I finally broke down and bought an LCD flat panel monitor today. Best Buy has a 17" KOGI monitor (with built in speakers) on sale for $329 after $70 rebate. I was hesitant because, well, who the hell is KOGI. But I read all the reviews on Amazon.com and they were all positive and highly recommended this monitor.
I decided to throw down the cash and pick this thing up. I must say, I am VERY impressed. I have a 17" Sony Trinitron, which I love to death, but it takes up quite a bit if space on my desk because it is so deep. Let me tell you, you do not know how much space your CRT takes up on your desk until you get one of these LCD monitors. I feel like my desk space has doubled. Its an awsome feeling. The picture is not as sharp as my Trinitron, I am not gonna lie, but it is still really sharp, especially with Clear Type turned on. Can’t comment on the speakers since I have a 5.1 setup already, but I am sure they suck. I watched a couple videos on here and there is no noticable ghosting.
Anyway, I just want to spread the word that this cheap 17" monitor on sale right now is a pretty good deal. If you needed speakers it would probably be even better, but I actually wish there were no built in speakers, but its not biggie.
You just DONT know how much space you could have on your desk…
What a coincidence. I bought a monitor from Amazon today. I went for the Envision EN-7100 17" LCD High-Resolution Color Display. $349.99 after the $60.00 mail-in rebate. Four-and-a-half stars rating.
My 17" Gateway monitor is nice, but as Stinkpalm says, it takes up a lot of space on my table. Entirely too much space. Besides, it’s had a problem for the past many months. It will get very bright. Sometimes it will flicker. But usually it just goes dark as if it’s in sleep mode. I have to whack it in a certain spot on one side to get it to go completely black (as if the power is off), then turn off the power, then power back up. I’m getting very tired of that.
So now I’ll be getting a new monitor that doesn’t demand violence, and which will take up a lot less space.
After having used it for a day now I would have to say that my only complaint is that the contrast is not the same as a CRT monitor. I have seen alot of flat panels and they all have this problem. Its not bad, just gonna take getting used to. Like when you have dark blue against a bright white background the blue kinda looks black unless you know its blue before you see it. In order to rectify the contrast I have to drop the brightness down a few notches, which isn’t a big deal either.
All in all I like it. I think I may be hooked on them now, kinda like my wireless keyboard/mouse I got 4 years ago. Yeah a regular keyboard and mouse works fine, but once you go wireless you can’t ever go back. I dont think I will ever be able to give that desk space back to my CRT.
How different are the LCD monitors from say, a laptop’s display. I have a Dell Inspiron laptop that I use as my primary computer, and I must say, I’ve been impressed. I had reservations as to whether it would be practical, but the screen while not as big as my 17" Trinitron was, is very clear and reasonably bright. Also, it’s nice to get away from that CRT flicker.
THe only thing I don’t like is the keyboard. Perhaps I’ll eventually start using an external one, but for as little as I type (save for message boards and email) it’s not a big deal. (I’m a student, but all my homework is in Hebrew, and I havent bothered learning to type it yet)
I’ve got an NEC 1712 LCD 17" monitor. I love it. It has the viewable area of a 19" CRT. I have a 19" CRT at work, and the thing is gigantic. Plus, the LCD just seems to have a ‘softer’ light. More pleasant to look at for long periods of time. More like looking at paper than watching a TV. I like that.
Like I said earlier, I too had a 17" Trinitron (which I loved) before I got this LCD. I am not gonna lie, there is a difference. The picture is definitely better on the Trinitron. The colors have better seperation on the Trinitron. But the space freed up by having an LCD monitor is worth the sacrifice.
LCDs by their nature of being a matrix of transistors are generally more optically “perfect” than CRTs and are easier on the eyes for long term viewing of relatively static images like docs. CRTs are still the standard for color purity and the speedy refresh response required to render high speed moving images accurately with no shadowing or ghosting, but eventualy LCDs will catch up. The very expensive, larger LCD HDTVs now coming out around 5,000 - 6,000 show that high color purity and speedy response LCD screens are technically possible… at a price.
I now have two LCD monitors, both NEC (17" & 15"). The 17" one I got first; it did take a bit of getting used to. I had to keep on adjusting the color in Adobe Gamma, because I do a lot of Photoshop work. But eventually I got used to it, and got the settings where I liked them.
I knew that LCD (especially a VGA LCD, which is what I have) are not “there” yet for exacting color work, but I do mostly web work so I figured it would be OK. And so far it is.
I was prompted to go with LCD after reading an article about them in a graphics magazine. My reasons are as follows:
Low radiation. No evvvilllllll radiation!
The picture tube (or whatever you call it) lasts longer. I had dealt with fading CRTs, I hope that my LCD will keep plugging away much longer.
Not as much heat coming from them.
Don’t use as much energy.
I couldn’t face trying to lug a heavy CRT monitor down to my new “computer cubbyhole” (read: dungeon).
Small footprint. They don’t take up as much room on my desk. Wonderful!
I hear that the higher-end LCD montors (Apple Cinema Display) are good enough for very picky color graphics work, so LCDs are definitely coming around for graphics work.
handy: I did that a long time ago. It’s something inside of the monitor. It might just be a bit of dust or something, but I’d rather have an LCD monitor than trouble-shoot this one.
In other news, I got an e-mail from Amazon saying they were having trouble processing my credit card. It has very little on it at the moment! I called the credit card issuer and was told that they had not received a transaction from Amazon. “Probably just a bad connection.” I clicked the “retry credit card” button at Amazon and sent them an e-mail saying there is no reason why the transaction shouldn’t go through. (And this is the same card I’ve been using with them for a while.) The card issuer made a note to expect a valid transaction that is in a greater amount than I usually spend at Amazon.
Mine is probably the cheapest priced 17" LCD you can get, even online, and it DOES have speakers built in. I am not sure what htey sound like though because I haven’t hooked them up because I have a 5.1 speaker set that kills what these could possibly sound like.
You can still get this monitor on Amazon for 350 bucks I Think. Its got another name stamped on it but it is still made by KOGI. They may even still have it at BBuy for 329.
It has very little on it at the moment! I called the credit card issuer and was told that they had not received a transaction from Amazon. “Probably just a bad connection.” I clicked the “retry credit card” button at Amazon and sent them an e-mail saying there is no reason why the transaction shouldn’t go through. (And this is the same card I’ve been using with them for a while.) The card issuer made a note to expect a valid transaction that is in a greater amount than I usually spend at Amazon.