WARNING - Optiquest Q241WB 24" LCD is not an 8-bit panel.

george_ou@lanarchitect.net — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:11:00 GMT

I bought an Optiquest Q241WB 24" LCD display after seeing how brilliant the display looked in the store at Fry's Electronics. It was obviously the only 8-bit per color LCD panel on display in the computer monitor section and it looked awesome and it was on sale for a mere $350 with a $50 rebate. I picked one up even though it was an open-box model since there were no notes warning about dead pixels and I could always return it if I didn't like it.

Well as it turns out, there were no dead pixels but all the pixels could have been dead as far as I was concerned. To my surprise, the display was NOT the same panel technology being displayed on the show floor at Fry's. This was not the brilliant 8-bit PVA LCD panel being shown but it was a typical ugly 6-bit TN LCD panel yet it came with the same model number. This is a very deceptive practice because it fools reviewers in to giving the display glowing reviews and shoppers get fooled by the beauty of the display in the store. Viewsonic needs to STOP this behavior immediately and Fry's (or any other store) need to warn their customers what what they're showing is not what's in the box. A lot of consumers who wouldn't know any better might have kept the display. This is clearly a case of bait and switch and it's false advertising.

See: Difference between LCD panel types

George Ou's technology blog

WARNING - Optiquest Q241WB 24" LCD is not an 8-bit panel.