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I went shopping for a new DVD monitor recently. The LCDs and plasma screens are so nice, it’s hard to consider purchasing a tube. But the flat-panel prices are obscene…
(I took these prices from goodguys.com. Better prices are probably available elsewhere, but unless they’re significantly lower, like 50% lower, I’m not interested.)
The salesman at Magnolia Hi-Fi assured me that LCD and plasma prices would not be coming down any time soon. I’ll admit that asking a commissioned salesman for a reason to postpone spending money was a pointless exercise, but I’ll record his comments here for future entertainment value. We’ll come back in a few months to see how he fared.
If you take a look back to March of 2002, Dell’s new 19-inch LCD display (the 1900FP) sold for about $1300. I picked one up on sale for $1050. Today, the same unit sells for $719. (And if you can live with a screen that’s nine-tenths of an inch smaller, you can buy the 1800FP for $539.) From $1300 to $719 represents a price drop of 45%.
The guy at Magnolia also said that the reject rate on the production line for big plasma screens is 90%. I haven’t attempted to verify this, but if it’s true that the factories have to junk nine of ten units produced, then we’ll absolutely see huge price reductions over the next 12 months as those assembly kinks are worked out.
