Slashdot Mirror
Shopping for a New Monitor?
Cecil asks: "Well, I've looked through the reviews and found several good displays. The problem is that quality can vary drastically from unit to unit. Just because the reviewer got a good screen doesn't mean you will. A lot of people say that it's a bad idea to buy a display device sight-unseen and from experience I have to agree. There are the big chain stores that will have monitors on display, but they will typically only have the 'value' models. So, what is your monitor buying process? What do you do to make sure you get the sort of high-quality display that'll last you through the next couple hardware upgrades?"
Doesn't KDS normally provide a three-year warranty? In fact, I thought most monitor manufacturers did. Even the cruddy companies that go out of business after only two years will offer a three year warranty.
Out of curiousity, do you truncate all your lines to 80 characters because you have a 15" monitor? ;-)
Option 2)
steps 1 through 37 involve walking through a lot of classrooms.
38) buy bolt cutters, or small torch
39) wait for right moment
40)run
41a) hook up to computer
41b) make one phone call
42b) tell self bail money is better spent on monitors.
I try to search for b and receive this message :
Results 1 - 10 of about 249,000,000. Search took 0.04 seconds
Hem ! I'm sorr but your sig is outdated !
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
In a couple of years, I'll be able to say "I was using Google when there were only 65,400,000 pages for 'b'". I'm sure you'll be jealous of me then.
Seriously, who tints their monitor? Why would thoy do that? Doing something like that have never even crossed my mind. Is he of the same crowd that puts the super-spoilers on Hondas? Or is he of the same crowd that uses the CD drive to hold his drink? Did he simply not know of the brightness control? Curious minds wish to know.
Careful there! You've just disturbed the cheap monitor racket!
Buy monitor, tint poorly, return, have a friend buy it, sell on black market, buy guns and drugs. I'd watch my back if I were you.
...
You might think 9 megapixel is overkill, but I find the visual quality more than adequate.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
The only time I've ever seen an LCD with text that looks "like an Atari 2600" is if the LCD is not in the proper resolution.
Only? Not even when you run Stella, a VCS emulator?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Buying a monitor.
.3 is thick, .26 is good, .25 is fine, clear, precise, and .24 beautiful, unavailable and expensive.)
If you're worried about unit to unit variance, discuss, and if you feel it's necessary, get in writing, that your shop will let you bring the unit back if you're not happy. Don't buy from the elcheapo that is on the TV, buy from somewhere you or your friends have done good business before.
I like the reviews (and the classifieds) from this magazine: australian pc magazine. They have good list of what to look for and why.
Benq TFT review
I bought a Sony 17" LCD SDM S71R. It has no speakers or usb port. Sony wanted nearly $1500 aus for it, my local pc shop wanted $1395 for it, but I got it at mates rates from the same people that supply most of my friends and my work for $1329. The shop I think likely to be most difficult with the returns would have been the sony shop, parking for starters, a complete nightmare, but they're also very inflexible, and couldn't budge on the price even though they were the most expensive.
Of course I found several other brands at better prices later, but not so sure about their specs. And the main pain is about a month after you buy, all better specs come out anyway.
Need to pay attention to the
refresh rate (the higher the better 75 and up...)
native resolution (on 17" should be able to do 1280 x 1024 and still be able to read it)
pixel pitch (this comes under a lot of different names, the smaller the better eg
Lots of LCDs on test
I also like Mitsubishi CRT monitors. My first one used to deguass by itself, but I got it replaced. My Mum has never had any problems with hers.
I like the LCDs better, because I don't need a crane to lift one and I can fit more on to the screen and my desk. The Sony unit is brilliant. I got it out of the box sight unseen (although I did look at one similar in the sony shop). Not a single dead pixel anywhere. The main problem was finding drivers to work it with win98 and my graphics card. But it is happy now.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
I bought my Eizo 19" about a year ago and now we are planning to get married soon. I don't know if local laws permits this but who cares...
You don't know what you don't know.
Dig in dumpsters until I find a monitor that somewhat works, and dosent have coffee grounds on it. Us this one until I spill beer on it. Repeat process.
I deleted my sig years ago.
Why not... plenty of people call themselves "software engineers" and use Visual Basic.
Funny you guys say Wal Mart.
When my friend and I lived in Germany, he bought a generic 19". It worked fine until he misspelt NVIDIA in the X config file. blew the monitor.
So we went back to the store to get a new one. He only had that monitor for a few days. The store said "contact the maker" and showed us to the door. (This is not uncommon in Germany)
He was pissed. So we saw Wal Mart across the street (Wal Mart bought out the German store Werthauf back in '98 or '99) We walked in and said that we bought the monitor here. The guy wanted to see a reciet, but we had none. So then he tells us that he cannot give us our money back, but will do an exchange.
Walked out with a new monitor. BTW, that old monitor in still on the storage shelf at walmart, a year later.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Did you know that the technology has been refined enough to eliminate the horizontal lines totally? The only reason they kept them, is because they'd become part of the trinitron brand.
the pun is mightier than the sword