LCDs: Evolutions, innovations, and differentiations stave off irrelevance

It seems like just yesterday…but in reality, it was nearly 20 years ago. What am I talking about? My first substantive coverage of direct-view displays appeared in EDN on March 5, 2005, and I’m feeling déjà vu as I read back over it. Cathode ray tube (CRT) based displays were at the time dominant for both television and (desktop) computer applications, with plasma displays restricted to ultra-large screen applications and videophiles, the latter valuing their black levels and other image quality attributes. And liquid crystal displays (LCDs)? They were in laptops, of course, albeit with much lower quality (not to mention higher cost) than is the case today.

Speaking of cost, although LCD technology had also begun penetrating the standalone computer display market in 2005, this quote from an AnandTech writeup of the era tells the tale (bracketed additions for clarification are mine):

People on a budget might still prefer a good 19″ CRT, which can save about $100 on the cost of the [equivalent 19” liquid crystal] display.

And at the time, the pricing disparity between CRTs and LCDs further (exponentially so) grew as screen size increased. Conversely, today it’s getting increasingly difficult to even find a 19” LCD computer monitor, with the bulk of the market moving to 22” and larger units. And LCD TVs in 2005? Virtually nonexistent, although that year ended up being the knee of the upward curve.

Five-plus years later, in my follow-up feature article, the display market had notably evolved, a situation reflected in the writeup’s “Display-technology advancements: Change is the only constant” title. Here’s how I launched into it:

Repeatedly predicted and repeatedly delayed on many occasions, the transition from CRTs to LCDs has finally occurred, even in cost-sensitive emerging markets and across dominant application segments: computer monitors and televisions.

And as LCDs were maturing, next-generation display technologies such as OLED (which received little more than passing mention in my piece a half-decade earlier) were coming to the fore:

Some [editor note: LCD] developers focus their efforts on making incremental improvements to a “vanilla” LCD foundation. Other cases warrant a more revolutionary transition—to OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) for an ultra-svelte consumer-electronics device, for example, or to an “electronic-paper” display fora digital reader.

Fast forward to today, and it’s OLED that’s ascendent, increasingly at LCDs’ expense. By virtue of its self-illumination characteristics, negating the need for a bulky, rigid, and power-hungry separate backlight (historically cold cathode fluorescent lamp—CCFL—based, now near-exclusively LCD-derived), OLEDs find use in all but the most cost-sensitive smartphones, and are essential for emerging unified-display foldable phones. They haven’t quite made it to larger-screen devices—specifically Apple’s iPads—yet, although persistent rumor suggests it’s a matter of when, not if, and Android-based OLED-equipped tablet alternatives are already in the market. OLEDs are, for perhaps obvious reasons, already pervasive in smaller-screen smart watches. For computer monitors, some pundits believe this is the year that OLED-based displays will finally go mainstream. And while it’s less clear (at least to me) that OLED will end up in volume televisions, several emerging alternatives are also vying to be LCD’s successor, as I discussed in March 2019: specifically, QLED and microLED.

If you’re an LCD supplier, where does this ongoing impermanence leave you? To some degree, the answer depends on whether you’re also an OLED, QLED and/or microLED supplier, although given that LCD technology is more mature, its manufacturing yields are still likely higher and its costs are subsequently lower, enabling you to price LCDs more aggressively than alternatives and trade off per-unit profit margin for higher unit sales. But clearly, if you’ve sunk a lot of money into developing LCD supply capacity and don’t have a ready-for-production technology alternative in your hip pocket, you’re definitely going to want to “milk” the LCD market as long as possible to recoup your investment (and more) as much as possible.

Fundamental spec improvements are one key means of accomplishing this market-life-extension objective. Boosting the peak refresh rate is one popular example. Although I’m admittedly skeptical about the reality behind the hype (upfront disclosure: I’m not a gamer, so consider my lack of eyes-on experience when assessing my cynicism), it does seem to be effective both in spurring new (and replacement) display sales and in differentiating display companies from their competitors. Take, for example, ASUS’ VA229HR 21.5” LCD computer monitor, based on in-phase switching (IPS) technology and touting 75 Hz refresh, two of which I bought last fall. Intended for the computers that I periodically build and donate to local charities, they were both used—one was from Amazon’s Warehouse, the other an Amazon Refreshed unit—therefore costing me only ~$75 each. But their brand-new equivalents, if memory serves me, were selling for ~$125 at the time, versus ~$100 for conventional 60 Hz refresh equivalents.

Admittedly, those conventional equivalents probably sold in higher volumes, albeit with lower per-unit profit margins. And the conventional-unit competitive environment was also likely much more crowded. To that latter point, nowadays “high refresh” typically translates to “120 Hz or more” versus my more modest last-year uptick. And to my earlier-admitted skepticism about the concept, reflective of dubiousness as to whether such spec improvements are meaningfully perceptible in reality (analogies to audiophile gear and content are apt), I’m conversely enthusiastic about the ability to dynamically throttle refresh rate downward if content characteristics allow, as a means of maximizing overall system battery life. Microsoft apparently agrees, judging from upcoming enhancements it’s making to Windows 11.

Note, too, that the ASUS VA229HR is also an IPS LCD monitor, seemingly belying its low price and high refresh rate. Both attributes were historically strengths of the alternative twisted-nematic (TN) LCD approach, along with that of a third technology—vertical alignment (VA)—which I neglected to mention back in 2019. But IPS’ “improved viewing angles, deeper black levels, and other enhancements”, to quote my earlier article, won out, with refresh rates also boosted over time and price addressed by volume cost efficiencies.

More generally, a steady stream of image quality improvements is key to actualizing LCD suppliers’ aspirations to keep their preferred display technology relevant in the face of upstart options. Other improvement focus areas include response time, deeper black levels and associated wider contrast ratios, along with wide viewing angles, expanded color gamuts, and higher resolutions (both in general and at a given panel size), all implemented via schemes like:

Finer-pitch pixels (and subpixels)
Backlights with zone-based local dimming, and implemented using multicolor LCDs, and
A variety of “glass” coating approaches

not to mention the high-bandwidth interfaces on which many LCD improvements also depend.

As an admittedly somewhat extreme example of the lengths that LCD suppliers have gone to remain germane, look at Apple’s 32” Pro Display XDR, which was announced back in mid-2019:

Here are some choice excerpts from the press release that publicly introduced it:

6016 x 3384 Retina 6K resolution with more than 20 million pixels
P3 wide color gamut and true 10-bit color for over 1 billion colors
The industry’s best polarizer technology, delivering a superwide, color-accurate, off-axis viewing angle.
To manage reflected light, Pro Display XDR has an industry-leading anti-reflective coating and offers an innovative new matte option called nano-texture, with glass etched at the nanometer level for low reflectivity and less glare.
A direct backlighting system with a large array of LEDs that produce 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness and 1,600 nits of peak brightness [editor note: 1,000 nits sustained]
With a single Thunderbolt 3 cable, Pro Display XDR connects seamlessly to the Mac product line, including the new Mac Pro, which supports up to six displays for a breathtaking 120 million pixels.

Sounds great, right? Here’s the reality check:

Pro Display XDR starts at $4,999, the Pro Stand is $999 and the VESA Mount Adapter is $199.

In fairness, last March Apple subsequently unveiled a more modestly priced (comparatively, at least) LCD, the 27” 5K Studio Display, alongside its first-generation Mac Studio computers:

Studio Display is $1,599 (US), and $1,499 (US) for education. Additional technical specifications, including nano-texture glass and a choice of stand options, are available at apple.com/store.

Its peak brightness and other specs are more modest (while still quite impressive, mind you), which in combination with its smaller panel size and associated lower resolution, all assist with the comparative-to-Pro Display XDR price decrease. And speaking of specs, curiously neither Apple display seemingly documents the oft-important response time metric.

Despite its lower price, the Studio Display adds some features that I more generally wanted to highlight as an integration trend that other LCD suppliers are also adopting:

A 12MP Ultra Wide camera with Center Stage, a feature that automatically keeps users centered in the frame as they move around.
Studio Display also includes a studio-quality, three-microphone array with an especially low noise floor for crystal-clear calls and voice recordings.
A high-fidelity six-speaker sound system, the best ever created for Mac, delivering an unbelievable listening experience.

Integrated KVM (keyboard, video and mouse) switching is another increasingly common inclusion in modern displays.

And beyond conventional computer display, television and mobile device markets, LCD suppliers are also partnering with their system-development customers to cultivate demand in additional new markets, such as baby and security monitors and smart displays. Take, for example, the portable monitor, the G-STORY GST56 shown below, I personally own and regularly use (again, I’m not a gamer, so overlook the stock photo’s screen):

It doesn’t contain its own battery; instead, it’s fueled by an external USB-C (or USB-A, via adapter) power source, which can (assuming sufficient current output) include the laptop computer its video input is simultaneously tethered to. G-STORY includes an array of bundled cables, along with a cover that doubles as the stand; I later added a sleeve to the mix. And check out the specs, keeping in mind that the GST56 only cost me $127.99 (on sale) in January:

165 Hz peak refresh rate
1 ms response time
6-inch IPS screen
1920×1080 pixel resolution
350cd/m² peak brightness
800:1 contrast ratio
Built-in speakers plus headphone audio output jack

Here it is in action at Starbucks (I blurred both screens’ content post-photo capture for privacy):

Some other manufacturers’ conceptually similar displays, often referred to as monitor extenders, literally attach the supplemental LCD(s) to the laptop and its primary screen:

And then there are so-called “field monitors”, which HDMI or SD-tether to a still or video camera and provide a larger-screen supplement to the integrated analog or digital viewfinder and/or LCD screen. Sometimes, as with this example unit, the Ninja V from Atomos, a popular premium supplier, they even include an SSD or at least memory card slot(s), to provide a higher-capacity video recording alternative to the camera’s integrated storage:

In a recent writeup, a teardown of a LED light bulb with an integrated backup battery, I back-referenced an earlier post which had noted that as LED light bulb technology matured, manufacturers were variously differentiating their products in search of competitive isolation and profits. That writeup had similarly back-referenced an earlier piece on the evolution of Bluetooth-based peripherals, which contains this quote:

Such diversity within what’s seemingly a mature and “vanilla” product category is what prompted me to put cyber-pen to cyber-paper for this particular post. The surprising variety I encountered even during my brief period of research is reflective of the creativity inherent to you, the engineers who design these and countless other products. Kudos to you all!

That quote applies not only to Bluetooth audio adapters but also to LED light bulbs. And as this writeup hopefully gets across, to LCDs, too. Kudos, display developers! Let me know in the comments any additional cool LCD-derived products you’ve come across, or anything else LCD-related that you’d like to share.

—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Vision Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the company’s online newsletter.

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