Digital Signage Need To Know: Border Versus Borderless LED Displays

- Mike Prongue

Down here “on the street” in the LED display industry many crazy things are said. Many ridiculous assertions are routinely made about technology, technical specifications, value and true cost.

For example- NIT value. Some manufacturers seem to measure their NIT value as whatever the other guy has +1000.

In a desperate attempt to contrive an advantage, some advantage, any advantage, some obscure product point is selected then exploited.

Recently one LED display distributor made a claim that a borderless LED display was superior because it eliminated the cost of the "dead" steel border surrounding the LED display. If you do the math, a 2.0” border for an LED display measuring 6x3’ will result in a metal border that totals around 3 square feet. If you were truly charged a rate equal to the pixel per square foot rate for the metal border then you would be getting ripped off. That doesn’t happen except in LED display “La La Land”. Nice try folks!

The price of your LED display is based on the number of pixels, not the area of the cabinet (height x width). As you know the actual size of the LED display is determined by the LED modules. Adding or subtracting LED display module columns or rows, changes the overall size. And no, you can't split a module (although variants on LED module sizes exist).

The better LED display manufacturers offer LED displays in a border option or a borderless option.

Why would anyone want a borderless display?

Thinking about why, the answer is easily determined. Your customer has a monument sign in front of his business that he is upgrading to an LED display. The city regulates the size of the sign and they are maxed out already. Every inch counts here, so why sacrifice active LED pixel matrix area for a metal border?

You would not. This is a perfect application for a borderless sign- maximizing the square footage allowed.

So we’ve stomped on the latest meaningless point of product differentiation and you understand a bordered sign consisting of 36 LED modules and one with no border with 36 LED modules should cost the same. Despite killing this myth, some desperate distributor is right now out there spinning a new story.

Select your LED display by looking at companies that are innovative, are driving technology, changing the industry with new data handling applications, and offer a 3^rd party, rock-solid parts and service warranty. When you do your homework, your due diligence, you will be able to sleep at night knowing you’ve made the best choice.

When someone tells you something that makes no sense, or seems way “over-promised” it probably is. Leave these crazy claims to the more gullible and remember that you get what you pay for, and there is never any such thing as a “free lunch”.

These comments belong to me, Mike Prongue, and do not reflect the views, opinions, hopes or dreams of anyone else, anywhere else and this includes Vantage LED. I appreciate your constructive opinion which may be sent to me at michael@vantageled.com.