Princeton Graduate - Very Bright Indeed
Written: Aug 17 '05
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Pros: Bright, inexpensive (in my case, downright cheap), useful, wall mountable
Cons: Bright black levels, no color or correction adjustment
The Bottom Line: Desktop real estate is getting cheaper. Why not get some?
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| nad_masters's Full Review: Princeton Digital LCD1910 19 inch LCD Monitor |
I wasn't planning on it, but I found myself with credit card in hand while on Buy.com's site. Hell, I didn't even get to use my card - I signed up for Buy.com's credit card. And in 5 minutes, I was an owner of a Princeton LCD1910 19" LCD flat panel monitor.
How did it happen? It was the fact that there was a $70 mail in rebate, combined with $30 off your first purchase when you sign up for Buy.com's credit card. A whole $100 off the $320 price tag AND free shipping, bringing the whole thing to $220 (no shipping fee!), and you may find yourself in an e-impulse purchase as well.
My experience was then not with the monitor but with Buy.com itself (which I will have to write up in a future ePinions). However, the gist of it was that it was back ordered, and when it came it was 3 weeks after I clicked the SUBMIT button, there was a dead pixel. After exchanging it, it took another week for it to come, making it a full month. The rebate expired, unfortunately. And with the exchange, they actually TOOK OFF the $30 discount I had when I used the card!
There is a bright side to this story: Buy.com (after some stern talking to) was able to credit my card for the $100 I would have eventually received if I would have. The brighter side? The new "invoice" they gave me with the exchanged unit had a later date (so true I missed the last rebate), and they were running a new $70 rebate that I was eligible for! So the reward for making me wait a whole month? A savings of $170, bringing the grand total (out of pocket) of $150!
Of course, I won't let this amazing price affect my review. Let’s go on with what this monitor can do, shall we?
Out of Box
Think of it as a large vertical pizza box. I have seen LCD monitor boxes before (hell, I used to work at Best Buy), but it never ceases to amaze some of my family members who caught a glimpse of the package as it came via UPS.
It was a bit difficult pulling the monitor out. The form-fitting Styrofoam was tight, and I was afraid I would damage the delicate LCD display if I tugged the wrong way. Fortunately, I was able to have someone tug at the box while I tugged at the monior/styrofoam combo.
A simple (and large) poster of how to set up the monitor was included, as well as the AC cord, a mini-jack to mini-jack cable, and the D-Sub video cable. A warrantee card, Princeton promo ad, and a specification pamphlet was also in the box. No color profile or drivers were in the package.
Setting Up
Setting the monitor up wasn't rocket science, and didn't even require a person with decent mechanic skills to look at the startup guide to know how to attach the base to the monitor. Taking the base off, however, took some minor research. This info will come in handy when you need to pack the monitor up again (as I had to do with the RMA mentioned earlier).
The plastic bag that wraps the LCD display itself states that you will need to run a resolution of 1280x1024 to get optimal results. Of course, it is well known that LCD flat panel monitors such as this one have a native resolution. Running at the display's native resolution will avoid up scaling of lower resolution to the native resolution. This "stretching" process actually makes the image look worse. Depending on the methods used by the manufacturer, the results can look blurry, pixilated, or just fine (though looking just fine is rare).
You do set up the monitor just as you would any monitor. The power circuitry is built into the monitor so you do not have to deal with a seperate power brick. A definate plus in my book. A standard computer AC cord is all that is needed. That is good, too, since they are available in most electronics or computer stores should you loose it. Better yet (if you are like me), you probably have hundreds of them laying around the house.
The LCD1910 only have an analog D-Sub (15-pin VGA) connector as it's only video feed. This is just fine for most people, as DVI is still considered a "high-end" standard. Acer has begun including DVI interfaces for their monitors in this price range, however, so competitors are being fierce in the affordable 19" LCD market. Connect the D-Sub video cable to the monitor, and the other end to your computer's video output (some are seperate cards, some are built into the motherboard), and you are all set. When in doubt, just plug it to the connector where you disconnected your old monitor from (assuming you are buying the LCD1910 to replace an existing monitor).
If you have your own LCD mount for whatever reason (wall mount, ceiling mout, etc), you're in luck. The LCD1910 can do away with its included base since it has the standard four holes for aftermarket mounts. Have fun watching RSS tickers while in bed looking at the ceiling!
Once you have the base installed or mounted and set up, you would probably mess with the OSD menu to set up brightness and contrast. The menu is a bit hard to get used to and can be frustrating when you need to access a particular setting in a hurry. However, it is relatively simple with very little to play around with.
The volume control for the puny built-in speakers are the same buttons you use to adjust other settings. As long as you don't hit the Menu button first, the adjust buttons (up/down) are used to control the volume.
Image Quality
When you first turn it on, the first thing you notice is that it is overly bright! You may go blind with the default settings. I typically turn brightness down all the way down to 0 and have my contrast set at 50 for me to consider even aiming my eyes towards the general direction of the LCD1910. In an office environment with bright fluorescent lights, this may be a good setting, since it will look bright and clear. Unfortunately, in my dimly lit home office, it is over powering.
Even after playing around with the contrast and brightness settings, I was never satisfied with the results. And later, I found out why (though the problem is not correctable). There are no deformities as there are with CRT monitors, so windows are perfectly straight, as well computer line art. This is typical of LCD monitors, as they have discrete pixels.
Color reproduction isn't as good as I liked, and I could pick it up right away. There are no color settings on the monitor or warm/cool color corrections. And for the weirdness I first felt/saw mentioned above? I found out that the color reproduction attributed to this, as well as the black level. The black level of the monitor was still bright, making it sort of dark gray. I found this out when using Displaymate to display shades of gray, and found myself squinting hard and STILL not able to differentiate the first few shades of white, and the last few shades of black.
This is not a huge problem for me at all, as it would be mostly used as my second display. All I use it for is to display real-time info of my computer's health (CPU temps, CPU load, memory usage, etc.), and if anything, general Windows usage (surfing the net, typing up a Word document, etc). I will NEVER use it for gaming or videos. I find it useful to have my main monitor for games, and being able to monitor my background programs and even my PC health status while gaming or watching a movie on my main monitor.
Testing the LCD1910 with video did produce some interesting results. Although there is no perceptible motion blurring, you do get to see a lot of artifacts from DVD and DivX movies. If there are any imperfection in the video, this monitor will show it. This is mostly because of the bright black level issue. Any dark scenes, you can see gray with blocks in it. When there is a shade of a single color in the movie, you can see blocks and artifacts there. If you look hard enough on your TV while playing DVDs (depending on good your DVD player is), you can see these artifacts sometimes too. But you'd have to look VERY hard to find them. This monitor shows you everything that is wrong with digital video compression and technology so much so, you may wish that DVDs were never the standard for movies. Perhaps HDTV, HD-DVD, and/or Blu-Ray (high definition digital video in general) will hide these imperfections better.
Sound
Ha ha ha... you must be joking. Do you really want to know? Of course you do - this is what reviews are for, right? Okay, well, it's almost non-existent. I mean really - it doesn't even get loud enough for me to determine if the sound quality was acceptable. SO that means it's not at all acceptable!
With the Windows volume control mixer all the way up and the LCD1910's volume control turned completely up, the sound barely fills the personal space between the user and the monitor. Even changing the source to my VERY loud and VERY clear iRiver hard drive MP3 player, and turning the volume all the way up on that as well did not produce any sound louder than what a mouse in pain may emit.
I always look at the bright side of things, so I guess the best use of the built-in speakers is for cramped offices and cubical environments with your neighbors that do not appreciate your kind of music. Even better for "system beeps" that are already pre-muffled.
Conclusion
Overall, I was not very impressed by Princeton's offering. If I would have paid full price, even though $320 for a 19" LCD is already considered good, I would have returned it have my hard-earned money back in my pockets. At $150 though, I find it great as a second monitor that doesn't take up much space for someone who already has a nice high-end CRT monitor. This setup is perfect for gaming, video editing, and other visually-intensive activities, while offloading not-so visually intensive info to a nice, cheap, and spacious 19" LCD monitor for surfing, writing, and stats monitoring.
For the average user, it may also be just fine, since most people I know don't really use their computers for watching DVD movies (and never heard of DivX). They rarely play games, and even did, they may not notice the light black levels without a reference point (like another monitor side by side to make a drastic comparison).
However, one thing I do notice with the "average" user - they hate the blurry low-resolution when paired up with a high resolution LCD, but hate the "small fonts" when running in the monitor's native resolution. They deal with it in two ways: just deal with the blurry up scaled low-res or just deal with the small fonts.
There is a possible medium: native resolution with larger system fonts. You can set this up in the Display Properties in Windows. However, this still causes some strange effect for some users not used to the "higher resolution means more desktop space" concept. Such as programs that take up the full screen at 800x600 will now look weird at a higher resolution because it only takes up a small corner when maximized. I had someone who rather deal with the blurry screen than to deal with having all that extra empty space when their app didn't really have the need for that space (and only presented info in the top right corner at).
Monitor...good? Depends on how you look at it and what you intend on using it, as stated above.
For me, it was a good buy.com (doh!).
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 319.99
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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Epinions.com ID:
nad_masters
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Location: Chicago, IL, USA
Reviews written: 548
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If you mind is in the gutter, where are your hands?
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