Sharp to lower LCD pricing

What it means: LCD monitors could be headed for your desktop.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor

Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.

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Brooke Crothers

July 24, 1997 7:45 p.m. PT

Sharp will bring the prices of liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors down to more reasonable levels, making these thin, lighweight displays more attractive as an option for desktop monitors.

The company will cut prices on some LCD models by about $430, according to Nikkei BP Online, a Japanese publication.

LCD monitors are much thinner and lighter than the standard CRT monitor, a fixture on nearly all desktops throughout the world.

Sharp said that its 15-inch high-resolution XGA (1024-by-768 pixel) LCD monitor, based on passive-matrix technology, will sell for between $1,290 and $1,380, and that its 13.8-inch XGA active-matrix monitor will sell for $2,155, according to the Nikkei report.

Active-matrix LCDs produce a better image than passive-matrix displays, though the latter are generally much cheaper.

The two monitors, to be shipped by August, will be priced $430 lower than similar models shipped earlier this year, the Nikkei report said.

But these prices are still well above the price of 14- and 15-inch class CRT displays. CRTs have been the standard fixture on desktops for decades. A 15-inch class CRT can be purchased today for $300.

But Sharp counters this by saying that LCDs have low power consumption, a compact size, low levels of radiation emission, and almost no flickering.