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If optical thunderbolt ever catches on you could use it to attach multiple terminals to a computer, such as routing uncompressed low-latency video signals throughout your home. Last I checked, there still is not a good way to do this over gigabit ethernet.

You mean like using a terminal server and some thin clients? Or do you mean using a digital signage system?

These things are all available, and none of them use Thunderbolt, not even in its optical variety.

"If you have an older, cheap tablet with an older version of Android"

People say that as if there aren't currently marketed, not cheap, fast tablets being sold with 2.2.

Like this one:

http://www.viewsonic.com/gtablet/spec.htm

Unless by not cheap you mean $500+ for $250+ worth of hardware like an iPad.

The latest gTablet software update was released December 23, 2010 and deployed via automatic Over-the-Air update.

The latest gTablet software update was released December 23, 2010 and deployed via automatic Over-the-Air update.

It boils down to what you are after, the galaxytab is quite small (7" or so) and I could get the same functionality out of a phone. I opted for something a big larger (11") with an NVidia tegra chipset so I could play HD movies. Do you want something with good hardware and size (350USD+) or something small and more economical? (200USD+)

I have the Viewsonic gtablet[1] and it's quite nice. The default firmware/rom that it ships with is horrible but you can use an alternate ROM like TNT Lite[2] and it's really slick. I am able to watch 720p/1080p HD movies on long plane rides (after i've re-encoded them with ffmpeg to fit native reso and mp4 format) use Skype and any other Android apps with an 8-10hr battery life.

[1] - http://www.viewsonic.com/gtablet/
[2] - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=842004

Viewsonic makes an awesome little nettop box (basically it's a high end netbook without a screen) that is absolutely perfect for this.

http://www.viewsonic.com/products/vot132.htm

Stick a USB tuner card in there and use Windows Media Center and you have a fantastic all round entertainment system for your living room - and nearly silent and very low power so you won't feel bad about having it on all the time. I don't understand why you would buy a box that can only do streaming when you can have a full computer that can do anything.

What I've been using for the last FIVE years. The form-factor can't really be much different.

The Viewsonic product mercifully perished some time ago, so silently I can't find any useful references to its failure. No references to success either.

It was intended to be a remote desktop to a Windows desktop, wandering around on WiFi, delivering you a 10" screen and touted as giving you a 'multimedia experience' as well. All this on that 10" screen at 800x600 resolution, with a stupid pointer and useless speaker.

I further predict here that the tablet revolution will fail and die away. Tablets don't meet our expectations. I'm not saying just the current crop of tablets. I'm saying tablets as tablets.

And I have one. It's just not all that. It's not even any of that.

That's because you will need to change from the 4:3 ratio you are used to, but I can find things like that :
http://www.viewsonic.com/products/desktop-monitors/lcd/value-series/va1716w.htm

17", 1440x900. Bear in mind that a desktop is screen is usually used at a further distance than a laptop screen. It makes sense to have less pixels per centimeters for them.

Wow, I am hoping to see this sometime soon as my 10" ViewSonic AirPanel SmartDisplay is getting a little long in the tooth. Still running 902.11B standard! It's slow with today's web but it is the most convenient item in my stable to browse the web away from my office-chair. I can watch TV, read/mod posts on slashdot -or- news on the web -or- read books & tweak my network from the comfort of my couch.

Yeah, it runs Windows CE but everything isn't perfect. Still it's very light, doesn't need a stylus to click on a link or button (though has one). The only way it could be the browser tool even better would be an external Home, Forward and Back buttons in a convenient place on the frame somewhere.

I recently got a Dell Mini10 as a present and a netbook will never replace a small tablet for the way I use the airpanel.

Um... [tap tap tap]... hello? Ever tried this thing called Google? Amazing what you can find...

Computer monitor with HDMI input

DVI/HD Audio to HDMI with audio converter

You can argue that they aren't TVs but there are devices that are advertised as TVs without tuners designed for use with Cable/Satellite. Here is one (notice the category it's under)

Ran the Nvidia control panel settings, calibration utilities, the Rivatuner stuff, messed with windows fonts and everything I could think of, but something about the image quality was just off, and I couldn't read any text for more than 15 minutes without a headache.

I had the exact same issue with my ViewSonic VX1932wm, and quickly found out the monitor had an option for sharpness adjustment in its menu. Eye strain is gone, and the display looks fantastic.

You mean like this?

It's a great idea/product, but unfortunately it bombed in the marketplace. I am writing this reply with mine. I love it! All it really is is a remote desktop slave, but I can administrate my whole network from my living room while watching a movie, lounging on the couch.

When it first came out ~2002, they were a little less than a full-featured notebook computer. I got mine in early 2004 from a company that buys pallets of discontinued tech prodcts for $400.00, (that price included ALL the accessories available at the time... Charging cradle/Stand, keyboard, extra battery). At the original price of ~$1100.00 it wasn't really worth it for all but the most serious early adopters.

Even with it being wireless "B" it's pretty fast for most things, screen refreshes on webpages for example are just a little slower than the machine it's connected to.

Overall... Great concept, good design, decent implementation, poor marketing and original pricing.

You mean like this?

6 bit panels are in fact not advertised as 8 bit.

Apparently you have not tried evaluating Viewsonic displays. Check these spec sheets out: one from their US site and one from their European site. Notice that the same displays which claim to support, according to the specs from the US site, "16.7 million colors" are shown to be 6-bit panels with FRC on the specs from the European site.

Take a look at the huge difference between the specs on the same displays from their US site and European site. The European site has the actual specs listed. Apparently something about false advertising was preventing from misrepresenting what they were trying to sell. (The European site doesn't even attempt to mention "16.7 million colors" for some of the displays!)

AC: "Those aren't trinitron style monitors though. They use a shadow mask. True Trinitron monitors have the little wires that cross the screen."

ViewSonic began making monitors with Trinitron technology as soon as the patent expired. That used to be common knowledge, about 5 years ago. Here, they even name it:

"By incorporating the latest flat FD Trinitron® CRT, new fast performing video circuitry, and stringent quality processes during manufacturing, the Nokia FlatAG(TM) technology ensures the best possible image performance, color stability and user comfort available today."

ViewSonic: 445pro

Unfortunately, it appears that the 445pro is out-of-production, and it appears that most places don't make Trinitron-type monitors (which is odd, because when the patent expired, everyone jumped on that bandwagon).

Apparently, Sony still makes several monitors based on Trinitron technology, but many of them cost more than $1000 (US). Even so, I noticed that Amazon has what looks like a great deal on a Sony Trinitron 24" monitor.

"if I could find someone who still made Trinitron style monitors (say 22" or larger) I would buy one in a heartbeat."

That is very large for CRTs. ViewSonic still sells CRT monitors, but only up to 21".

ViewSonic CRT Monitors

The largest CRT that I could find from any manufacturer is only 22". I'm using a 19" monitor at home.

Here's one (actually, two: the 30" and the 23" one), and another, and another.

I'd say that HD capable computer monitors are not all that difficult to find.

The "Media PC" may not have arrived, but set-top boxes that allow you to access digital content in your living room are slowly making progress. I bought and abandoned the ViewSonic WMA100 after one too many crashes of its internal operating system, wtf that is, and reading on their website faq that no, they weren't planning on any updates -- way to kiss off future business, ViewSonic -- and replaced it with the D-Link DSM-520. Its internal software is also not perfect, but D-Link has been releasing updates. The vendor supplied server software may or may not be the most useful to you. ;-)

I wasn't aware of these. Viewsonic's best has .20 mm dot pitch, which will *nearly* accommodate 2048x1536. Despite extensive Google searching I can't find anything smaller, including SGI whose lone remaining CRT has .25 mm dot pitch. I'd be curious to see data for specific models.

Electron guns are for the most part dead-on accurate (with given variances for electromagnetic fields not generated by the monitor)

Boats for the most part never leak (with given variances for the condition of the rubber in the gaskets)... Before LCDs were commonly available I used top-quality CRTs everyday. Even then, when 1280x1024 was bleeding-edge, there was always too much electromagnetic noise around to get a picture entirely free from distortion. A CRT hooked to a UPS, with the computer and the electrical system in a Faraday cage, might not be distorted at high resolution. In the real world, they are, usually with very minor but distracting curves in both vertical and horizontal lines.

BTW - try doing relevant measurements in any photoshop-esque program or such using inches instead of pixels as your measurement. Across LCD screens, you're about to see a MASSIVE variance due the overly large size of pixels on LCDs.

As a matter of fact, I have two wildly varying LCDs sitting in front of me right now, driven by the same Power Mac G5: an Apple 23" Cinema with .25 mm dot pitch, and a Samsung 193p with .29 dot pitch. I find it rather useful to be able to change scale, without losing LCD text sharpness, just by moving a window from one monitor to the other. Most programs capable of working in both inches and pixels allow you to adjust the onscreen dpi setting. Mine are set to 100 dpi, which is nearly perfect dimensionally on the Cinema Display, and allows me to see detail a little more precisely on the Samsung.

If you can point me in the direction of a real CRT, which I can test with my real G5, that will display 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 (for HDTV viewing), give me text as sharp as either of my LCDs, and weigh a reasonable amount, I'd be very interested. So far, I haven't seen or used that product, and I'm skeptical because of the practical difficulties inherent in VGA connections and CRTs in a room chock-full of noisy electronics.

the Asus VX2025wm, which is a lot better. For a bit higher price, you get:

* 800:1 contrast.
* 1680x1050 resolution.
* 176 degree viewing angles.

Higher contrast, size, resolution, viewing angles -- precisely what you want in the thing you'll be staring at for the next few years.

I think he's talking about the ViewSonic VP2290b or the IBM T221 , although both of those are only 22" (slightly more actually) panels.

You mean something like the ViewSonic Airsync V210?
http://www.viewsonic.com/products/mobilewireless/a irsync/airsyncv210wirelessdisplay/

It's essentially a tablet pc without the pc. Crappy resolution, but it works wirelessly. The biggest problem though: it's about the same heft and thickness as a normal tablet pc.

What I'd like is one that works wirelessly, 1280x1024 or greater res., has a detachable keybord/touchpad, and is at least as light and thin as a good laptop. Of course, it would probably cost as much as a real laptop as the lcd alone is more than half the price.

It's mentioned on their PDF comparison chart; "16.7 million colours supported ... Yes".

Big deal, Viewsonic has offered stands that mount any of their Pro series LCDs (15" to 21") in not only dual horizontal but also dual vertical, triple wide and quad (2x2) layouts. You buy the standard LCDs, remove the included bases, and mount them to the special stands. If you ever decide to split them up, you still have the original bases to reattach and use standalone elsewhere.

I priced out the same 2-wide setup at CDW with 19" ViewSonics and it came out cheaper, for better quality monitors IMHO.

Big deal, Viewsonic has offered stands that mount any of their Pro series LCDs (15" to 21") in not only dual horizontal but also dual vertical, triple wide and quad (2x2) layouts. You buy the standard LCDs, remove the included bases, and mount them to the special stands. If you ever decide to split them up, you still have the original bases to reattach and use standalone elsewhere.

I priced out the same 2-wide setup at CDW with 19" ViewSonics and it came out cheaper, for better quality monitors IMHO.

Big deal, Viewsonic has offered stands that mount any of their Pro series LCDs (15" to 21") in not only dual horizontal but also dual vertical, triple wide and quad (2x2) layouts. You buy the standard LCDs, remove the included bases, and mount them to the special stands. If you ever decide to split them up, you still have the original bases to reattach and use standalone elsewhere.

I priced out the same 2-wide setup at CDW with 19" ViewSonics and it came out cheaper, for better quality monitors IMHO.

Big deal, Viewsonic has offered stands that mount any of their Pro series LCDs (15" to 21") in not only dual horizontal but also dual vertical, triple wide and quad (2x2) layouts. You buy the standard LCDs, remove the included bases, and mount them to the special stands. If you ever decide to split them up, you still have the original bases to reattach and use standalone elsewhere.

I priced out the same 2-wide setup at CDW with 19" ViewSonics and it came out cheaper, for better quality monitors IMHO.

http://store.viewsonic.com/html/ibeCCtpItmDspRte.j sp?section=19488&item=69913&IBE_COOKIE=558D12C29D3 1A7A37636170040C276DC&IBE_COOKIE_pses=IBE_COOKIE%3 D558D12C29D31A7A37636170040C276DC~

A better idea would be to get two nice monitors with thin bezels and get a dual monitor VESA mount.

A better idea would be to get two nice monitors with thin bezels and get a dual monitor VESA mount.

Here ya go
http://www.viewsonic.com/products/desktopdisplays/ lcddisplays/xseries/vx924/
4ms or (1 second) / (4 millisecond) = 250 htz.

250 htz is much more then your 60/72/75/80/100/120 htz your crt does.

Don't try to convert response time into refresh rate. The response time is how long it takes a pixel to change colors, and the refresh rate is how often the monitor gives instructions to a pixel. The two measurements are not related, and you cannot find one given the other.

Refresh rates in Hz are pretty meaningless for LCDs, actually. The measurements on monitors are response time and refresh rate, and they each have their place.

The response time on an LCD is the amount of time it takes a pixel to change color once it's been instructed to do so. This is a meaningless measurement for a CRT, because a CRT pixel is lit only when the electron beam is on it. For this reason, you never see a CRT advertised with a response time.

The refresh rate of a monitor is the number of times a pixel is redrawn per second. On an LCD, the refresh rate is almost always 60 Hz. That's high enough to present smooth visuals to the viewer. However, because the pixels in an LCD keep their color for several milliseconds after each refresh, they don't need to be refreshed any more often than that. On a CRT, on the other hand, the more often a pixel is refreshed, the smoother the image will appear. This is because the pixel only has color when it is being refreshed. If the refresh rate is too low, the pixel and therefore the whole image will appear to flicker.

LCDs are frequently set at a low refresh rate like 60 Hz, because that's all they need to present consistent visuals. For an LCD, a much more important number is the response time.

CRTs are often set to a much higher refresh rate, because that enables a more consistent image. The response time is irrelevant.

Power consumption ... LCDs beat the pants off of CRTs.
http://www.viewsonic.com/monitoruniversity/lcd.htm #chart

I don't understand this article. Is it hard to buy a high-quality CRT these days? No. Just surf over to Viewsonic or NEC. Seems like many companies are still manufacturing CRTs right now, which means they will be available from the manufacturer for at least 4 years, and could still be purchased second-hand for (I'm guessing) another 15 years. If in 15 years LCDs still don't meet your needs, I imagine it won't matter, since your particular application will have long since been replaced with something different.

Sorry, but this seems like a non-issue to me.

Price range: ~$400
Slate-like Tablet PC (pen-driven) interface
1280x1024 or 1400x1050 resolution (1600x1200 would really be ideal)
802.11b/g wireless networking
Has Windows Pocket PC or similar small OS installed, with some games, etc.
Set up so that I can Remote Desktop into my Windows PC upstairs

you can get a viewsonic air panel for $499

It's a tablet form factor
only 800x600 resolution though
It's not exactly 802.11. It it more like a dedicated remote desktop. It doesn't have the guts to do much on it's own. Instead, it connects to your desktop and you run the programs there.

Books are printed at ~15000 dpi. At that resolution density, the pixels from a typical 19" LCD display would give you rather under an eighth of an inch diagonally.

Viewsonic do a similar thing:
The airsync, although it uses remote desktop not VNC.

Also, at around $1300 USD, it ain't cheap!

No. I am still using the ATI All in Wonder that I found mispriced at $30 instead of $180 at CompUSA (and they had no problem giving it to me at the lower price, even when I informed them about it). It must be from the late 90s, cause I have upgraded just about all my stuff except my speakers since I got my computer in 98, but that has remained the same. It has 8 MB of memory.

And yet I have now gotten a Viewsonic monitor, which the card can keep running at 1600x1200/87/16 bpp flawlessly, plus the card's TV tuner lets me watch all the Knicks games (or whatever I prefer, I don't watch much TV these days) I want on the 21" screen that tops out my old 13" TV set.

I see no reason to buy a new graphics card. (If I weren't a pure coder, maybe I'd upgrade it for games, but I generally dont do much gaming, certainly not anything mainstream.)

The real kicker is, if I had sent in the $20 rebate, all this would have cost me only $10.

Not exactly what you described, but might achieve the same goals: ViewSonic airpanel

I have motion sickness issues, so reading in the car was not a viable option when I was a kid. Usually, I just suffered through the time trying not to puke.

I built a stand that fits between the front seats in our van. It provides a stable platform for either a laptop or a flat screen (15" is nice) monitor fed by a Viewsonic video-to-VGA converter (broadcast reception comes for free.) We can pipe video tapes in through a portable VCR. The 4-year-old is fully entertained, and typically doesn't complain about "are we there yet." Her preference is to play MAME games on the laptop. Logitech USB game controllers fit her hands well. Gauntlet is her favorite. I'm soooo proud ...

My friend asked me for advice on upgrading his 17" CRT monitor (1024x768). He just bought a 6 megapixel camera and uses his computer for photos, word processing, and internet. I figure an upgrade would at least be a 19" CRT (running at 1280x960 most of the time) or a 17" LCD (running at 1280x1024 all of the time).

I'm thinking about recommending a 19" CRT because for about $200 he can get a decent Samsung or ViewSonic that can display 1920x1440. I know this is an unusable resolution for most tasks, but I think it would be nice to have this option when viewing/editing large photos or eventually watching 1920x1080i HDTV from his computer's HDTV tuner card (which I'll probably buy for his birthday).

Am I overvaluing the CRT's ability to display 1920x1400 (for photos and HDTV) for only $200?

Here ya go. It's still hella expensive, though.

Go-L doesn't actually make that huge monitor, and are most likely a bunch of frauds. Check out ViewSonic's, Panoram Tech's and 9XMedia's models.

Here are a few links, thou varlet! ;o)

Safety. LCDs are safer to use because they have no electromagnetic radiation.

The only potential emission from any of them that we know may be hazardous is x radiation from CRT-type monitors. It is fair to say that flat-panel LCD monitors will not emit x radiation under any operating condition whereas CRT monitors have the potential for emitting x radiation if the high voltage is raised higher than the CRT is designed to operate at. One might be able to cause a CRT monitor to emit some x radiation by failing a circuit or component, such as the hold-down safety circuit, and misadjusting user and service controls to raise the high voltage.

What's more, LCD panels draw 40 percent less power than similarly sized CRT monitors, produce less heat, and do not emit electromagnetic interference or X-rays (which CRTs do), making them somewhat safer and cheaper to use in the long run.

iTunes won't work for this...what would really be nice is something like iTunes that ran remotely so that I could control it from my laptop ... iTunes is nice, but it is hardly the most advanced jukebox conceivable. There's a lot of room for improvement.

You're right there. Try Media Center - it makes iTunes look pretty weak. It has a web interface, an API interface, and of course a GUI. Best of all, it understand Zones with multiple distinct SPDIF outputs, so you can route different playback streams to different rooms or speaker configurations depending on mood. It also does ASIO playback (full 32-bit internal sound processing) so you have pinpoint control and amazing DSP options. Another thing MC is notable for is its client-server mode: the streaming works across Internet as well as Intranet. I've used it for on-demand streaming of tunes and video coast-to-coast. There is no silly LAN-only limitation.

If you have money to burn you should get an AirPanel controller with something like NetRemote for couch bliss. With less money you should go for a cheap JP1 remote.

There are some good MC user rigs described here, here.

Media Center embedded is also used as the software "glue" for some OEM'd HTPC products: Music Mountain and Cinemar come to mind. MC also understands uPNP, so it's becoming increasingly easy to autodiscover and stream to random devices using uPNP.

Sorry but you are not correct. The 19" Flat Screens do about 100-140W. My Sony G400 19" does about 140W and <1 W in standby.

Samsung Syncmaster 957 MB 19" CRT: 110 W
ViewSonic E90 19" CRT: 100 W
Benq Professional P992 19" CRT: 110W

For under $200, you can get a ViewSonic NextVision N6 box that works with any VGA monitor, does HDTV stuff, has PIP with audio selection, has VGA passthru and switching, S-Video, composite, component, and supports up to 1280x1024 resolution.

It has a shitty remote, though.

Linky.

Lucky for you, While researching Tablet PCs, I stumbled across the Viewsonic airsync V210. It's pretty much exactly what you described.