Liquid Crystal Display(LCD) Panel prices have come down considerably, perhaps partly driven by some competition from plasma displays, though I feel the LCD will win in the long run.
The price drop has encouraged many organizations (especially in developed countries) to ditch their old monitors, (that have been arriving by the container loads into Colombo), for new LCD displays.
I've been contemplating on an LCD TV versus a Plasma TV but both seem a tad too high for my budget. I didn't want to settle for a 15" or 17" LCD display either because there was already a perfectly functioning 17" monitor. So anything above 17" that was reasonable was what I had in mind and thats exactly what I found (sort of).
I came across a brochure from Metropolitan, that said they would buy back any monitor and sell you a 19" Acer LCD for 10k less. I was a bit skeptical as to the price saving so I decided to do some home work at Unity Plaza. From initial investigations it seemed as if this wasn't a good deal at all, because I could buy a 19" LCD without returning an old monitor for about the same price or a little higher!
Further investigation into the specs revealed that none of those displays were as good as the Acer display. For example most displays could only go up to 1280x800 or in some instances 1024x768 while the Acer could do 1440x900. Also most other displays did not mention their response time which probably meant it was around 12ms or higher, while the Acer one had a wooping 8ms. The lower the response time the less ghost effect you get with high action video. So I came to the conclusion that the dislay was worth more than the extra 10k that is being reduced.
But where would I get an old monitor thats worth less? Ah.. thats where my 10 year old 15" monitor which my dad was using comes in. Its a win-win situation. He gets a 17" monitor; I get 10k off for a really old, "not so good for your eyes" monitor; our family saves on electricity because I'm a heavy computer user; the problem of disposing a junk monitor without hurting the environment has been handed over to someone else.
So if your looking for an upgrade, this might be a good opportunity.