Two quotes, same room size
Both projects wanted roughly 24 square metres in a lobby. Project A took nine 55-inch LCD panels at 3.5 mm combined bezel. Project B took an LED wall at P2.5. The LCD hardware came in around 30 percent lower. That is where the easy part ends.
What the LCD number leaves out
- The support frame has to carry nine panels and keep them coplanar. That is a steel structure, not a bracket.
- Every seam has to be tuned on site, and the tuning drifts when the room heats up.
- A single failed panel is a visible rectangle until it is replaced, and panel models get discontinued faster than LED modules.
- The processor and matrix switcher are separate line items.
What the LED number leaves out
An LED wall needs a sending card, receiving cards, and a cabinet structure that is usually included but sometimes quoted separately. Fine pitch below P1.5 jumps in price quickly because of yield. And if the room has direct sunlight on the wall, an LED wall at 800 nits will lose to an LCD at 700 nits with an anti-glare surface, because the LCD handles reflections better at that angle.
How it actually broke down
| Line | LCD 9×55" | LED P2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Display hardware | 100 | 128 |
| Structure and install | 24 | 16 |
| Processing | 11 | included |
| Five-year spares | 9 | 5 |
| Index total | 144 | 149 |
The question to ask first
Ask what the wall has to do in year four, not year one. Seam tolerance, curve, and service access decide the answer more often than the purchase price does.