NEC thinks big with new PDP monitor

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By Kuriko Miyake

(IDG) -- Big is good. Good for business and educational presentations, and even good for home theaters. NEC Corp. thought big and came up with a jumbo-size 61-inch flat PDP (plasma display panel) monitor that it plans to put on sale in Japan in July.

The PX-61XM1 offers a lot more screen space that NEC's current largest PDP display, a 50-inch version, which is the largest panel on sale commercially, according to the company. NEC also has a 42-inch display in its lineup.

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The display has a peak brightness of 600 candelas per square meter and contrast levels of 700:1. In bright light, the contrast levels become 60:1, which mean the panel offer a better picture in everyday situations than previous panels which were sometimes hard to see in daylight, according to Mitsumasa Fukumoto, a spokesman for NEC. Image resolution on the panel is 1,365 pixels by 768 pixels and its dimensions are 1,480 millimeters by 890 millimeters by 119 millimeters. The weight is 61 kilograms.

The panel that the new display is based on was unveiled at this year's CeBIT show in Germany for the first time, while South Korea's Samsung Electronics Inc. displayed prototypes of 63-inch panels at the same time. [See "In flat panels, big is the word at CeBIT" March 26.]

The company will begin sales of the product from July 23 in Japan at a price around 2.5 million yen (US$20,480), according to Shinichi Kaede, a spokesman for NEC. Shipments to North America are also expected at around the same time. The company hopes to follow with shipments to Europe soon after, said Daniel Mathieson, a spokesman for NEC.

NEC expects to sell 8,000 units by March 2002.