Why do LCD Computer monitors expensive?

[DaDude]

Lately, I've been looking for an LCD computer monitor and the cheapest one I found was $220. Why are they still so expensive after they've been out for so long? LCD monitors are just so expensive that I just ordered a brand new computer instead with an LCD included. Only cost me $650 total for everything. It seems to be cheaper that way rather than buying a monitor separately.

I remember CRT monitors used to cost only $50-60. Why don't LCDs ever go that low?

Edit: A little typo on my subject. The actual subject is supposed to be "Why are LCD Computer monitors expensive?" Sorry for the mistake but I'm unable to edit it and fix it.

[portauthority]

CRTs may be cheap, but they are heavy and clunky and not to mention use 3x more power than LCD monitors.

The costs will catch up either way

[Budious]

You must like cheap products in small sizes, I prefer to buy things that will work and have displays big enough that I can read the text or easily view a digital camera image without scrolling. Enjoy the dead pixels, large dot pitch, and poor color dithering of your $50 LCD you got there buddy.

[DaDude]

I understand that. But as time goes, usually the price of technology decreases. What's going on with LCDs?

[Budious]

Maybe the prices are capped at raw material costs? LCD prices are dirt cheap compared to a few years back.

[giantpotato]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't remember CRT's ever being that cheap except if they were used. Besides, quality CRT monitors, widescreen CRT's and CRT's larger than 17" were always relatively expensive. You can get a 19" widescreen LCD for $170, you would never find a widescreen 19" CRT for that cheap.

[DaDude]

  Budious said:

You must like cheap products in small sizes, I prefer to buy things that will work and have displays big enough that I can read the text or easily view a digital camera image without scrolling. Enjoy the dead pixels, large dot pitch, and poor color dithering of your $50 LCD you got there buddy.

A quick example. DVD players when they first came out cost like $500. Now you can get one that has just as good of quality for less than $100. My question is: why doesn't this drop in prices happen with LCDs?

[Ash]

The only time i ever saw 50-60$ crts were the cheap brands when they were just trying to get rid of them when they phased out crt monitors. Don't expect ultra cheap lcd monitors for a very long time.

[DaDude]

I don't know. They must frown up people buying LCDs by themselves. Like I said in my original post, I just bought a new Dell computer with a 19" widescreen LCD included. It's just more cheaper that way. By buying the LCD separately, you're pretty much paying half the cost of a computer.

[FizzyChickenBroth]

Consider a piece of steak. How come steak doesn't drop to like 5 cents? Cows have been around forever! You'd think that since farmers can produce a billion cows in a year these days, steak would be dirt cheap. Yet, a decent 8oz cut still goes for 7-8 bucks.

An LCD isn't a piece of steak, but perhaps the manufacturing process of an LCD just can't get any cheaper than it already is. Just like raising a good cow still requires you to feed it something other than a blade of grass per day, which costs money. That is, until the day they can produce a Dragon Ball Z capsule thing that costs a penny to produce and provides the nutrition of a grass field the size of New Zealand and can sustain the cow for 5 yrs. Most of us on Neowin will probably not be around when that day comes. lol This was probably the dumbest analogy ever.

[steelcurtain]

http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/p4_...:SC3:CG4:DP2000

17 inch LCS 159.98

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16824254032

17 inch for $149.98

[DaDude]

  steelcurtain said:

http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/p4_...:SC3:CG4:DP2000

17 inch LCS 159.98

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16824254032

17 inch for $149.98

Those are not $50-60. People always encourage me to wait until LCDs do become that cheap but I can only wait for so long. All this waiting is driving me nuts so I just bought a new computer. I need a new computer anyway. Can you believe my current computer only has 256mb of RAM? Talk about ancient.

[Abhishek kapoor]

like now a days DDR2 RAM is cheaper than DDR1 so on same note why not LCD cheaper than CRT

[Ash]

  xraffle said:

I don't know. They must frown up people buying LCDs by themselves. Like I said in my original post, I just bought a new Dell computer with a 19" widescreen LCD included. It's just more cheaper that way. By buying the LCD separately, you're pretty much paying half the cost of a computer.

Thats because

A) The hardware inside of the computer isn't the highest of quality... probably most aspects are integrated into the motherboard, which save Dell money

B) Since dell wants to sell computers, often people buying lower end Dells will want the whole package, so Dell gets the monitor at wholesale and don't mark it up by much if at all, just so they can sell a whole computer as a package and still make their money on the computer itself.

Lets say the same monitor Dell includes is 100$ from the manufacturers. Dell may only value the monitor component at 100$ as part of the package, and not make any profit on that particular part but it helps them sell the rest of the computer since its a package and thats where they make their profit.

Now Best Buy may also pay 100$ for this exact model of monitor, but they will charge 180$ (guesstimate) because thats the only thing they are selling so they need to make their profit.

It's sort of like the same idea as door crasher sales at stores. They sell mass quantities of certain special items at a loss (making no profit or even costing them a little bit) then tons of people go to the store for this item. Many of these people are now in the store and will shop around. They may buy some food or whatever else. That will make the company the money, even if they take a small loss on 1 particular item.

  Abhishek Kapoor said:

like now a days DDR2 RAM is cheaper than DDR1 so on same note why not LCD cheaper than CRT

DDR2 is more common but there is still a demand for DDR1 by those people who have computer that cannot use DDR2, so it isn't as mass produced and usually stuff that is produced less of is more expensive. As for LCDs and CRTs, well even older computers can use LCD monitors, so its not like people have computers that can only use CRTs (well maybe people on win95 or something but thats another question!).

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

LCD's are not expensive in my opinion. You can pick up a 19" LCD monitor for less than ?100 - and I think that's really good value.

CRT's are REALLY cheap because the technology is redundant. Nobody in their right mind should buy one.

[Brandon]

You can buy a slightly used 17" lcd here for around $75.... thats dirt cheap!

[dragon2611]

and here was me looking at LCD's the other day and thinking How cheap they'd become.

[Rudy]

LCDs are very cheap right now (I picked up a Dell 22" for $220 last month), the only reason CRTs got so cheap is because it's a dead technology, at one point LCDs will be like that too....but it will take a long time

  dragon2611 said:

and here was me looking at LCD's the other day and thinking How cheap they'd become.

I was thinking the same thing

[giantpotato]

To the OP, If you're looking for really cheap new technology, now is probably the right time to jump on the HD DVD bandwagon ;)

[Lasker]

19 inch screen Hanns-G, one of the best monitors in the market $169.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16824254017

[steelcurtain]

  xraffle said:

Those are not $50-60. People always encourage me to wait until LCDs do become that cheap but I can only wait for so long. All this waiting is driving me nuts so I just bought a new computer. I need a new computer anyway. Can you believe my current computer only has 256mb of RAM? Talk about ancient.

No, they aren't $50-60, and would you really want a LCD so cheaply? I know DVD players are cheap, but I still don't think they have all of the connections of slighty more expensive ones, but I could be wrong. Staples had a 22 inch at $200 within the last month. I consider that almost dirt cheap.

[DaDude]

  steelcurtain said:

I know DVD players are cheap, but I still don't think they have all of the connections of slighty more expensive ones, but I could be wrong.

My 8 year old DVD player that I bought for $300 at the time is not as good as current ones. It doesn't have any component or HDMI outputs and doesn't read any writable discs. Last year, I bought one for $75 and it has better picture, upconverts to 1080p, has both component and HDMI outputs, and reads discs of all formats. It's way better than the $300 one I paid for long time ago. I was expecting something like this to happen to LCDs, but it looks like it ain't going to happen.

  Marty2003 said:

To the OP, If you're looking for really cheap new technology, now is probably the right time to jump on the HD DVD bandwagon ;)

What's the point on getting HD DVDs if Blu-ray was the one that won. All new movies will be released on Blu-ray, not HD-DVD. Even though it's cheap, it would be a complete waste of money.

[markwolfe Veteran]

  xraffle said:

I understand that. But as time goes, usually the price of technology decreases. What's going on with LCDs?

Jeez, patience. LCD displays in such large quantities are still pretty new technology. Wait about 10 more years.

  Marty2003 said:

Maybe it's just me, but I don't remember CRT's ever being that cheap except if they were used. Besides, quality CRT monitors, widescreen CRT's and CRT's larger than 17" were always relatively expensive. You can get a 19" widescreen LCD for $170, you would never find a widescreen 19" CRT for that cheap.

I remember 14" CRTs being standard, with 15" as the "upgrade". 17" units were prohibitively expensive! I'm talking $300 for the 15" CRT, and $900 for the 17 inch models.

Kids these days who only started computing with Win9x have no sense of computing history, sometimes. At least you recall the expensive truths of the not-so-distant past. ;)

[DaDude]

  markjensen said:

Jeez, patience. LCD displays in such large quantities are still pretty new technology. Wait about 10 more years.

I bought my current computer 7 years ago. I wanted to buy it with an LCD at the time, but didn't because they were just so expensive. Now, 7 years later, when my computer becomes ancient, the LCD prices are still sky high. And I know that when I was looking into a new computer 7 years ago, LCDs have been out for a few years already. So, how many decades do you expect me to wait? DVD players never took this long to drop in price.

[markwolfe Veteran]

  xraffle said:

I bought my current computer 7 years ago. I wanted to buy it with an LCD at the time, but didn't because they were just so expensive. Now, 7 years later, when my computer becomes ancient, the LCD prices are still sky high. And I know that when I was looking into a new computer 7 years ago, LCDs have been out for a few years already. So, how many decades do you expect me to wait? DVD players never took this long to drop in price.

My post clearly states "10 more years". That is precicely, to the day, how long you have to wait. :rolleyes:

This microwave mentality of "need it now" annoys me.

The serious answer is that you must wait for suppliers to out-produce demand. The 'per piece' price of items drops in proportion to the number produced. And technology improves, giving better yield and less scrap costs to manufacturers. Add in any new advances, and the factories producing older tech will need to pretty much give their product away at cost or just close.

And all of these things, grasshopper, take time, like water wearing away at the stone.