LG FlatronWide L206WU USB monitor comes to North America

LG is announcing today that it's bringing the 20-inch FlatronWide L206WU USB-based monitor to North America. You may have seen the display over at our sister site Engadget Chinese, where you can also check on the specs: in case you don't know Chinese, the L206WU is based around a Samsung SyncMaster 940UX and has a 3,000:1 contrast ratio, 170 degree horizontal / vertical viewing angles, and most importantly eschews DVI and VGA for a USB connection that can be daisy chained over five more displays. Other USB-based display options have generally included some form of built-in lag due to the restrictions of the USB connection, so it'll be interesting to see whether LG and its partner DisplayLink have managed to provide a solution. Price and availability dates are yet to be announced.

[Ken C. @ Jul 16th 2007 1:33AM]

That can't be right. There is no way LG is using a Samsung panel in one of their LCDs. They are bitter rivals in every consumer electronics category and LG has plenty of LCD production capacity with their LG.Philips venture, much like Samsung does by itself. If this is true, then it would amount Coke using a Pepsi formulation in its sodas...

[Corey H @ Jul 16th 2007 1:57AM]

nice find I didnt even notice that. Wow there is something wrong there definately.
Its probably just a mistake and they probably didn't notice before posting it.

Corey

[ekwmin @ Jul 16th 2007 12:10PM]

Actually that is very possible. There was a posting several months ago that Samsung and LG might be sharing some of it's production lines. The Korean government was involved in creating this partnership in order to lower outsourcing while keeping cost down.

[Corey H @ Jul 16th 2007 1:33AM]

I would be willing to bet that no matter what LG and DisplayLink do there will still be horrendous lag. The only thing I would use it for is something mainly static like showing IM windows or the windows sidebar thing that sometimes gets in the way. Heck I would be surprised if it was at all tolerable to watch a movie on it.

Corey

[warpzero @ Jul 16th 2007 6:58AM]

I've actually used a DisplayLink product before - not this LG one, but a product based on the same chips - a docking station from Toshiba (http://www.dynadock.com). I can assure you that the lag is really low. You don't even notice the difference between a VGA connection and a USB connection. It works fine for DVD playback too (which surprised the heck out of me) but it doesn't do high-end 3D or HD video very well (frame drops). I use the Toshiba dock for business-related stuff and some lightweight 3D (Google Earth) and it's absolutely perfect.

I doubt LG are using Samsung panels since obviously other manufacturers (like Toshiba) have DisplayLink stuff but I have no idea. It seems odd.

[jeff @ Aug 2nd 2007 5:34AM]

warpzero what resolution are you running on your screen connected over usb? seems to me that if you see frames dropping on hd video you would see the same on dvds? dvds run at 30fps and hd at 24 (60?) and since the graphics card has to do the rendering, not sure why the display would make a difference unless it was simply a refresh rate limit of the monitor in general. probably something im missing... could also be that your laptops video card struggles to render it...

[ryanworrell @ Jul 16th 2007 1:41AM]

It would be nice to see a not-so-shitty usb display. I am betting these aren't designed for gamers, but what about stock brokers who need 4,5 or 6 monitors to display stock tickers and what not on em. this could be perfect for them.

[Chuckles McGee @ Jul 16th 2007 2:15AM]

I suppose USB monitors are a nice idea and all, but what's wrong with the DVI-D we've come to love?

[josh.bright @ Jul 16th 2007 2:48AM]

The ability to daisy chain 5 monitors? For certain situations, this would be much easier vs. installing multiple video cards. Id rather see this as a firewire800 connection, I just don't see USB2.0 being snappy enough.

[stimr2 @ Jul 16th 2007 2:31AM]

LG and Samsung are bitter rivals but they recently agreed to share LCD technology and panels. The main reason for this is because the Japanese and Chinese have started to form their own alliance. http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200705/200705150016.html

[Russell @ Jul 16th 2007 4:07AM]

I'd wonder about the quality and compression used, and the cpu usage, usb bus contention etc...

How much slower is that external usb hdd after adding one of these for example.

Or would gaming get all blocky in fast action like digital cable/sat tv...

[tweak @ Jul 16th 2007 4:18AM]

So I'm still a little confused as to how it actually works if it's plugged in via USB and not VGA or DVI. Does that mean it doesn't utilize your graphics card at all, or am I missing something?

[Alicia @ Jul 16th 2007 4:34AM]

LG is making great product these days, look at this music phone for example by LG, its so cute

http://tinyurl.com/3a9qes

[Chris Macdonald @ Jul 16th 2007 6:00AM]

What's the point?

[warpzero @ Jul 16th 2007 6:59AM]

You don't need a graphics card. That's the point.

[sophie @ Jul 16th 2007 8:31AM]

took some effort but i found the wallpaper shown on that 20-inch FlatronWide L206WU. it's Mossbrae Falls 2 by lyle krannichfield on interfacelift

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details.php?id=1120

[Ghen @ Jul 16th 2007 10:01AM]

Hmm, kinda makes me want to photoshop it to get the extreme-blue water.

[bradwjensen @ Jul 16th 2007 4:24PM]

Dude, thank you for the link!

[bradwjensen @ Jul 16th 2007 4:29PM]

or Dudet *spell*.. ha

[quentin @ Jul 16th 2007 5:46PM]

We've been having some fun with the Samsung equivalent at Ndiyo:

http://www.ndiyo.org/news/samsunghubster/