Panel-Maker AUOptronics Convicted of Price-Fixing, Could Face Up To $1B in Fines

[btarunr]

One of the biggest suppliers of LCD panels to notebook and PC monitor manufacturers, AUOptronics, has been convicted by a US court on Tuesday, of price-fixing, a serious anti-competitive practice that cripples innovation and is bad for consumers and progress of the industry. The company faces fines as high as US $1 billion, which could amount to a big blow to the company that already finds itself facing losses.

AUOptronics' conviction follows the December 2011 mega-settlement of LCD makers including Samsung, Sharp, Hitachi, HannStar, and Chimei Innolux. At the time, AUOptronics and LG Electronics were the only fence-sitters. LG Electronics agreed to pay a US $400 million fine, in 2008. AUOptronics' current position is that it finds the evidence presented against it, which led to the conviction as being "distorted and incomplete," and that it will appeal against the verdict. The quantum of fine levied against AUOptronics will surface in the months ahead.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Andrei23]

Is this why we've been stuck with such shitty 768p laptop displays for the past couple of years? I mean, how can a company charge close to £1000 for a laptop with a shitty 768p display slapped on. How do they not die of shame?

 

[btarunr]

Is this why we've been stuck with such shitty 768p laptop displays for the past couple of years? I mean, how can a company charge close to £1000 for a laptop with a shitty 768p display slapped on. How do they not die of shame?

This trial covers developments before 2008. The "1366x768 for notebooks, 1920x1080 for desktops" ramthroat is post-2008. That's another pricing-fixing scam waiting to blow up on their faces.

 

[newtekie1]

Is this why we've been stuck with such shitty 768p laptop displays for the past couple of years? I mean, how can a company charge close to £1000 for a laptop with a shitty 768p display slapped on. How do they not die of shame?

I wouldn't say stuck, it isn't impossible to find a 15" laptop with a 1080p screen in it. However, 1366x768 gives a few advantages to the manufacturers. The first is obviously cost, 768p panels are cheaper than 1080p panels, especially at the 15" screen size. Second is the smaller resolution means the absolutely crap onboard video solutions don't get over loaded as easily.

 

[Andrei23]

I wouldn't say stuck, it isn't impossible to find a 15" laptop with a 1080p screen in it. However, 1366x768 gives a few advantages to the manufacturers. The first is obviously cost, 768p panels are cheaper than 1080p panels, especially at the 15" screen size. Second is the smaller resolution means the absolutely crap onboard video solutions don't get over loaded as easily.

The fact that 768p displays are common in quite expensive laptop models (£1200 for a Thinkpad W series laptop with a 768p display, seriously?) that also have dedicated (professional) graphics is appalling. What is the excuse in such a situation, greed? That's not a very good excuse.

 

[newtekie1]

The fact that 768p displays are common in quite expensive laptop models (£1200 for a Thinkpad W series laptop with a 768p display, seriously?) that also have dedicated (professional) graphics is appalling. What is the excuse in such a situation, greed? That's not a very good excuse.

Yes, greed on the manufacturers part. 1080p laptops can be had for $1200(or £750) if you look for them. The screens are out there, you have to ask the manufacturers why they aren't using them.

 

[Frick]

Again, I hope Apple will push for this. And Sony had a 1080p 13 incher avaliable like three years ago, and the pricing was not that wild. Now I can find one 1080p below 15 inches, and it goes for €3000.

 

[Bambooz]

I wouldn't say stuck, it isn't impossible to find a 15" laptop with a 1080p screen in it.

Who's talking about 1080p ?
Any higher res than 1366x768 would be better already.
1600x900? 1680x1050?

There are two things I hate about most laptops (the ones a normal person can afford):

- low res 1366x768 screens, even for quite powerful/expensive laptop models
- glare/glossy screens. Who came up with this unusable-in-real-life crap anyways?

 

[Frick]

- glare/glossy screens. Who came up with this unusable-in-real-life crap anyways?

I think it was first used in "entertainment" laptops, as the glossy stuff usually makes the colours more vibrant or something. Then everyone wanted to be "entertaining" and here we are.

I think. It's just guesses from my part.

 

[newtekie1]

Who's talking about 1080p ?
Any higher res than 1366x768 would be better already.
1600x900? 1680x1050?

There are two things I hate about most laptops (the ones a normal person can afford):

- low res 1366x768 screens, even for quite powerful/expensive laptop models
- glare/glossy screens. Who came up with this unusable-in-real-life crap anyways?

1680x1050 isn't 16:9, so most people don't want it. And 1600x900 isn't a common panel size, so they are just as expensive as 1080p.

1366x768 is far from unusable, though I agree with the glossy shit making them hard to use outdoors(and sometimes indoors). In fact the 1080p 15" laptops I've had to use were terrible, 1080p on a 15" screen makes everything way to small.

 

[btarunr]

1680x1050 isn't 16:9, so most people don't want it. And 1600x900 isn't a common panel size, so they are just as expensive as 1080p.

1366x768 is far from unusable, though I agree with the glossy shit making them hard to use outdoors(and sometimes indoors). In fact the 1080p 15" laptops I've had to use were terrible, 1080p on a 15" screen makes everything way to small.

1600x900 isn't a common panel resolution, because the LCD cartel didn't allow it to become one. 1600x900 is very much possible on small screens. That's kind of the whole issue here. Price-fixing has crippled the pace of competitive-advancement in display sizes and resolutions available to the mainstream.

I remember how 5:4 1280x1024 notebooks were mainstream in 2003-04, and 16:10 1440x900 were mainstream, in 2004-06. If in fact the notebook industry was moving on to more dimension-optimized aspect-ratios, 1600x900 should have been the mainstream resolution (sub-$800 notebooks), 1920x1080 should have been "premium" resolution ($800-$1400 notebooks), and 2560x1440 should have been "high-end" resolution (>$1400 notebooks), that didn't happen.

With PCs, things were going excellent, we could buy $250 1920x1200 monitors in 2008-09, then instead of advancing to affordable 2560x1600 screens, the market side-stepped to inferior 1920x1080, with even $500 27" monitors using the same crap 1080p resolution, and only now we're seeing 2560x1440, at prices well over $500. There's clearly a gaping advancement hole in there.

 

[Andrei23]

Review on anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/show/5660/dell-xps-13-a-different-kind-of-ultrabook) about a new Dell ultrabook. Scroll down to comments, everyone's taking the piss out of the 768p screen. And for good reason!

Taken from the comments section:

'To Dell: It's ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC that my circa 2005 Dell Inspiron 6000 15" WUXGA 1900x1200 screen has a higher resolution than your WHOLE current consumer line of laptops in 2012!'

 

[newtekie1]

Review on anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/show/5660/dell-xps-13-a-different-kind-of-ultrabook) about a new Dell ultrabook. Scroll down to comments, everyone's taking the piss out of the 768p screen. And for good reason!

Taken from the comments section:

'To Dell: It's ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC that my circa 2005 Dell Inspiron 6000 15" WUXGA 1900x1200 screen has a higher resolution than your WHOLE current consumer line of laptops in 2012!'

On a 13" screen, there is no good reason to bash it for having a 768p screen, period. Anything larger would simply be too hard to read for the general public. Until Windows can manage to work out a decent scaling system that actually works, larger resolutions on such tiny screens is feasable.

 

[buggalugs]

The other thing is, higher resolutions means more power consumption and most portable devices cant even last a day without recharging or running off the mains.

 

[wahdangun]

then why the hell, iPAD or my smartphone have higher DPi than my freakin monitor, its so depressing. and they seems doesn't care about battery life either, so its so unreasonable that current line of LCD can't even have higher DPI than my old sony CRT, and have that CRT for 7 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

is asking for 4K monitor a little bit to much ???

 

[Bambooz]

The other thing is, higher resolutions means more power consumption and most portable devices cant even last a day without recharging or running off the mains.

Not entirely right. The majority of the power consumption of an LCD is the backlight. The difference in power consumption of let's say 1366x768 vs. 1600x900 (just as an example) on the same physical LCD panel size is negligible. As in something along the lines of 0.xx Watt more, if even that.

As long as there isn't more space that has to be illuminated (= bigger panel = longer/more backlight CCFLs or more LEDs), the power consumption isn't really an issue.

 

[m1dg3t]

GOOD! Now they should go after the umpteen other businesses doing the same crap, ATi & Nvidia are doing a bit of this right now if you ask me