BeHardware - News - September 18, 2006

LG starts a new price war for large monitors. They released last year the L2300C – a 23 inches – at less than 800 euros; the new L2300B is at 650 €! This time, the monitor resolution is no longer 1366 x 720 pixels but 1920 x 1200 pixels, full HD.
It features two interfaces, analog and – this is unexpected because of the price – DVI. The few information collected on the web do not speak however of the compatibility with the HDCP protection norm . LG is currently searching for this information and will come back to us as soon as they will know. For now, it is best to think that it won't be able to read protected HD movies.

Characteristics aren't really extraordinary: this monitor seems to use an "old" panel and that partly explains the price. It looks very much like what we have seen so far for this type of diagonal: modest response time of 16 ms, 400:1 contrast ratio, 250 cd/m² brightness… FYI, we have tested a very much similar monitor to this one last year, the HP F2304. If you are so much interested by this monitor that you can't wait for the test, we invite you to take a look at this test to have an idea of the type of result that it will produce.

We also have to warn you on another point. We noticed that, except for recent improvements, IPS technology is more susceptible to be subject to persistent images than other technologies. We actually discovered this problem with the recent L2300C. Other tests confirmed it and our personal use too. I am equipped with a 23", 16ms monitor that tends to mark a window if it is displayed more than 10 minutes continuously. In our case, you just have to switch off the monitor (several hours or days depending on the seriousness of the problem) to make them disappear.

This new price war for large monitors takes place at the same time as an even fiercer battle for smaller monitors. 17, 19 and 20 inches monitors are threatened by a new 22" monitor at less than 400 €.