I thought that Apple manufacturer would start making LED monitors for all Apple's computers - not just a LED monitor for a laptop.
Many TV manufacturers are making new HDTV LEDs instead of LCDs this year.
I think you're getting your terminology confused. "LEDs" are used for the
backlighting in an LCD monitor. The old technology that "LEDs" are supposed to replace in backlights are fluorescent tubes, similar to fluorescent lighting in office buildings.
A monitor can be an LCD monitor, and use either LED or fluorescent tubes for the backlighting of the monitor. Just because a monitor uses LEDs for the backlighting doesn't mean it's not an LCD monitor, though. It's
still called an "LCD monitor" because it uses the same LCD panel that older, non-LED-backlit monitors use.
The LCD portion of the monitor is the actual red, blue and green pixels that make up what you see on the monitor. Without a light shining through them from behind, though, your monitor would barely be visible. The light that shines through the LCD can either be LED-based, or fluorescent tube-based.
LED-based backlit monitors have a few advantages over fluorescent tube-based backlit monitors: they're typically brighter, they sometimes have a wider color gamut (though this may be attributed to better LCD panels and not the backlight itself), and they also go from completely off to maximum brightness in a matter of milliseconds (unlike fluorescent tube-based backlit monitors, which can take minutes to "warm up" to full brightness).
Apple is in the midst of transitioning to an all-LED-based LCD monitor lineup. The new unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros use LED backlighting in all the models, and Apple's desktop monitors are following suit -- there's already at least one LED-based monitor available from Apple, and I would suspect they'll all be LED-based in the next year or two.
How safe are the new HDTV LEDs? For example, Apple sells its LCDs that contain "Arsenic-free display glass, BFR-free, PVC-free, meets its Energy Star version 5.0, Rated EPAT Gold (?)."
What, specifically, do you mean by "safe?" All monitors are "safe" -- so long as you don't eat them or blow them up while you're in close proximity to them. An old, cathode-ray-tube-based monitor is just as safe to sit next to as the new LED-based LCD monitors. Or are you referring to "environmental impact" when you say "safe?" If so, then yes, the LED-based LCD monitors are a step in the right direction.
...although you'll have to be more specific on your definition of "safe" if you want more information.
In addition "HDTV LED" doesn't make sense... I think you want to say "LED-based backlit LCD monitor." "HDTV" has nothing to do with monitors -- they're not TVs.
