IPS has been around for a long, long time. Pricing might be a reflection of many things. Bad or questionable panels are one potential example. Another might be an EOL panel or monitor (End Of Life). Translation: They are not made or supported any more. It can also be an old model.<p>I spent some time in the LCD OEM business. The simplest way I can put it is that the major LCD module providers defecate all over LCD monitor manufacturers. Their defecate takes the form or panels that sometimes are good and other times are bad. Sometimes the bad is obvious (remember the purple aluminum Apple Cinema Displays?). Sometimes it isn't (reliability issues, pixel issues, etc.<p>The panel makers also pull stuff like discontinuing panels seemingly overnight and changing specifications on you without notice. We saw a case where the manufacturer changed the logic power supply specification for a panel from 12V to 5V and didn't bother to tell anyone. They shipped us new panels. Monitors started to blow-up during testing. I mean, smoke coming out of them. It wasn't until we burned-up the equivalent of a small BMW (or two) of OEM LCD panels that we came to the realization that the manufacturer had caused this issue. All we got was a new data-sheet out of them.<p>It's a rough business to be in. Ugly as can be. The sheer size of the providers and sole-source nature of the products create a situation where, for the most part, these companies are above the law (don't ask me how I know this) and can fuck with you --the monitor manufacturer-- to no end. The only companies that don't get screwed with as much are the large players like the HP, Dell and Apple's of the industry.<p>IPS panels of very high resolution have been around for quite some time. Probably the most famous of these was the IBM-originated quad-HD 3840 x 2160 22 inch panel. Memory fails but I'll say that this panel goes back at least fifteen years. OEM cost started out around $20K and dropped to about $6K with time.<p>My concern with these 27 inch monitors would be about the unknowns. They could be just fine. But they could also not be OK in a million ways. Did they, for example, not make it to US and European shores because they did not pass safety tests? I don't know. No amount of money will compel me to, quite literally, play with fire. Do they have system-level premature failure modes such as questionable power supplies or the like? Don't know. Or how about panel-level issues, such as high failure rates or deterioration with time, temperature, etc.<p>Buy them if you must, but be very aware of what you are not buying. I, as an example, would not leave these things plugged in and unattended. I'd plug them all into a power strip and switch them off every time I leave the room for more than thirty minutes. While I am not saying that a fire is the unavoidable consequence of paying so little for them I am proposing that, sometimes, when thing are too good to be true there's a reason for that.