Just a rant really, but why do on earth do manufacturers still only put a VGA input on a lot of their LCD screens?

It makes me sad. :(

A lot of computers with onboard graphics have a DVI-D and VGA socket, however with 2 VGA only monitors, it's impossible to have dual monitors.

Just a few examples..

http://www.ebuyer.co...nitor-e2242c-bn

http://www.ebuyer.co...-monitor-vh242s

http://www.ebuyer.co...r-ls22b150ns-en

Well aside from you can buy this which should sort you out, but as for the reasoning. Most likely its down to an EU tax that was applicable from 2005/2006 to June 2011 where a 14% duty was added to any monitor with a DVI port 19" or bigger and the kind of panels you've linked to which are budget end ones are likely to be bought in bulk for desktop rollouts etc so a 14% markup on an order of say 100+ is quite a lot so the manufacturers carried on making panels with no DVI to stay competitive at that end of the market. I should imagine that now the tax has been abolished that we'll start seeing more DVI sockets on monitors in the next 12-24 months, monitor technology like a lot of peripherals doesn't tend to move as fast as the PC's themselves so the models have a longer lifespan in the channel.

Ahhh...see that tax I did not realise even existed. Who really would sit down and think of creating a rule like that???

Those adapters are fine if you have DVI-I ports, but DVI-D are digital only and those adapters physically won't plug into the sockets.

Not many people knew of it, i only found out through work due to placing orders for silly numbers of monitors with bulletins from HP advising.

Interesting, I've never heard of that tax either. I would imagine that we'll see much more cheap DVI models, as (I believe) it would actually make them cheaper to manufacture because you're not going digital->analogue->digital anymore, so there's no need for ADCs in the monitor end of the connection? I don't know a lot about DVI signals though, so I could easily be talking from my arse.

Another reason is that 70% of computers come with integrated graphics, these are usually a single VGA connector. It is only the last couple of years that I've seen additional connectors such as Display Port and DVI.

Given that almost all computers have VGA, then it is cheaper to have a VGA connector only on the monitor rather than VGA and DVI.

Also I think that the VGA is royality free, I may be wrong but I believe that all the others DVI, DP, HDMI require a license or a royality payment.

VGA is a universal standard. Non-PC equipment uses it as well. It's good for text only applications too. There's still a lot of stuff out there that doesn't/will never need anything more than VGA. Scrapping it would be a very very expensive exercise.

Softscoop

You can get a VGA2USB adapter that will allow you to use one screen on your built in port and one running off the USB adapter, don't think they are too expensive but needs its software installed - we use dozens of them at work.

Softscoop

You can get a VGA2USBadapter that will allow you to use one screen on your built in port and one running off the USB adapter, don't think they are too expensive but needs its software installed - we use dozens of them at work.

They're all very well and good, but add 50% to the price of a cheap monitor. May as well spend an extra little bit and get one that supports VGA and DVI in the first place.

As Andrew said, that tax probably didn't help the matter.

I'm not all that bothered, it was just a bit of a rant that's all as I had to play monitor switch around with someone who wanted 2 monitors, but only had DVI-D and VGA onboard, and 2 VGA monitors.

I just bought a monitor that has a VGA, a DVI and HDMI for £107

http://www.overclock...rodid=MO-044-AS

I just bought a monitor that has a VGA, a DVI and HDMI for £107

http://www.overclock...rodid=MO-044-AS

Did she come with the monitor?

Did she come with the monitor?

No I don't think so, I did look in the bottom of the box.

Why do they always have a scantily clad maiden on motorbike / sportcars on monitors?