What price will I have to pay for a 30" computer display?
I'm looking to buy a professional style 30" computer display and I'm curious as to what the lowest price I would pay to get a 30" display is - used or otherwise. For reference I'm talking about top of the line HP monitors, NEC, LG, etc that support 2560 x 1600 (not just a TV that's a 30" or 32" that's only 1920 x 1080). Just trying to get an idea of what I should expect to spend.
The cheapest I’ve ever seen for a 30-inch WQXGA monitor (WQXGA = 2560×1600 resolution) was the XHD3000 from Gateway, which sold for $999. It went out of production however, and is no longer available in the retail channel.
Expect to pay over $1000 for a WQXGA monitor in the current market. I paid $1400 for my HP LP3065 a year ago.
If I’m buying a WQXGA monitor today, I would go for the Dell 3008WFP. It’s pricey at $1700, but it’s the only 30-inch that has a DisplayPort jack, which is necessary for triple-monitor setups using one of ATI’s Radeon HD5000-series of video cards.
DisplayPort seems to be the up-and-coming standard for video connections now that Dell is coming out with a slew of DP-equipped monitors (and Apple had been using miniDisplayPort since 2008), and ATI has been pushing DP aggressively. nVidia’s new Fermi cards will also support DisplayPort when it comes out next month, so I hear.
Oh, and by the way, these WQXGA monitors won’t work with old analog VGA. They require a graphics card that supports at least Dual-Link DVI. So that’s an additional expense if you don’t already have a Dual-Link DVI-capable video card.
Probably around $1000 at least. Any lower and you’re probably not going to be happy with the quality.