Price-performance, and aiming too low

[Oofloom]

"Man I really wish I could get this with variable refresh and 100hz support... why can't I?"

That's what I was thinking when looking at an Asus VS24AH-P (a $230 16:10 IPS) the other day. I just stood there and shook my head in frustration, a routine I've repeated many times before. My next thought was "We're being asked to pay $200 more than this for monitors with less resolution and real estate and nowhere near the picture quality... just to get features that we should've had a half-decade ago or more."

To be clear: I don't care about fairness. I understand the reasons why we aren't where we should be, and that the past doesn't matter. The money isn't even a big deal to me. I just want a good product. I'm posting this in case manufacturers are paying attention, so they might understand this frustration. I'm perfectly willing to pay a hefty premium for a premium product. A $160 monitor with a better backlight and variable refresh just doesn't feel remotely like a premium product from a consumer perspective. I know this will work itself out in time. But right now it just feels gross... dismissive, even. Just wanted to get my honest feelings out.

[Chief Blur Buster]

"Man I really wish I could get this with variable refresh and 100hz support... why can't I?"

That's what I was thinking when looking at an Asus VS24AH-P (a $230 16:10 IPS) the other day. I just stood there and shook my head in frustration, a routine I've repeated many times before. My next thought was "We're being asked to pay $200 more than this for monitors with less resolution and real estate and nowhere near the picture quality... just to get features that we should've had a half-decade ago or more."

To be clear: I don't care about fairness. I understand the reasons why we aren't where we should be, and that the past doesn't matter. The money isn't even a big deal to me. I just want a good product. I'm posting this in case manufacturers are paying attention, so they might understand this frustration. I'm perfectly willing to pay a hefty premium for a premium product. A $160 monitor with a better backlight and variable refresh just doesn't feel remotely like a premium product from a consumer perspective. I know this will work itself out in time. But right now it just feels gross... dismissive, even. Just wanted to get my honest feelings out.

For many years, LCD panels were a "race to the bottom", to see who could sell displays for the cheapest. The world of sub-$500 big screen HDTVs have arrived, but at a cost of quality in many aspects!

It has only been in recent years that the computer monitor world got a big boom of "Better Than 60Hz" technology (120Hz, 144Hz, LightBoost, ULMB, Turbo240, GSYNC, BENQ Blur Reduction, etc.) All with premium prices of course, to demand the improved motion quality. Now we see Oculus DK2 with a low-persistence OLED. Hopefully such OLEDs can be scaled up to larger, computer monitor sizes.

Displays, TVs and monitors, are traditionally items we spend years before we upgrade. But due to the accelerated innovation pace, we will have to speed up monitor upgrade cycles to a cycle more similar to a GPU upgrade cycle (For those people who can afford more frequent upgrades) since there are many years of dramatic computer display innovations in store for us. But not on the cheapest models...

For the forseeable future, I expect we have to pay a premium, at least until OLED is widespread (probably not until the 2020's, given the glacial pace). Oculus, may have a silver lining in accelerating OLED development for computers.