Samsung to make 24" LED-Backlit LCD Panel with Superb Color Quality--Coming soon to Apple?

Apple's Cinema Displays are outstanding and could become better real soon. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world's largest provider of thin-film transistor, liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels, announced that during the second quarter, it will begin producing a 24-inch LCD panel with an LED backlight that enables computer monitors to deliver unprecedented color quality, resembling that of the highest-quality TV sets available today. Apple is a major investor in Samsung's LCD technology.

With the new 24-inch LCD monitor display, technology-demanding consumers, professional graphics designers and digital photographers will enjoy the same true-to-life colors that premium LCD TVs can provide, thanks to Samsung's proprietary LED backlight. The LED-backlit monitor panel has an industry-high color saturation level of 111% (of NTSC standard) compared to a saturation level of only 72% of NTSC for conventional monitors and will satisfy consumers used to the crisp colors prevalent in high-definition broadcasting.

The new monitor display also features Samsung's highly successful S-PVA (Super Patterned-ITO Vertical Alignment) technology that provides the widest viewing angle possible--180 degrees--at the highest contrast ratio for LCD monitors today (>1,000:1). It also supports WUXGA resolution (1,920x1,200 pixels), which is the computer equivalent to Full HD resolution.

Here is a comparison with the published specifications of Apple's 23" Cinema Display:

Specification	Samsung Panel	Apple Cinema
.
Size (inches)	24	23
Resolution (pixels)	1920x1200	1920x1200
Viewing angle (°)	180	178
Brightness (cd/m2)	250	400
Color saturation (%)	111	n/a
Contrast	1000:1	700:1

The Samsung 24-inch LED-Backlit LCD panel has a slightly higher viewing angle and over 40 percent more contrast than Apple's 23-inch Cinema Display but is substantially less bright. We couldn't find the color saturation spec for the Cinema but Samsung claims that standard panels have only 72 percent saturation which Samsung's is a whopping 111 percent--high color saturation is the Samsung's main claim to fame.

Hopefully, we will see some LED-backlit LCD displays from Apple in the near future. [Bill Fox]