If companies would quit cheapening out...

[Zellio2010]

Leds have the ABILITY to have much better color reproduction and light output at a much smaller area then cfls. Led lcd monitors should be looking super good, have amazing blacks, and such by now, only companies refuse to make them. What gives?

Yeah, it would make a tn panel the price of an ips, but think if they used really nice quality leds it would look amazing.

 

[limitedaccess]

I think you are referring to how TVs use full arrays with local dimming or RGB arrays, however they aren't ideal situation you think it is. Even with how TVs are relatively larger, they can create blooming/halo effects, and other visual artifacts, issues that are likely to be compounded by the smaller size, closer viewing range, and higher PPI of computer screens.

 

[RadXge]

LED can be implemented in two ways: Full array and edge-lit. The latest does not generally improve the image quality over CCFL. As a matter of fact, edge-lit TVs are prone to bleeding and may render an image that is inferior to a CCFL based LCD.
Full array is the real deal, especially if local dimming is implemented and if RGB leds are used (instead of white LEDs). Unfortunately, local dimming has its drawback as mentioned in the post above.

IMO, the most important element of a LCD TV is the panel (IPS, PVA or TN) not the backlight technology. Of course, LEDs allow to make thinner and more power efficient TVs which are welcome improvements.
If you want something amazing, wait for OLED. I have seen one last year and the image quality is breathtaking.

 

[Synful Serenity]

It's all that we can do now that SED and FED are DED.

 

[ar09]

the newer imac's use led and ips panels.

maybe they are not continuing to move forward because of the economy?

 

[Sycraft]

Don't blame companies, blame consumers. American consumers show themselves to be extremely price sensitive. They tend to want the very cheapest deal, no matter what. This creates a race to the bottom with electronics. Cut the cost no matter what and you sell more units. It is relatively few consumers that are willing to pay a premium for quality, thus the choices there are smaller.

Well if people didn't buy cheap shit, that wouldn't happen. If consumers instead tended to buy the higher priced, higher quality goods then that is what you'd see more of. Companies would work to cram in better features, higher quality, and so on even if it increased cost because that is what would sell more units.

Cheap LCDs are what most people want, so they are what gets sold the most.

Also you are confused about LED black levels. They can get very dark blacks with dynamic contrast, since they can lower their brightness much more than CCFLs, but they have NO effect on static contrast at all.

With regards to colour you are right that LEDs can have a slightly wider gamut than CCFLs, but not actually a whole lot and it costs more to do. Not really worth while. For that matter if really wide gamut is your goal, laser backlighting would be what you'd want as that is the widest gamut you can get with a trichromatic display.

 

[Anemone]

While I don't subscribe to the fallacy that they don't age at all, LED's do age differently than CCFL's with the prior being more durable (generally but not universally). However, you're right, the consumer body never really cares when they are signing on the bottom line. The general motivation is "Buy cheap. Replace often". No one cares if you got a rock bottom price and you just buy a new item every few years.

 

[sethk]

The cost of a local dimming led array (and the engineering, firmware development and tuning, etc.) is very significant. It would easily push a 22-24" TN into the > $1000 price range. At that point, using an IPS or VA is not a significant cost factor. I don't see a market for that.

 

[Godmachine]

Don't blame companies, blame consumers.American consumers show themselves to be extremely price sensitive. They tend to want the very cheapest deal, no matter what. This creates a race to the bottom with electronics. Cut the cost no matter what and you sell more units. It is relatively few consumers that are willing to pay a premium for quality, thus the choices there are smaller.

Well if people didn't buy cheap shit, that wouldn't happen. If consumers instead tended to buy the higher priced, higher quality goods then that is what you'd see more of. Companies would work to cram in better features, higher quality, and so on even if it increased cost because that is what would sell more units.

Cheap LCDs are what most people want, so they are what gets sold the most.

Also you are confused about LED black levels. They can get very dark blacks with dynamic contrast, since they can lower their brightness much more than CCFLs, but they have NO effect on static contrast at all.

With regards to colour you are right that LEDs can have a slightly wider gamut than CCFLs, but not actually a whole lot and it costs more to do. Not really worth while. For that matter if really wide gamut is your goal, laser backlighting would be what you'd want as that is the widest gamut you can get with a trichromatic display.

Your generalizing something that the entire world is akin to when it comes to buying habits. Name even one country where people prefer to spend excessive amounts of cash without regard to quality simply because they can. You can't , poverty is the reason for this.

LED technology when done right (local dimming RGB LED) is fantastic and pretty much dominates the quality end of the market. The only thing that even came close to such TVs was the Pioneer Kuro line (which is now discontinued) and it was even a step better in overall contrast reproduction.

The future looks good for flat screen TVs/Monitors as OLED is finally coming into the practical range of mass production. Once you can walk into your local electronics super store and buy a OLED set of decent size (40-42 inch to start) then after 5 years or so the price will begin to come down quite a bit and PQ will sky rocket and trickle into the computer monitor market.

For now though and at least for computer monitors CCFL rules the roost. Don't buy a computer monitor simply because it lists "LED" on its specs , its a marketing tactic at this point until it comes into true form.