So, I've been lurking around here for about a month now as I've been rebuilding my car and planning a CarPC installation, and I've more or less got everything decided upon aside from one thing... the touchscreen.
I'm looking for a 7" widescreen and my budget is probably in the $400-$500 range.
From everything I've read, Lilliput models seem to have a bad rep when it comes to their touchscreen quality and overall build quality, so I haven't really considered any of those.
On the really high-end, the CARFT CTF800-SH sounds like one of the very best Car PC touchscreens, but I'm pretty sure it's out of my price range... as are most of the transflexive coated screens unless I really rethink my budget.
Basically, I want a monitor that looks good (color and sharpness wise) and that I can actually SEE from the drivers seat looking over to the center console. Viewing angle, brightness, and sunlight washout (even though my windows and sunroof are tinted) are all concerns for me here. Responsiveness in video is also important.
Cold weather is also something I'm keeping in mind, but I doubt I'll be in sub-freezing weather too often (I'm in the midwest now, but moving to the southwest soon - though I will be traveling all over the country) but as long as everything works after several minutes of heating up the car, I guess it's not too much of an issue...
From browsing the forums here, as well as anything else I could find online I
think I've narrowed it down to the following:
Xenarc 705TSV
Pros:
- Lowest cost
- LED Backlit for lower power and better cold weather performance
- Better Contrast rating (400:1)
- Great viewing angle (140 horizontal)
Cons
- Lowest Brightness rating (450)
- 4-wire instead of 5-wire
- Lacks AISS
Xenarc 706TSA
Pros:
- DVI! (Seriously. VGA has been dead for nearly a decade because it SUCKS for digital displays. I can't even remember that last time I saw a regular LCD that lacked DVI inputs unless it was a really low-end POS.)
- 5-Wire Touchscreen
- Single cable input
- 650 Brightness
- 140 degree viewing angle
- AISS
- 6ms response time (because it's good and no other monitor gives this spec)
Cons:
Xenarc 702TSV
Pros:
- 5-Wire touchscreen
- 1000cdm brightness
- 500:1 contrast ratio
- 140 degree viewing angle
- AISS
Cons:
It seems the 702TSV should have the best overall picture as it has the best brightness/contrast/angle ratings.
The 706TSA has the advantage of DVI input (as well as AISS) so it
should have the sharpest image. The crappy 300:1 contrast ratio means color isn't going to be as good... but that should be somewhat tweakable through software contrast/color correction.
The 705TSV... well, it's a lot cheaper. And it's LED so it avoids possible cold weather issues, draws less power and contributes less to heating up my car in hot weather, but the 4-Wire touchscreen is a definite turn off compared to the others.
So... that's more or less my POV on this at this point, but I'd welcome any thoughts or opinions from you guys who might have experience with these models, or even other models I haven't thought about.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts and assistance.
Linear Mode
