Viewsonic intros 17-inch widescreen monitor

It may not exert the same desktop dominance as the company's 24 and 28-inch offerings, but Viewsonic's new 17-inch monitor will still let you get a taste of the widescreen action while leaving room in your wallet to match all that extra desk space. Coming in at just barely over $200, the VA1703wb brings the 1440x990 resolution you'd expect on a monitor of this size, along with a 500:1 contrast ratio, 250 cd/m2 brightness, and an 8 ms response time. The port situation is equally low-end, with just a single VGA input to meet your connectivity needs. Interestingly, DigiTimes reported late last year that both Viewsonic and Apple were set to release 17-inch widescreen displays by the first quarter of this year, making them half-right so far, although how much credibility this adds to the prospect of a 17-inch Cinema Display remains to be seen.

[Via TG Daily]

[Dave @ Jan 19th 2007 6:45AM]

Expect the Apple display to cost double the price, at least. I love the Cinema Display but they're so much more expensive than the other monitors in their class.

[Shaun Murray @ Jan 19th 2007 8:31AM]

I can't imagine Apple shipping without a DVI port though so that would add to the cost. Add a better quality bezel/stand. Add a better backlight. Add a firewire port. Add SWOP Certified calibration. Make it full 8bit instead of 6bit+2bit like the rest of the ViewSonic Value Series and many of the other monitors that people allege are in the 'same class' as Apple's monitors.

There's reasons cheap monitors are cheap and Apple's aren't and it's not just always Apple's margins. Of course, you may not care about those reasons and just want a stupidly fast plastic monitor with bad colour calibration and
fake 24bit colour to play Quake MCXII on. Heck, make it shiny too and add a 56-in-1 card reader.

[Loban @ Jan 19th 2007 12:17PM]

Useless, spend an extra $50 and get a 20" from newegg or tigerdirect. Who would buy this thing for $200.

[Anders @ Jan 20th 2007 1:48AM]

...Because paying 1/4 more for 3 more inches on a 17 inch widescreen is SO worth it.

[Chris Tch @ Jan 22nd 2007 1:26PM]

Yes, why wouldn't it be worth it? You're getting 500,000 more pixels and a lot more screen area.

[Steve Dimond @ Feb 9th 2007 1:56AM]

Small can be better... I've been looking for a monitor that is less than 10.5" in height to fit under the kitchen cabinet ... to be folded up with an ergotron mount. Unfortunately, I have only wired 2 coax and 2 cat5 to that location in the kitchen, and really dont want to spend $200 getting it connected with HD over Cat5 gear, so am looking at composite video. Really Really wish I had pulled 3 coax lines to that location :-) (composite)

At any rate ...... YES .... I want a SMALLER screen and wide is beautiful.

Cheers
sd