I might have bought one of these for a relative who doesn’t need a high quality monitor, but I won’t purchase any product that uses this kind of bait and switch marketing-speak advertising. Calling a TN monitor “full HD LED” because it uses an LED light for the back light is like calling a Volkswagen a BMW because it uses the same make and model tires as those on a BMW.
That’s pretty standard in the industry. When LED monitors first came out, they were called LED LCD monitors. It was shortened quite a few years back to just LED.
I don’t understand what Jolest wants here for a $59 monitor. OLED? As far as I know, there are no OLED monitors for consumer use, certainly not anywhere near this price range. Does he (or she) not like TN panels? Honestly, I don’t either. I prefer IPS panels. But either way there is a backlight. The distinction of calling them LED happened about 10 years ago – before that there was a CCFL (fluorescent) light behind flat-panel displays – these used a lot more power, ran hotter and were thicker and heavier. The term LED came into very common use those days for pretty-much all desktop monitors and also laptops. It just means it’s NOT a fluorescent panel doing the backlight.
Very few things (until just very recently) have had true OLED because the cost was too high and not practical for the mainstream market. I think Jolest is also looking for the 3-carat diamond for $59 and will complain that he didn’t understand the meaning of “cubic zirconia.”
In all my experience, “LED” (in a monitor) always means it is an LCD of some type… the only distinction being whether it is edge-lit or back-lilt. Edge lighting is cheaper and makes for thinner monitors… back lighting usually gives a better/more consistent lighting - and allows for some tricks like “local dimming” to improve contrast/etc.
Straw-dog much? I don’t “expect” gold for hamburger prices and I never even vaguely implied otherwise.
I expect a TN monitor to be called a TN monitor or a flat panel monitor. The “LED” in the LED back light should be an unnecessary note in the details since, as ThunderThighs pointed out, virtually all backlit monitors use LEDs these days.
As you pointed out, the key distinction is TN vs IPS (or OLED). That distinction should be in the item’s title. Not buried later in the description.
Yeah. I know what industry marketing has done to muddy the waters. I just sometimes get frustrated with spending 20min to try to explain to an older relative that one “LED” monitor might be the same as a TN monitor, or like an IPS monitor. And all of those are nothing like an OLED monitor (which a salesman told him was the same, but the salesman would sell the relative the LED monitor for 30% less than the “identical” expensive OLED monitor).
I can’t demand change. What I can do is explain to companies why I’m not going to buy a product from them and vote with my money. If all I do is play sheepple, ignore the muddied market speak that hides important distinctions, and never tell companies why that’s a problem, then nothing will change…
We can all thank “Madman Earl Muntz” for starting this in the 1940’s. He advertised the televisions using the diagonal measurement of the tube as opposed to the width, which was how other manufacturers were doing it then.
OK Now I am in agreement with Jolest and also Narfcake on this topic. Don’t forget the extra .9 cents we still pay on a gallon of gas (that .9 meant a nice % profit when gas cost 30 cents a gallon. Now that it’s 300 cents or more, the .9 is kind-of stupid.
I did notice that higher-end restaurants started dropping all fractional dollars and everything just costs 9, 28, 35 etc. Of course a meal there will cost at least 50 a person, typically, maybe 100.
For the marketing terms, remember (1) marketing guys tend to be older (slower?) – it’s OK I am old and slow too. So this whole “LED” thing might still seem “new” to them: “Don’t want to confuse the customers, ya know” – of course, that is exactly what they are doing with outdated descriptions, and (2) Woot and parent company do sell older products which may have been originally marketed 5 or more years ago. Note this monitor has a DVI but not HDMI. It’s very possible we are reading a description from the early decade (oh, those roaring 10’s!) when the idea of an LED lighting your cheap monitor was still revolutionary since it didn’t have a big hot fluorescent bulb behind it (I still have some Dell Ultrasharps which were very high-quality but used those lights - at the time, LEDs also didn’t offer good color rendition so the transition took a while.).
Also do you remember movie theaters that said “AIR CONDITIONED” on a sign outside? Because almost nobody would have AC in their house but on a hot afternoon you could cool off by watching a movie. Of course, then movie theaters had one BIG screen, not 12 tiny ones. OK I am getting carried away here but ya know what I mean.
That’s fair but you should take your protest to the manufacturers. We use the product names they use. This makes it easier for our customers to hunt up reviews and price comparisons on the internet.