T
The poster formerly known as Colleyville Alan
After having a 20" Dell/Sony Trinitron for the past six years, I decided to
go with a flat panel monitor. The CRT had good picture quality, though it
may have faded with six years of use, or perhaps it was my eyes that were
doing the fading. But the old beast took up too much room and was a pain to
move. When I moved from DFW to Austin last May, we stayed in temporary
housing for two weeks. I had to carry that sucker up two flights of stairs
when we moved in and down two flights when we moved out. At age 52, it was
more of a struggle than it was when I got the thing at age 46.
Aside from the weight, it was so deep that I had it at an angle on my little
computer desk and had to crane my neck to the right to view it. Since I
have arthritis in my neck, including a lovely bone spur, the extra strain on
my neck was also a reason to think about a new unit. The decision finally
got made when I talked with a cabinet maker about making me a computer
desk/bookcase/reading desk combo unit. That is just now getting started, so
I decided to pull the trigger and get the deal done.
I looked at the reviews on Toms Hardware and decided that the ViewSonic
VP930b or the Samsung 970 (IIRC) were my two best options. I went with the
ViewSonic as the Samsung's price seemed to be all over the map from around
$300 to $550 depending upon the vendor and the low price range was not by
vendors with whom I was familiar. The ViewSonic was available in a fairly
narrow price range from many reputable dealers, so I went with that.
Inititally, I can say that the picture quality is decent. Perhaps not quite
as good as a CRT, but pretty close. Of course I had to play around with the
factory settings, I tried my own contrast, color temp, etc. I tried
lowering the contrast a bit and warming up the color temp as well. I set
the color temperature to 5400k rather than the 6500k standard as that looked
a little too blue, but when I looked at color pictures, skin tones look too
warm. So I changed that back.
Also, I had a mostly white background in front of me as I began typing this
post in Outlook Express. The center appeared a bit brighter and it gets
darker near the edges. Perhaps the overhead lighting was affecting this to
some extent, but I tried resetting most of the stuff to the factory defaults
and that works much better. Even with CRT's, I have always felt that
working against a white background gave me a sense that the center was
brighter than the edges, but the warm temp settings and the lowered contrast
that I tried made this much worse.
At any rate, the ability to have the monitor directly in front of me is a
huge advantage and my neck already knows the difference! Plus, you can
adjust the viewing angle and height to a much greater extent than you could
with a CRT. I know this is no big news to most of the posters here, but I
have used CRTs for the last 20+ years and only replaced my work computer's
screen with an LCD when I moved from DFW a few months ago. That LCD model
(an HP) does not have much adjustibility. But this ViewSonic can move
vertically about 5 inches. and tilt a fair amount.
When I saw the proposed design of my computer desk from the cabinetmaker, he
had decided upon an 18" height between the desktop and the bottom of the
bookshelves above it. I was not sure if the ViewSonic would fit under the
shelves, so I checked the dimensions at various web sites. I found the
height listed as 16.4", 18.2", and 21.5" depending upon the site. Well, I
got out my tape measure and found that the top of the screen can be adjusted
as low as about 14 1/2" and as high as 19 1/2". I am keeping it at the
lower part of that range, about 15 1/2", and so the 18" height limitation is
no problem for me.
I had thought about going with an even bigger monitor, but this size is very
good for me. A 24" monitor would have me moving my head around too much and
with the neck pain I have, I wanted to minimize that. The resolution is
good. Some LCDs have a USB hub built into them and that would have been
nice, but it is not that much of a concern. I only hook up a couple of
things to a USB hub and it is small enough to fit behind the monitor in any
event.
So at the moment, I am happy with my purchase and I'll see how it works out
over time.
Alan
go with a flat panel monitor. The CRT had good picture quality, though it
may have faded with six years of use, or perhaps it was my eyes that were
doing the fading. But the old beast took up too much room and was a pain to
move. When I moved from DFW to Austin last May, we stayed in temporary
housing for two weeks. I had to carry that sucker up two flights of stairs
when we moved in and down two flights when we moved out. At age 52, it was
more of a struggle than it was when I got the thing at age 46.
Aside from the weight, it was so deep that I had it at an angle on my little
computer desk and had to crane my neck to the right to view it. Since I
have arthritis in my neck, including a lovely bone spur, the extra strain on
my neck was also a reason to think about a new unit. The decision finally
got made when I talked with a cabinet maker about making me a computer
desk/bookcase/reading desk combo unit. That is just now getting started, so
I decided to pull the trigger and get the deal done.
I looked at the reviews on Toms Hardware and decided that the ViewSonic
VP930b or the Samsung 970 (IIRC) were my two best options. I went with the
ViewSonic as the Samsung's price seemed to be all over the map from around
$300 to $550 depending upon the vendor and the low price range was not by
vendors with whom I was familiar. The ViewSonic was available in a fairly
narrow price range from many reputable dealers, so I went with that.
Inititally, I can say that the picture quality is decent. Perhaps not quite
as good as a CRT, but pretty close. Of course I had to play around with the
factory settings, I tried my own contrast, color temp, etc. I tried
lowering the contrast a bit and warming up the color temp as well. I set
the color temperature to 5400k rather than the 6500k standard as that looked
a little too blue, but when I looked at color pictures, skin tones look too
warm. So I changed that back.
Also, I had a mostly white background in front of me as I began typing this
post in Outlook Express. The center appeared a bit brighter and it gets
darker near the edges. Perhaps the overhead lighting was affecting this to
some extent, but I tried resetting most of the stuff to the factory defaults
and that works much better. Even with CRT's, I have always felt that
working against a white background gave me a sense that the center was
brighter than the edges, but the warm temp settings and the lowered contrast
that I tried made this much worse.
At any rate, the ability to have the monitor directly in front of me is a
huge advantage and my neck already knows the difference! Plus, you can
adjust the viewing angle and height to a much greater extent than you could
with a CRT. I know this is no big news to most of the posters here, but I
have used CRTs for the last 20+ years and only replaced my work computer's
screen with an LCD when I moved from DFW a few months ago. That LCD model
(an HP) does not have much adjustibility. But this ViewSonic can move
vertically about 5 inches. and tilt a fair amount.
When I saw the proposed design of my computer desk from the cabinetmaker, he
had decided upon an 18" height between the desktop and the bottom of the
bookshelves above it. I was not sure if the ViewSonic would fit under the
shelves, so I checked the dimensions at various web sites. I found the
height listed as 16.4", 18.2", and 21.5" depending upon the site. Well, I
got out my tape measure and found that the top of the screen can be adjusted
as low as about 14 1/2" and as high as 19 1/2". I am keeping it at the
lower part of that range, about 15 1/2", and so the 18" height limitation is
no problem for me.
I had thought about going with an even bigger monitor, but this size is very
good for me. A 24" monitor would have me moving my head around too much and
with the neck pain I have, I wanted to minimize that. The resolution is
good. Some LCDs have a USB hub built into them and that would have been
nice, but it is not that much of a concern. I only hook up a couple of
things to a USB hub and it is small enough to fit behind the monitor in any
event.
So at the moment, I am happy with my purchase and I'll see how it works out
over time.
Alan