution around 3-inches geared for mobile phone applications later this year.
Acer‘s Aspire Timeline notebook PCs are about US$900. In a world where netbooks are all the rage at just $299 the 3x price difference might make a difference. I think it has. Acer has just reduced orders for its 14-inch and 15.6-inch Aspire Timeline notebook PCs due to lower-than-expected demand. Also consider that most decent 14-inch and 15-inch class notebook PCs are around $500. Acer originally expected a combined 600,000 per month run for the ultrathin notebooks but DigiTimes is reporting that Wistron, the OEM for both models, is at a much depressed level at just 200,000 units per month. The 13.3-inch Aspire Timeline must be meeting expectations.
Source: DigiTimes
Nanovision will be introducing a touch version of its MIMO USB display, the 720-S. The 720-S will feature a 7-inch LCD with a 800 x 480 resolution (landscape). You can pivot the MIMO in portrait mode. MIMO USB works with both PCs and Macs. If you need multiple monitors to enhance your productivity the MIMO USB monitors can be an excellent choice.
Expensive? Depends If you are mostly desktop-bound I wouldn’t recommend shelling out an incredible $149.99 let alone the pricier $215 for a tiny 7-inch screen with a limited 800 x 480 resolution. I would instead steer you to a solid 17-inch or larger monitor for about the same price but with a lot more pixels. However if you travel quite a bit and still require some extra real estate and don’t want to carry around a 17-inch behemoth, the MIMO USB LCD monitor even at these prices can be worth it. The 720-S will be available in September for about US$215. The 710-S is a non-touch version that goes for a little less at US$149.99.
Source: Engadget
Revenues Increase Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) announced July 2009 TFT LCD related revenues on August 10. Net sales increased 7.4-percent month-over-month and 23.3-percent year-over-year to NT$28.7 billion. The company shipped 7.1 million large-area TFT LCD panels, down 1.4-percent month-over-month but up 46.5-percent year-over-year. Small/medium LCD panel shipments increased 31.7-percent month-over-month and 94.5-percent year-over-year to 16.5 units.
Focus on Larger? Despite a 1.4-percent drop in July from June, CMO experienced an increase of 7.4-percent net sales. What that tells me is one of two things. If CMO sold a similar batch of large-area LCD panels composed of a similar share of different sizes as it did in June then you can assume the average price of LCD panels have increased. The other scenario might be…[private] that CMO is selling more of its larger LCD panels geared for LCD TVs. If this is the case it makes sense since the largest sales in LCD TVs come in the fourth quarter. The number of units sold would actually decrease if CMO focused on larger LCD TV panels assuming that total capacity stayed the same from June to July.
Fear of Oversupply The focus on larger LCD TV panel production to capitalize on sales in the fourth quarter and to increase revenue and perhaps profits is not limited to just CMO; other LCD manufacturers such as LG Display, Samsung, Sharp, Panasonic, AU Optronics (AUO) and others will also be focused on larger LCD panels. And that can be a dangerous thing as it can create an oversupply market situation. Add to that the possibility that the fourth quarter might not be as strong as expected and you can add a stockpile of inventory to clear out on top of the over abundance of large LCD TV panels. If this happens expect LCD TV panels to experience a collapse at the end of the fourth quarter and certainly in the first quarter of 2010.[/private]
Source: CMO
3,145,728 pixels That’s the number of pixels that can be displayed on IBM’s T210. The resolution is 2048 x 1536. The term QXGA refers to Quad XGA and that means you can display four windows with a 1024 x 768 (XGA) resolution in a 2×2 matrix. Awesome if you need to have multiple windows open at once. If you tend to work in portrait mode, you can have two windows side-by-side with a 1024 x 1536 resolution. Back in the day, in mid-2002, the T210 went for a cool US$5929 (MSRP).
The T210 sports a 20.8-inch TFT LCD that is enclosed in a heavy black metal base. The monitor is 23-lbs: very heavy. The monitor itself is about 3-inches thick: very thick. The base itself has height adjustment, tilt and swivel. The only thing it lacks is a pivoting feature. Of course you can get rid of the base and use a more versatile mount.
Connections Galore S-Video, Composite Video, DVI, VGA–these are the connections that are built into the T210. So you can use the 20.8-inch monitor to do work and to watch video.
User Unfriendly I hope you only need to plug in the power cord and the connections once. Because the T210 is designed so that connecting the cables require a lot of patience. Most likely the connections panel on the back was designed by an engineer for an engineer–both you don’t give a hoot as to user friendliness. Another thing that you need to keep in mind is that there is a fan inside the monitor. The fan is to keep the LCD cool. I need a monitor that needs to be absolutely silent, if you’re like me, you’ll need to keep that in mind.
Trader Geared According to Tom Martin, director of marketing for IBM monitors back in 2001: “Financial institutions are located on very expensive real estate. In the heart of New York, London, and Tokyo, they’re always trying to fit more traders into their trading environments.” Larry Tabb, VP of Securities and Investments at Tower Group back in 2001 explains further: “The typical setup includes at least four, if not six or even eight monitors and a big computing box. They really need a tremendous amount of information at their fingertips.” Instead of having four XGA (1024 x 768) monitors you can have just one T210.
Old But Solid Now bear in mind that this T210 monitor is about 8 years old. So the brightness has decreased a bit though it is still quite bright and 100-percent usable. There are a few nibbles on the display but nothing that should get in the way of doing actual work: there is a small spot that is about 1/8-inch in diameter where it is a bit darker and there are two half-circles with a slight green tinge at the edge of the top bezel probably due to the driver ICs getting a bit hot. Despite these slight abnormalities you’re getting a near $6000 monitor for free…
FREE Now why am I giving out this awesome IBM T210 for free? Well, it’s not completely free. The way this works is simple: comment on this blog post (you’ll need to register) and I will pick just one person who provides the most compelling reason why I should send the T210 to them. I am sure there are a lot of folks who could use a decent monitor during these troubling times. You have until noon (Pacific Time) Friday August 14, 2009 to post a comment and I will announce the winner on Monday, August 17. Don’t worry about shipping and handling, I’ll take care of that. If you’re local to San Jose, I’ll even hand-deliver it for you. If you know of someone who could use a T210, let them know!
Privacy When you register, you’ll need to use an email address that you actually use. I will not sell the email address and will not use it for anything else other than to inform you that you have won. The only other times I will use the email address are for when I want to send you important information about displays. Rarely will I do that.
Specifications:
For more information:
Engadget: The Dell U2410 is a 24-inch LCD monitor sporting an IPS LCD panel. IPS stands for In-Plane Switching and is generally regarded as a very high-end wide viewing-angle LCD technology that produces very nice colors and exhibits low contrast shifts and color shifts when viewing at wide angles. A lot of professionals use IPS or PVA-based LCD monitors (some still use CRT due to its brilliant color rendering).
The U2410 sports a color gamut of 96-percent Adobe RGB and 100-percent sRGB–great for professionals who need to deal with color. How did Dell do this? Probably by incorporating an IPS LCD panel that uses a Wide Color Gamut CCFL (WCG-CCFL) backlight. WCG-CCFL backlights differ from normal CCFL backlights in that the phosphors inside the CCFL tube have been enhanced to emit light that brings about a wider spectrum of colors.
Since Dell is positioning the U2410 as a high-end LCD monitor for color professionals the resolution remains 1920×1200 with a 16:10 aspect ratio; not the 16:9 1920×1080 that you see on monitors that are geared more toward consumers. I personally lie the additional 120 vertical display real estate. Contrast ratio is a solid 1000:1 and you can expect that not to collapse when viewing at angles.
Connectivity includes DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. I wish the industry would simply come together on a single standard so we don’t go wasting our precious and hard-earned money buying expensive cables every time another “standard” comes out. The U2410 also comes with a 4-port USB hub. The price is on the high side but not incredibly so: JPY72,450 or about US$760.
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