Hasta La Gadget!

The market for 30-inch monitors is growing, but that’s not the same as saying that your options are plentiful. You’ll have a far easier time finding high-res 24- and 27-inch screens to toss together, but if you’ve got your mind set on a single LCD workspace, HP’s ZR30w has to be on the short list. Coming in at an altogether respectable $1,299, this panel offers oodles of pixels (2,560 x 1,600) and top-shelf image quality. Critics over at Hot Hardware were thoroughly pleased with the results, keeping in mind that this was designed for the creative professional. They did knock the lack of ports (only a DisplayPort and DVI connector are included), but the lack of inputs was just about all they could kvetch about. Performance was deemed “exceptional,” color reproduction was said to be “superb” and it even managed to hold its own while gaming. You may not be a big fan of the plain styling, but those source links are definitely worth a look if you’ve been teetering on this here fence.

HP’s 30-inch ZR30w IPS LCD monitor reviewed: exceptional performance, reasonable price originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If any companies out there are planning to come up with an “iPad killer”, then they’d better think hard about the screen. They certainly aren’t going to be using the IPS LCD that Apple puts in the iPad: LG, a major supplier, has said that it can’t make enough even even for Apple.

Speaking about overall screen production (which is decreasing), LG display boss Kwon Young-Soo said that

Apple may have to delay launches of the iPad for some countries due to tight component supplies and strong demand. We are considering increasing production lines for iPad products but overall supply is likely to remain tight until early next year.

It looks like Apple wasn’t the only company surprised by the iPad’s success. The tablet is currently selling at around a million units per month, and this number would surely be higher if Apple could only make enough of them. It reminds me of Nintendo’s Wii, which was so popular that it was almost impossible to buy for the first couple years of its life.

We wonder if the iPhone 4, too, will struggle to keep up with demand. The retina display is likely only being made for Apple, and therefore it would be tricky to just source supplies from other manufacturers. The one big takeaway from this story is that there are very real reasons for the shortages. Anyone who still believes the idiotic conspiracy theory that Apple is deliberately limiting supplies to hype demand can shut up now.

LG Display may cut output; can’t meet iPad demand [Reuters via 9to5 Mac]

Photo: John Snyder / Wired.com

See Also:

• Apple's iPad Sales Accelerate: Three Million Sold in 80 Days …
• iPad Estimated to Be Worth as Little as $220 in Parts

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

To cut a long story short, Onkyo’s LPF10M01 is basically a netbook’s screen sans (most of) the netbook. 10.1 inches of LED-backlit LCD get covered in a 1,024 x 600 pixel array and are backed up by 250 nits of brightness and a 500 to 1 contrast ratio. The big selling point here is the inclusion of an HDMI input — still something of a rarity in picture frames — which sidles up alongside a USB port, SDHC and Memory Stick card reader, and 512MB of integrated memory. We’re fancying the flexibility of using it as a secondary display or as part of some truly minimalist desktop environment, but doubt many will be won over by the austere 140 degree horizontal viewing angle, which narrow down to a zany 110 on the vertical axis. Anyhow, it launches on August 6 in Japan for around ¥19,800 ($227).

Onkyo busts out HDMI-connected 10.1-inch picture frame originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We just got word back from Verizon regarding those flickering Droid X screens, and sure enough, the ghastly images are not a side effect of your assimilation into the Droid collective. Verizon and Motorola have owned up to a genuine problem with a small number of Droid X displays, approximately one-tenth of one percent. If your screen starts acting up you’d best contact the authorities immediately. And by authorities, we mean tech support, not the FBI — the omnipresent glowing red eyeball is completely normal. It told us so. Here’s Verizon’s full statement on the matter:

“Verizon Wireless and Motorola are aware of a very small number of DROID X units that have experienced a flickering or banding display. Motorola has resolved the issue and is continuing to ship the phones. Any consumer who experiences a flickering or banding display should contact a Motorola customer support center or Verizon Wireless.”

Verizon confirms Droid X screen issues, but says they’re not widespread originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two and a half years since Pixel Qi spun off from OLPC and promised to bring its dual-mode, power efficient display to laptops, tablets, and e-readers. For those who haven’t followed our small obsession with the 3Qi screen technology (shame on you!) it promises the best of both worlds: full-color graphics in a normal LCD mode, but also the ability to turn off the backlight to morph into a grayscale, e-paper like display. And while we’ve seen it demoed at tradeshows (and more tradeshows!), we haven’t been able to get our own grubby hands on the much-lauded display. Until now, of course.

No, the 3Qi display still isn’t shipping in any commercially available products, but Pixel Qi is at long last offering a $275 10.1-inch screen replacement kit for netbooks through MakerShed. Needless to say, we jumped — nay, leaped — at the chance to finally get the display into our laboratories, roll up our sleeves and get to crankin’. That’s right, we got out the screwdriver, wrangled up an old Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 netbook and swapped in the 3Qi display for Lenovo’s glossy panel. You’re surely sitting on a metric ton of questions. Was it hard to swap out? Has the screen been everything we’ve ever fantasized about and more? Is it really 80 percent more power efficient than standard LCDs? We’ve got plenty of answers as well as a step-by-step how-to after the break.

Continue reading How-to: install Pixel Qi’s 3Qi display on your netbook (and why it’s worth it)

How-to: install Pixel Qi’s 3Qi display on your netbook (and why it’s worth it) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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