LCD manufacturer set to introduce 18.4-inch displays

Look, the LCD monitor market is hot. How hot, you ask? Well let's just say that panel manufacturer Chunghwa Picture Tubes (or CPT) has decided to circumvent the battle for ultimate supremacy in the 19-inch market by creating a totally new size of monitor: an 18.4-inch widescreen display. The new size will feature a 16:9 aspect ratio, 1366 x 768 resolution, a contrast ratio of 1000:1, and a response time of 5ms. The benefit of the slightly smaller size is that the cost to consumers will be lower than its 19-inch brethren, thereby giving CPT a cleaner shot a some market share. The first company to bite on the new size is Acer, which will be using the new panels in a Quanta-made laptop set to hit Europe in the second half of 2008.

[Phil Perman @ Dec 28th 2007 2:29PM]

Not that great a resolution considering 17" monitors can manage 1440x900, but I guess thats all you can expect when a company is targeting the very low end.

[asphixiated @ Dec 28th 2007 4:50PM]

By that logic, i've seen 14" laptop panels that go as high as 1440x900 (inspiron 142x for one) i think you're thinking about lowend 17" laptop displays, which go as high as 1920x1200. Most 19" Desktop monitors i've seen, however only go up to 1440x900.

So 1366x768 seems pretty reasonable for an 18" panel. i Wouldnt want to be constantly leaning into a desktop monitor anyways.

[mattclarkie @ Dec 28th 2007 2:32PM]

Well if only Acer buy these panels CPT will go bust. I just bought a top end Acer Business laptop for a lot of money and the screen and HDD keep shutting off and I have to do a hard reset. In fact everyone I talk to has had problems, or knows people who have had problems with Acer.

On topic, what a stupid idea. Too big for a laptop and too small for a Desktop.

[uagent @ Dec 28th 2007 4:51PM]

Yeah, Acer's are a heap, man. My family had an Aspire back in the Win '98 days. It was great for $300, but about a month after the 1-yr warranty ran out, the IDE controller fried and they wanted $300 for the motherboard...Not such a great deal anymore.

A buddy of mine at work has replaced the motherboard in his Acer laptop something like 3 times.

[TJ @ Dec 28th 2007 2:35PM]

16:9!!! FUCKING FINALLY!!!!
i hate hate hate hate 16:10 ratio(which is pretty much all widescreen monitors). there's still black bars when you watch 16:9 video, so then wtf was the point of getting a widescreen in the first place? i asked around and they said 16:10 was the "optimal" ratio for media and work/desktop use. i found that as a bullshit excuse and really got annoyed with this 16:10; did they just HAVE to make it different in the first place? well finally 16:9, and resolution kinda sounds like a 768p HDTV. yay!

[Joe @ Dec 28th 2007 2:40PM]

16:10 is better for people who are editting 16:9 video - you get some space for controls at the bottom of the screen. Granted, the resolutions are no good (1680x1050 is too big for 720 and too small for 1080), but at least that's the direction it was going in.

[nxtiak @ Dec 28th 2007 3:14PM]

A lot of movies now aren't even true 16:9, they're 2.35:1 or something that wide, so you still get black bars.

[Sean O @ Dec 28th 2007 4:48PM]

@Joe

No, 16:10 is not for video editing with "extra space". WXGA and other 16:10 formats are VESA standards created over 10 years ago. The commonly used monitor back then was the Sony GDM-FW900. These 1920x1200 CRT monitors were primarily used by graphic artists working in Adobe Illustrator and other print oriented applications. 16:10 is the perfect aspect ratio for displaying two standard size sheets of paper (8 1/2 x 11) side-by-side on the same screen.

It has absolutely nothing to do with widescreen video. Nobody back then thought people would someday be watching fullscreen videos on their computer monitors - nor did they know that video standards would change from 4:3 to 16:9.

[seoultrain @ Dec 29th 2007 1:02AM]

Sean, sorry if this sounds really dense, but wouldn't putting 2 8.5x11's side by side be 17:11, not 16:10?

[striggity @ Dec 28th 2007 2:49PM]

I was just talkin' to a buddy of mine about hopefully purchasing a 18.4 inch monitor...

[craig @ Dec 28th 2007 2:56PM]

Just think, if this monitor were 16:10, as all widescreen computer monitors should be, it would be a 19" panel. All they've done is taken a 19" panel and shaved some of the height off of it. If that's appealing to you, then you're really cheap.

[Backlin @ Dec 28th 2007 3:02PM]

CPT? Does Dr. Dre work there?
Anyway, I'm kind of glad they're doing 16:9 ratio monitors, but that's kind of low, like another poster said. I got a 15" laptop screen with native resolution of 1440x900, and 16:10 doesn't make that big of difference (at least not as big as 4:3 to 16:9).

[BCre8v @ Dec 28th 2007 3:05PM]

18.4" is a little odd as far as size and specs.
Seriously, 16:9 and 16:10 ratios aside, who is gonna buy a 46.736 cm monitor unless it costs LESS THAN $100.00, which is where I am thinking they must be targeting?
Anyways, it looks like Acer will be using these in a laptop to better compete in that space:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/news/detail.php?id=4069

[Derek @ Dec 28th 2007 3:06PM]

"thereby giving CPT a cleaner shot a some market share. "

Should be.... "thereby giving CPT a cleaner shot AT some market share."

[edgore @ Dec 28th 2007 3:08PM]

Any advance word on how much cheaper these will be? (Yes, this comment is totally pointless and I am just posting it so that I can access my profile)

[Tired_ @ Dec 28th 2007 3:12PM]

Acer's making a 19" laptop? I thought the 17" ones were gargantuan...who'd want to lug around something even bigger?

[Reader @ Dec 28th 2007 3:39PM]

It's only an 18.4 inch laptop ;)

[Homeboy @ Dec 28th 2007 3:24PM]

16:9 ratio might work well for movies but for browsing, word processing and similar tasks I prefer 16:10.

[Joshua Walters @ Dec 28th 2007 4:54PM]

I would take anything over my CRTs (dual).

[packetsniffer @ Dec 28th 2007 5:35PM]

"The benefit of the slightly smaller size is that the cost to consumers will be lower than its 19-inch brethren"
That's preposterous. It's going to be just as as expensive or even slightly more expensive to make a custom sized panel like that.

[TJ @ Dec 28th 2007 6:27PM]

hey nxtiak, i am so annoyed over that too. 16:9 was wide enough, wtf are they doing that weird even wider ratio in movies for? i just don't get it. i just don't. why dont tehy make a friggin 2:35:1 some crap TV so i can watch a widescreen movie without black bars for once.

[ZeroCorpse @ Dec 28th 2007 7:08PM]

First of all, my 24" 16:10 monitor laughs at this pathetic little thing.

Second, to all you weenies complaining about black bars in movies-- Get over it. You're the type of people that make it a pain to sell video displays and accessories. "Why is there a black bar on this show? Is the TV defective?" "Wahh! I don't like the black bars! I want the picture to fill the whole screen!"

Look, the video standards are what they are because nobody ever thought you'd be watching movies at home, and the standards are well in place. If you want a big, grand movie in the theater, you have to put up with black bars on ANY television. They simply do not and WILL NEVER make a television that has the physical dimensions of every film format. It would be impossible. If you have the super-wide format as a screen shape, then the smaller movies and TV shows that ARE shot in a format that matches 16:9 will look AWFUL on it.

If you WATCH THE MOVIE instead of the black bars, you'll stop noticing the black bars about 3 minutes into the film. Idiots who obsess over black bars really cheese me off. Personally, on my 24" I would NOT give up the extra space at top and bottom when using my computer just so I wouldn't have bars at the top and bottom of the screen in a movie. That's idiotic. That's like chopping off your toes so you can wear a pair of shoes you happen to like.

I'd suggest all the black bar whiners go read a book if the black bars are so distracting.

[carterman @ Dec 28th 2007 11:35PM]

I don't think that it's so picky to want to have your content fill as much of the screen as possible. And with HDTV and consoles being 16:9 nowadays, monitor manufacturers have had plenty of time to make this far more congruent. And I use my laptop on my 23" Samsung LCD TV, which is 16:9, and it's no worse than 16:10 was. It's only a matter of perception on your part that it's 'better'.

[Cory @ Dec 28th 2007 10:48PM]

I must be the only one who noticed the plant on that screen looks like a penis.

[Crashmaxx @ Dec 29th 2007 3:29PM]

Good luck finding a wallpaper that is 1366 x 768 pixels.