LED-Based LCD Display Tested

vrioux writes "Tom's Hardware reviews a pre-production NEC SpectraView 2180WG-LED, a new type of LCD display using LumiLED technology, which is a mixture of LED arrays and lightguides. The technology provides near-perfect (98% accurate) color reproduction and uniformity with no apparent downside. This new backlight technology seems like a clear winner for future LCD panels." From the article: "The 2180WG-LED's superiority is overwhelming. 98% of the colors were perfect; and all were at least correct. The result you see is for calibration for the sRGB standard. Unfortunately, the on screen display (OSD) on the model we got from NEC wasn't finalized, so we weren't able to test at other color temperatures. We've asked for a production model so that we can get a better idea of how it performs at 9300K and 5000K."

No screenshots?

[aapold]

well I know the old adage about showing TV displays on TV, I guess that would apply here, but I'd still like to see a screenshot of the thing with a display on it.

Re:Perfect!

[Scoria]

Give it about ten years.

By then, of course, you'll be drooling over more advanced -- and therefore expensive -- technology!

Re:damn...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

that looks ugly.

I don't think the enclosure is necessarily designed to look pretty. It's probably not the target market of graphic designers, probably medical imaging and so on. In those markets, the actual image on the screen is far more important than any consideration of how the screen is packaged.

Pretty cool. Still a long way to go though.

[ben_rh]

No matter what the device, moving to LEDs is always an improvement in my book -- they're low power, last basically forever, and all the rest of it. This is pretty nice technology from NEC. Now all we need are a few other manufacturers to get in on the LED action and drive the prices (and the thickness of the display) down.

At the same time, I can't help thinking that the whole design paradigm of using a light generation source, with a filter in front, is sort of non-optimal. All the work that has to be done to spread the light correctly with those lightguides etc. It'll be interesting to see where display tech goes in the next 15 years -- maybe some sort of sheet of micro-LEDs that emit light for individual pixels.

Although, what with the current desire to significantly increase DPI, and the graphics card power we have now starting to make it feasible, this probably wouldn't work too well... I don't know how likely we are to develop LEDs at cellular dimensions any time soon.

Re:Better LCD technology available

[Thagg]

Here's the link

http://www.physorg.com/news7308.html [physorg.com]

Thad

Re:(not so) Perfect!

[jhoffoss]

Uh...a 20" CRT is over 80 lbs, in my experience. And 20"+ deep.

This LCD's depth is the base, the screen body itself appears similar to NEC's current LCDs, in that it's around 4" deep. The 8" base is necessary, unless you want your $6000 monitor to tip easily when you bump your desk. And at least the screen rotates...not to mention that this is still a pre-production model. I just hope it doesn't take five or ten years for this to become feasible for mere mortals.