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LCD TVs: Then and now
It wasn't too long ago that LCD TVs were tiny sets with 4- or 5-inch screens, so-so picture quality, and hefty price tags. Watch our "vintage" video review of portable LCD TVs from 1993 and it's easy to why we said LCD display technolog
y had "a lot farther to go." (Click on the embedded player at right to watch the video.**) In the 15 years since then, LCD displays have gone even farther than anyone expected, transforming the TV industry as well as smart phones, laptop computers, portable digital media players, and much more. LCD TVs, of course, have grown exponentially in size and image quality. We now have models up to 52 inches in our latest LCD TV Ratings, all of them with far better picture quality than their miniature ancestors. And smaller LCD displays have carved out several new niches: Touch-screen smart phones (such as the new iPhone 3G) that download YouTube videos or receive TV "shows" from cellular service providers. Notebooks and portable computers that wirelessly access popular primetime shows from Amazon, iTunes, Netflix or even the TV networks' own Web sites. Tiny portable digital media players with spacious hard drives that store and play hundreds of hours of digital video. It will be interesting to see whether OLED displays, still in their small and pricey infancy, make similar strides over the next decade or so. —Nick Kolman-Mandle ** That's Evon Beckford, Senior Director of Electronics Testing at Consumer Reports, in the video. He's been testing televisions for Consumers "for almost 30 years," as he says in our much more recent "Comprehensive video guide to buying a big-screen TV."
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