Monitor upgrading

[chipotle]

When I moved out to California, I didn’t bring any computer monitors with me; at the time I was only using my laptop. When I got a desktop again, I borrowed one of revar’s old monitors and it’s been with me since.

Of course, the monitor world has moved on since then; LCDs are, well, a lot sharper than CRTs, particularly CRTs that are seven or eight years old, with slight coloration issues that resist degaussing and straight lines that you can never quite get truly straight no matter how much you fiddle around with the settings. Buying a new monitor has been on my “things to eventually do” list for a year, particularly after being spoiled by the 1600×1200 monitor that I have at work. The CRT can go to 1600×1200, too, but doing so exacerbates the fuzziness issue, brings down the refresh rate just enough that I’ll eventually get a headache, and so forth. I’m finding this all out because I’m (re-re-)rediscovering the value of having a work desk, even though I do actually connect up my laptop to the monitor and the keyboard, leaving the desktop headless.

Yesterday, I decided to move “eventually” up to “how about now.”

The new monitor that should be on its way is a Dell 2407WFP-HC. Yes, being a Mac guy, I was tempted by the comparable Cinema Display, but Apple can’t even pretend to be competitive on monitors. The Cinema ones look cool, they may have slightly better build quality, but I didn’t pay the $150 goth tax for the black MacBook over the white one and I’m not going to pay the $300 ZOMG brushed metal! tax for the monitor. And while I’d thought some of Dell’s features in the monitor were weird—who’d use a Compact Flash reader built into the side of the display?—I realized, hey, actually I would.

So I’ll report back later for the morbidly interested. This does leave me wondering if I should actually ditch the desktop—it’s increasingly just being used as a server—but I think I’ll hang onto it for now. Those are musings for another post, anyway.

Comments

[smackjackal.livejournal.com]

I've had a Dell 24" monitor for a couple of years now and I have to say, I've been more than a little happy with it. Recently, though, it has annoyed me that the SD reader built into the thing won't read SDHC cards but that's a very minor point to the overall performance I've gotten out of this monster.

Good choice on the monitor!

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

Shiny!! :-)

[mordrul.livejournal.com]

Hot damn, those things are a beauty. It also reminded me that I've been making do with this 19" CRT from Viewsonic for about, ohh... 8 years now I think. Fortunately it's still working flawlessly, other than the intense amount of the anti-glare coating that I've rubbed and scratched off over the years, which makes for some very aggravating issues when the light hits it just right. But that's only when I have a window behind it. Still and all, I've been giving serious consideration to picking up an LCD of my own sometime in the relatively near future -- if I can find one that can do games worth a damn.

[tikaani.livejournal.com]

When I finally got LCD I bought a Dell 2005FPW, went well in the Frankenstein environment I have here, and being able to buy the speaker bar for it saved me a little desk space (I'm really cramped). Now that the G4 fried itself and I've gone 100% ThinkPad it even matches :>