From...

January 22, 1999
Web posted at: 11:00 AM EST

by David Essex

(IDG) -- Color active-matrix LCD screens for desktop PCs were $3000-and-up toys for the technology elite until last year, when price competition and a supply glut drove some prices below $1500. But this year should see only modest improvements in price and performance for both desktop and notebook flat-panel displays, according to most analysts and PC product managers.

Supply and demand, rather than changes in technology, will again call most of the shots, says Martin Reynolds, research fellow at the Gartner Group. Prices of desktop flat-panel displays declined sharply last spring because of a slowdown in notebook sales, which allowed manufacturers to divert supplies to the emerging desktop market, Reynolds says. But with notebook sales again strong, desktop LCD supplies will likely remain tight till the second half of 1999, Reynolds says, though he doesn't expect a price drop until 2000.

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Screen resolutions scale up

Technology will hardly stand still, however. "I really don't see any end in sight for screen resolutions getting bigger and better," says Bob Moore, Gateway senior product marketing manager for portable PCs.

That means a jump to a new standard, SXGA, and its sharp 1280-by-1024 pixel resolution, possibly by midyear. SXGA provides the equivalent of four VGA screens on one LCD, perfect for the application multitasking that should become more common with Microsoft's upcoming Windows 2000, Moore says.

Moore predicts that many notebook vendors, including Gateway, will make the leap to 15-inch-plus notebook screens months after Dell pioneered the market with its Inspiron 7000 last year. To do that, manufacturers will have to redesign notebook chassis so the expensive, fragile screens don't stick out too far.

Screens larger than 15 inches are possible, but they aren't compact enough for typical notebook configurations -- though some systems may be designed for so-called vertical markets like graphic design and multimedia presentation, where the tradeoff makes sense, Moore says.

Connectors go standard

Another 1999 hardware leap will be in the area of connectivity standards. Buyers of last year's desktop panels often found that the connectors on their screens were incompatible with their PCs. Reynolds says the existing three or four standards will likely consolidate around two simpler connectors proposed by VESA and Compaq.

The bottom line for desktop flat-panel displays is that they will continue to appeal mostly to deep-pocketed early adopters. "They're still three times as expensive as CRTs, but they're not three times better," says Kevin Knox, research analyst at the Gartner Group.

Knox says desktop panels made big inroads last year on Wall Street, where space is scarce, and with users of high-powered graphics-design and engineering workstations who need the generally higher resolutions. "But I don't see many of these flat panels popping up for mainstream users," Knox says, pointing out that competing CRTs are also coming in down in price.