LCD Pricing Update

 

November Update: Toshiba announced a super high res 22″ monitor, and I wanted to see how it would stack up in price.  Interestingly, it comes in dead on with 30″ monitors on per pixel price.

 

September Update: Few drops in the 24 to 28 range, especially that 24″, once again MicroCenter with a rebate $299 + $20 shipping.  There will soon be a 1920×1200 22″ monitor as well for the pixel freaks.  It’s interesting to note, the 24″ monitor is now almost equal per pixel to a 22″ wide.  $250 by Christmas looks very likely.  I’m not expecting them to drop much after that however.  The PC systems bundlers (Dell, Gateway) will likely start to include 24″ monitors for Christmas computers, and that will keep demand high enough that prices will stabilize at $250.  What will happen is the top of the line 24″ monitors will drop because it’s hard to compete with bundled monitors.

 

Update: Microcenter is selling a 24″ Acer at a $100 less than you would have found it just 2 months ago.  It’s a rebate, but an excellent deal still.  Usually these large rebate offers precede a whole scale price drop, which 24″ monitors are ripe for.  I still expect low-end prices to hit $250 by Christmas or post Christmas.  Still waiting for the 30″ monitors to drop.

 

If you want pixels and lots of em, choose the 24″ monitor.  If you’re a space hog, like me, a pair of 22″ monitors is a much better choice.

 

Size	Surface Area	Lowest Price	$/sq in.	Resolution	$/10k pixels	dpi
19 wide	164 sq in.	$159	$0.97	1440×900	$1.28	89.3
19 square	176 sq in.	$169	$0.96	1280×1024	$1.29	86.3
20 wide	179 sq in.	$159	$0.89	1680×1050	$0.90	99.0
20 square	192 sq in.	$196	$1.02	1400×1050	$1.30	87.5
20 square	192 sq in.	$276	$1.44	1600×1200	$1.44	100
22 wide	207 sq in.	$218	$1.05	1680×1050	$1.24	90.0
22 hi res	207 sq in.	$2,783	$13.44	3840×2400	$3.05	210
24 wide	258 sq in.	$419 $348 $299	$1.62 $1.35 $1.16	1920×1200	$1.82 $1.51 $1.30	94.3
26 wide	303 sq in.	$615 $608	$2.03 $2.01	1920×1200	$2.67 $2.64	87.1
28 wide	335 sq in.	$668 $641 $610	$1.99 $1.91 $1.82	1920×1200	$2.90 $2.78 $2.65	80.9
30 wide	404 sq in.	$1190 $1250	$2.94 $3.09	2560×1600	$2.90 $3.05	100.6

Current LCD Pricing Metrics

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"Locked" Systems

It seems everyday you hear about a locked system’s protections being circumvented.  Today there is the XBox 360, yesterday the Apple iPhone.  I used to think the process of locking up these systems was completely useless and a generally bad idea, but today I had a thought.  Maybe there is a silver lining to the thundercloud of proprietary lock in technology.

What could that be?  Well simple, you’re hearing about some useless proprietary barrier being broken, rather than a new virus or set of malware.  Hackers will hack, and it may just be that the combination of high flying press and the pseudo philanthropic respect given to proprietary barrier hackers can create a brain drain in the area of the really nasty stuff.  Maybe.  I’m sure there will still be virus and malware writers, but maybe they’ll be a little less smart, a little less numerous.

The problem is we let companies like Apple waste our law enforcement and legal system resources on chasing down the proprietary barrier hackers.  We shouldn’t let them do that.  There’s no excuse for chasing down some guy who let people use the phones they already paid for when there’s hackers out there destroying our email system, scaring grandparents around the world and wrecking peoples lives through identity theft.  Priorities.

Individual vs. national sacrifice

A few quotes from a CNN article demonstrate the failures of logic that result in bad policy.  The first, from the writer, Steve Hargreaves:

Anecdotal evidence from one utility says some Americans, about 20 percent, are willing to pay about 8 percent more for this power. Yet when given the option, only about 5 percent of people actually sign up.

It’s subtle, but clear example of not understanding the argument of Me vs. Us.  If you asked me, I’m willing to pay more than 100% more for clean electricity, if I get the full benefit.  But if you offer me clean power for 50% more I’ll turn it down.  Why?  Simple, I receive between 1/6,500,000,000th (my portion of the world population) and 1/600,000,000th (my portion of the world GDP) of the benefit.

If, however, the question is a national U.S. policy, I receive 20% of my contribution’s value, since the United States spends 1 of every 5 energy dollars spent worldwide.  Additionally, since my electric use is half or less the U.S average, my ratio is over 40%.

The fact the difference is only 3% demonstrates an astounding degree of selflessness.  Even if you banked on the 5% who actually did sign up, the ratio of willingness should have been 50 to 1, or 0.16% for the initial 8%.

Local vs. national

Next is the argument of the president of a natural gas based energy company, Michael Allman:

Allman’s argument implies that if natural gas prices really did spike, people would build more renewable capacity without a mandate from the federal government.

"When you constrain something, it has never been good," he said.

Here, the mistake is similar (though possibly intentional).  Without a national bill, building renewable capacity is a localized concern, whereas natural gas shortages are national (not global since natural gas is rarely imported/exported).  The overall ratio ranges from 1 to 100 in sparsely populated areas like Alaska, and as high as 1 to 20 in an area like California.

There is also a second mistake.  The assumption that the reaction to a spike will be timely and commensurate.  I’m sure a spike would have an effect, but since clean power is a 20 year investment, and localities may assume a spike is temporary, the reaction won’t be as large as warranted.  It also takes time to build clean power.  There is no clean power switch waiting to be flipped on.

Individual Encouragement

If you want individuals to invest in clean power individually, you need to give them benefits.  The best system I’ve seen yet is pricing lock-in.  One day in a not too distant future, for many areas, clean power will be more economical than natural gas.  When this happens, it’s only fair that those who believed in clean power reap the benefits.  All individually elective clean power programs should offer this benefit.  Anything else is not only missing a major opportunity, but also lacking in fairness.

Cities – Efficiency, Sustainability and Quality of Life

Cities are great places to live, and plenty of urban dwellers will attest to that, but they’ve always had a bad reputation with a large segment of the population, often for reasons that were once, though not currently, true or other types of misconceptions. For example, they often are given a very bad view by environmental groups, despite being far less impactful per capita than almost all alternatives.

So I was encouraged by two tidbits form Gristmill. The first, mentions a study comparing the health benefits of rural vs urban. The study shows that young people, babies and those under 24 years of age fare far better health wise, on average, in an urban setting.

Another article from the New Yorker extols the value of New York city itself. In short, the life expectancy for residents of New York is now longer than the rest of the United States, and increasing faster too. Admittedly, cities got off to a rough start with the dawn of industrialization and a lack of insight into the problems of pollution, sanitation and safety. But all over cities are finding their groove, are discovering how to cope, defeat and excel in areas in which they did horribly.

It’s an encouraging trend, because when you truly consider the world, and its large and still growing population, it’s clear that heavy usage of cities are the only sustainable option to support them all. If cities have bypassed a turning point, where they can not only balance efficiency, sustainability and quality of life, but increase them all simultaneously, it’s very encouraging.

As an aside, I’ve been reading, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. It’s a great book, but one thing I disagree with Bill McKibben is his inability to consider some alternatives. Sure, we all know there is a greater need for community, for less resource intensive behavior, but he makes the mistake of thinking his way is the only one. Worse, McKibben seem highly biased toward the rural lifestyle with his emphasis of the farmers markets, and myraid other small details. On observing all of this I can’t help but notice how much damage some things he takes for granted actually cause.

Take farmers markets as an example. Sure, they have the benefit of not having carted tomatoes 1700 miles to reach their destination, but there are plenty of costs involved with the extra miles associated with the farmers and consumers driving to their markets. Does it add upto 1700 miles? No, but there’s no reason the giant grocery chain can’t change it’s practices to avoid 1700 mile tomatoes, and thus gain both benefits. But McKibben is almost dismissive of the chains heading in that direction.

That brings me to the second tidbit from biodiversivist. He’s obviously aware of the problems with “off-grid” living, and the lack of sustainability involved. Placing a home inside a natural environment is not environmentally friendly. It’s nice that people who do this try and minimize the impact with solar panels, but there’s two major problems with the idea. Number one is except for some very extreme examples, there is an impact, and it’s much larger than an urban dwellers impact. If you drive in and out of your rural cottage, and it is 50 miles to the next town, that’s not good. Worse if you still work in the city.

If you’re on the grid there’s an awful lot of wire (and power loss), and you’re house is going to be comparable in energy consumption to a suburban house of the same size. If you are off the grid, there’s certainly some impacts associated with you’re power generation facilities. If it’s solar, you’ve probably bought many more panels then necessary because you need to meet your own “peek” needs. Any personal energy source is going to appear to have a minor impact compared to a coal burning power plant, but when you divide that plant’s impact by it’s number of consumers, you may be very surprised. Even more, if you compared your personal energy source per capita to a wind, solar or other commercial clean energy source, the comparison will be even worse.

The second problem is how many can actually live that lifestyle, before reasonable sites are exhausted? The answer is astonishingly few. And the sad truth of the suburbs, I’ve noticed, is many, perhaps half, of the residents didn’t want to live in the suburbs at all. They wanted to live in the country. Problem is, they edge of the suburban landscape, the barely rural, and then their neighbors moved just a bit farther out, and so on. This is how sprawl was born, and how it continues.

The fact that yet another suburb was not the intent, changes the outcome not at all. The hermit should be careful never to proclaim the superiority of his lifestyle, or he may inherit a great deal of fellow hermits. And thus the original proclamation would be laid low by the unsustainable nature of the promise.

HD-DVD winning?

Since I posted my predictions on the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray war, it’s been rather hard to tell whether I was right or wrong.  One thing I didn’t count on was the combo drive makers bumbling the job so badly and taking more than a year to release.  Today there are two players, the LG BH100 and the Samsung BD-UP5000.  Both are still very expensive, which would have worked fine if they were released 6 months earlier, but now Blu-Ray players can be had for $600.

Still I have to wonder if they are part of the motivation for Paramount and Dreamworks dropping Blu-Ray in favor of HD-DVD.  The same logic stands, although I expect a good part of this decision is cost, the cost in stamping discs being higher for Blu-Ray.  I expect the way they see it, there’s not much advantage to them to produce Blu-Ray discs since that market’s probably still willing to plop down an extra $200 for a HD-DVD player if they really want a movie.  Sales of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray titles doesn’t appear to be linked to format, but content, which shouldn’t be half as surprising as it is.

At this point, I think HD-DVD has a stronger position, but honestly, both formats are doing so poorly that a third format could easily come in to trump them both if someone did something like release a greater than 1080p resolution TV.  There has to be some advantage a third format could exploit, but if such an opportunity arose, both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray would be nearly helpless to fight it off.

Another threat which could defeat both is IP based movies, which if done well, and done cheaply has a similar opportunity today.  I suppose this was what Jobs was hoping for with Apple TV, but Apple failed to do it well, and thus missed the boat.

Ways to reduce mercury

Concerned about mercury?  There are better ways to reduce usage of mercury than to spread fear about compact fluorescent lightbulbs.  For all the attention CFLs have been given, the state of linear fluorescents in offices, commercial spaces and industrial spaces has gone largely unnoticed.  Yet this is the biggest pie a the moment, and although relatively cheap alternatives are available, not all business are buying them.

One alternative is the EverLED lamps.  These lamps cost 3 times as much as a fluorescent tube, but last twice as long, contain no mercury and a save 25% more energy.  At a 50,000-70,000 lifetime these lamps will last 8 years at 24 hours per day.

Seeing as I’ve never seen an EverLED in action, I’ll present another alternative, the Phillips Alto II T8 lamps.  They use 1.7mg of mercury per lamp, 100% of the mercury used is recycled, and the lamps last 36,000-46,000 hours (that’s nearly 5-6 years at 24 hours per day) and efficiency is almost twice that of a CFL, or 8 times that of an incandescent.  I’m not sure if there available yet as I couldn’t find them at online retailers, but it’s possible the large distributors have them.

In fact, running the numbers for three sets of bulbs, LiteTronics F32T8, a Phillips Alto II (price not yet available, estimated at $90 for case of 25), and the EverLED bulbs comes up with the following results (11 cents per kwh US average, 14.26 cents CA, 16.55 cents NY, 18.85 cents CN):

	Cost	Hours	Watts	Per 10k hours (US average)	Per 10k hours (CA)	Per 10k hours (NY)	Per 10k hours (CN)
Alto I	$2.50	30,000	32	$33.67	$46.47	$53.79	$61.15
Alto II	$3.60	46,000	32	$33.61	$46.41	$53.74	$61.10
EverLED	$150.00	70,000	24	$47.83	$55.65	$61.15	$66.67

All three are very close in operational costs, so why not give an EverLED a try?  In a few years, perhaps LED based alternatives to CFLs will be available too.  That doesn’t change the fact that incandescents need to be replaced today.

Flexibility – Personal Transit variations (Part 3)

As I said in Part 1, I’ll compare the differences between Space Individualized Transit (SIT), Individual Mass Transit (IMT) and RUF.  PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) is an effort to add flexibility back to public transportation systems, and thus increase their use. 

Conventional PRT makes progress, but it still misses the final mile.  Sometimes I look forward to a walk, but there are many instances where it’s a problem.  Also, not everyone thinks like I do.  Bad weather and time are downers for almost everyone, myself included.  In addition, 35lb bags of dog food or furniture are more than just inconveniences.  Thus with conventional PRT, conventional rail or buses the need for conventional roads remains.  Those costs, being rather large, will always hold back secondary transportation methods.

IMT and RUF however interface with conventional roads and make to your door delivery a reality.  While that doesn’t reclaim the costs of roads, it does make IMT and RUF viable replacements for 100% of needs.  Once you have a guideway and a vehicles capable of using it, there is no reason not to.  Guideways are thus no more secondary than highways are today.

SIT provides the same capabilities since compartment can be placed on drive-by-wire sleds in non-automated environments.  Operators can then use controls inside the compartment to drive like any other car.

Since SIT’s is multi-modal, compartments can interface with conventional rail, long distance mag-lev tracks or Evacuated Tube Transport.  In addition, conventional rail or light rail can provide mid range travel to reduce initial infrastructure costs.

• Part 1 – Personal Transit
• Part 2 – Storage
• Part 4 – Efficiency
• Part 5 – Morning Options
• Part 6 – Service

Battery Rentals and Recharge

According to Engadget, GM may lower the price of Chevy Volts by way of battery rentals.  Two things are interesting about the idea.  First, the idea itself, while primarily a marketing tool is smart.  Breaking the battery price out into a rental encourages consumers to compare overall costs more rationally.  The first comparison most consumers evaluate is the cost of the cars, i.e. the upfront costs.  GM hopes with this change these costs will be comparable.  The battery rental costs are then evaluated with the ongoing costs including gasoline expenses.  Even with battery rental costs an electric should beat a gas car here as well.  Essentially what I’m saying is it makes the comparison more apples to apples.

So, that’s good, but there is another reason.  One way to bypass the range problems of electric cars is to allow them to be swapped in and out at service stations, similar to filling a gas tank.  It’s a cool idea, but the problem was if a significant part of the wear and tear is concentrated in the battery, it’s not very fair to swap out a near dead battery for a full one. 

If batteries are rented from GM, then they’re all owned by the same company and swapping one battery for another require any financial consideration.  You’ll continue to pay the monthly rental fee no matter which battery pack you currently have.

Once headed down that road, it’s not as great a leap to think of renting the entire drivetrain and only owning the passenger compartment.

Devil in Disguise

After writing a response to another CFL doubter, I think I let this guy off the hook too easy.  Since 1996 D.C. Agrawal has been conducting research on incandescent bulbs, and has this year taken it upon himself to post a great deal of misinformation about CFL bulbs.  I’ve also seen his "response" in other places on the net.

The thing is, this is, on a smaller scale, the exact same kind of scientific infidelity which explains how we have scientists out there still claiming that there is no way humans are causing global warming, that smoking doesn’t kill, etc.

The real devil in disguise is those individuals who hide behind claims of scientific freedom.  That is harmful to policy, to public opinion, and to the future of scientific freedom, which despite it’s abuse is fully justified.

Response to another CFL doubter

D.C. Agarwal from CFL – Devil in Disguise, decided to post a load of information he believes in my letter to another CFL doubter.  D.C. has one or two valid points, but makes all the common mistakes as well.  I also have reason to question his sincerity.  This is the first time I’ve run across a doubter who seemed to have a motive other than just being egregiously misinformed.

Read on, first he says:

CFL low-energy light bulbs are up to twenty times more expensive to produce than the standard tungsten-filament bulbs

To which I say, this is unimportant when the cost to produce is under $3.00 and differential cost to operate is $45.00.  Dollar stupid and penny smart?  Such a common mistake.

Also, he says:

You might also like to know that the manufacture process for CFLs uses up to ten times the energy used in the manufacture of traditional bulbs.

Which is the same mistake.  It’s impossible that the manufacturing energy exceeds the energy saved because manufacturers aren’t in the business of selling products for $3.00 which require $45.00 of energy inputs.  Energy is not free anywhere.

Next:

In addition, CFL’s need much more ventilation (top and bottom).

It’s situational, but sometimes true.  Many newer bulbs need much less.  It’s a reasonable point except that CFLs can be used in 95% or greater of the situations an incandescent can.  Also, incandescents have limitations as well associated with their waste heat, and so in many cases you may find you can use a CFL where an incandescent could not have been used.

Then:

Low-energy light bulbs do not give off a steady stream of light as they flicker fifty times a second, which can be expected to contribute to health and safety problems, with associated financial costs, down the line.

What he describes is an old lamp using a magnetic ballast.  Current bulbs, using an electronic ballast, such as Energy Star rated bulbs, do not.   I have personal experience with this as I’ve bought both Energy Star bulbs and non.  I did notice the flickering with the inferior bulb, but not with the Energy Star bulbs.  I understand where the misconception comes from, but that doesn’t change that it’s wrong.

Then:

A technical study of ERTL (East) Calcutta on CFL’s shows that these lamps discharges ultra violet rays which are harm full to eyes and causes skin cancer.

This is the only point I can’t refute.  It’s true a CFL can produce UV rays.  Incandescents do as well, but generally less.  Regardless most information I’ve seen states there is no risk associated with that level of UV radiation which is many many orders of magnitude less than what 30 minutes of sun exposure will cause.  And I also know that many studies suggest that while overdosing on UV is definitely harmful, the human body needs a limited amount daily as well.

Then:

But perhaps worst of all, is the fact that low-energy bulbs are currently made using toxic materials. Chief among them is mercury, a substance that, ironically, the EU banned from its landfill sites just last year. For the EU nations special recycling arrangements will have to be made to dispose of CFLs thus incurring a further cost. With between 3 and 5 milligrams of mercury in each CFL and with an estimated 150 million CFLs sold in the United States in 2006, that’s a whole lot of non-recycled bulbs that could end up in garbage dumps. Mercury can affect the nervous system, damage the kidney and liver and, in sufficient quantities, can kill. No wonder scientists and environmentalists are worried.

Net sum, CFLs produce less mercury than current alternatives.  In addition you have the option of reducing this further by recycling.  Incandescent bulbs contain lead too and ideally would be recycled too (I recycled mine when I replaced them with CFLs).  D.C., what do you do with you’re incandescent bulbs?

Then:

All the CFL manufactures claims its long life more than 5 years or in technical terms 6000 hrs to 10000 hrs. Is it true in Indian conditions? The answer is not at all in Indian condition. CFL’s have built in electronic Blasts (PCB), which require a constant voltage supply of electric as other appliances require. In India there is regular voltage fluctuation in power supply. So the Life of CFL’s is very much less than the declared life by the manufacturers. Nobody will use voltage stabilizers for CFL’s. In India All the companies are selling the CFL’s on one year warranty. Now all the ELCOMA members have decided to withdraw this warranty. Why? The data of all companies shows that replacement of CFL from the markets is more than 20-40% in one year of warranty periods. It means that mostly CFL failed to complete the 1500 hrs life instead of declared life of 6000hrs.The study of these failure CFL’s shows that 80% lamps failed due to failure of electronic blast due to irregular voltage power supply, use of inverters & generators.

I would suggest a better course of action here would be requiring all CFLs sold in India to be dimmable, rather than avoiding them entirely.  The cost will be about 2 times more, but still an order of magnitude less than the savings.   It’s a good point for certain markets, but in markets with reliable power systems it’s mute.

Then:

In Europe the ban on incandescent lamps, due to come into effect in under two years, does not give much time to EU member states to plan for the changes, a decision taken centrally without consultation with member nations. Thus the EU has chosen to pursue the same dictatorial path chosen by Cuba’s Fidel Castro (in an attempt to ease the strain on the island’s hard-pressed electricity grid) two years ago.

In Europe most bulbs sold are already CFLs.  They’ve been in use for years, even when they flickered, had slow warmup, and had odd coloring.  The savings was worth those inconveniences to millions of consumers.  With those issues solved there is not much point in the incandescent left.

Then:

The potentially hazardous CFL is being pushed by companies like Wal-Mart–a distributor of GE, Royal Philips, Osram Sylvania and Lights of America which wants to sell 100 million CFL’s at 5 times the cost of incandescent bulbs during 2007 and surprisingly, became an environmentalists?

It’s surprising you should question others motives.  I know it’s the rage to suggest any company making money is doing evil, but that just isn’t true.  But as long as we are questioning motives, how about your’s?  A little research shows that you’re a scientist who’s primary field of study is incandescent lamps!  Yes, I’ve found your papers (also (2)).  I’ve been wondering why anyone would have a motive to criticize CFLs other than plain being misinformed.  Now I’ve finally found one.

Then:

Greenpeace also recommends CFL’s, while simultaneously bemoaning contamination caused by a mercury thermometer factory in India. But where are mercury-containing CFL’s made? Not in the U.S. or EU, under strict environmental regulation but in India and China, where environmental standards are virtually nonexistent.

Mercury thermometers contain 100 to 500 times more mercury per item than CFLs.  They also do not help prevent mercury emissions through power consumption.  D.C. Are you defending that factory?  That’s the height of hypocrisy if so.  Greenpeace is just making a tactical tradeoff.  I’m sure they would support the ban of CFLs if LEDs were marketable replacements, as when that day comes, so will I.  But hoping for LEDs does not change the comparison of CFLs and incandescents.

Then:

We can understand easily that in a housing unit we use at the most one piece of thermometer. Can you imagine? What will be happen when we use at least 4-5 pieces or more mercury based CFL’s in a house?

If you use 5 CFLs in a house with a mercury thermometer you’ll raise you’re houses mercury content by 1%-5% depending on the type of bulbs you use.  FIX THE THERMOMETER  BEFORE YOU WORRY ABOUT CFLS!!!