So THAT'S What My Desk Looks Like

Two weeks ago, I wanted more space on my desk. I was looking for a wider screen, flat panel monitor. I had a conventional 18” monitor with the Dell computer I bought 2 ½ years ago. I visited Cnet.com looking for recommendations. This LCD model popped out immediately. It had great specs and features, including a wider screen and 3 year warranty. Buy.com was showing it for $229, and was subject to a 1% additional rebate when going though ebates.com.

I knew that Buy.com had distribution centers near to Chicago, so I chose standard shipping. The item still came the following day after I ordered it on my lunch hour.

Set up was simple. The hardest part was removing my old monitor. I snapped the new monitor into the base, connected the serial cord and plugged it in and the power cord into an outlet. Total weight was 14.5 lbs. While I am using the serial connection, it has an available DVI (Digital Video Interface) connection, which seems to be the wave of the future for video resolution. It did not come with a DVI cable.

Configuring was easy as well. The monitor auto-configured itself. All I did was go into control panel.display.settings tab and set the size to 1680 x 1050. I ended up tweaking the brightness so that it was not as bright. I’m generally using this for text and so I chose the text setting. You can specify auto-configuration options favoring standard, text, graphics, movie, or user-configurable basic settings.

The result much more margins on screen through use of the great screen size. It is easy to see what I am working on. Even on the text setting, graphics look great, too, particularly lead sheets generated on screen by Band In A Box software when I practice. Plus, the increase in space on my desk is incredible. The base is around 7 x 8 inches. It gives more space for paper documents and accessories. I will get a monitor stand, so I can view the monitor at eye height when sitting and also to get a bit of storage space.

The monitor comes with a 3 year parts, labor and backlight warranty.

This monitor has been an outstanding buy. I recommend it highly.

Selected specs:
20" wide-screen TFT LCD
- 1680 x 1050 native resolution
- 600:1 contrast ratio
- 300 cd/m2 brightness
- 8ms response time

Thanks for reading. God bless!

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