"When looking for a device, we needed to look for what are termed ‘Industrial’ LCD displays. These tend to have better-quality metrics and guaranteed availability"
This explains the $60 price, which I personally find to be great value.
This explains the $60 price, which I personally find to be great value.
http://www.buydisplay.com/default/7-inch-lcd-screen-tft-disp...
First one to do a teardown can tell us what panel it contains. I'm almost willing to bet it's that one, as the specs are close.
Still cheaper to source these parts yourself, you are right, but the official screen isn't meant to be the cheapest, it's meant to be cheap enough to be affordable, to workout-of-the-box, to be reliable, of good quality and have some guaranteed availability.
You can work with other screens and build and write your own interface if that's part of the pleasure you get from hacking on these devices, but for people who have other goals, being able to get an affordable screen that just works allows them to spend their time on other parts of their project.
It's good to have choice.
Don't get me wrong, i love the pi, and the problem is not the price tag of the pi + accessories but the unsustainable pricetag of entry level android tablets.
Plus the pi comes with its GPIO, raspbian, and is more suited than an aout of the box android tablet for most projects.
Why unsustainable?
There is a recycling tax here that is as low as ~5 cts for a tablet or a comparable electronic device. The burden of recycling is on the developping countries we send our used gear to. Not to mention the use of raw materials.
Can't say that this does not apply to higher end device that tend to be unrepairable but their lifespan is longer.