Sorry Sony, this one's no good
Written: Jul 15 '01
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Looks cool, Sony picture quality, digital and analog inputs.
Cons: Price, cheap cable supplied, speed.
The Bottom Line: A superb screen with a bad video cable and a slow update rate. Fix these two problems and add some multimedia, then we'll talk.
|
|
|
| tedpostula's Full Review: Sony SDM-M81 18 inch LCD Monitor |
This monitor has great picture quality. After using it for a week at 1280x1024 I found it very difficult to go back to my old 19 inch Sony CRT. There is simply no comparison between CRT monitors and LCDs.
The Good:
The picture quality is very high and overall the image is sharp from edge to edge. There are two inputs (one analog VGA15 and one digital DVI24) so you could have two sources hooked up, or you could wait until DVI becomes popular and upgrade to that. I used this monitor with an analog video card, the Matrox G400, so I can't report on how the monitor works with a digital connection. I was very impressed with the controls, the menu settings were easy to understand. The stand is another nice feature. It rotates and bends to achieve the perfect viewing position. You can put this monitor within 4 inches of the wall, just amazing. The speakers built into the monitor are on par with the standard desk speakers your computer might have come with. Having them built into the monitor saves a nice portion of desk space.
The Bad:
I noticed some slight discoloration around the edges of the monitor when I first had it hooked up. The monitor comes with a VGA15 to DVI24 adapter cable. I believe that DVI video cards come with their own cable, that's why Sony only provides an analog cable. Unfortunately, the supplied cable is rather thin and not well shielded. I swapped the cable out for a thicker VGA to VGA cable and the monitor's quality improved noticably. Now the picture quality was outstanding. I was very surprised that Sony would make such a high quality monitor for over $1000 and then try to save a few bucks by including a cheap monitor cable that would lower the picture quality.
Another subtle irritation was the slow update of the screen. Most LCD panels do not have the response rate of a CRT (this is not to be confused with refresh rate, that's something else entirely). On this monitor, the screen updated very slowly, to the point where I could see mouse trails if I looked for them. This mean that there was a subtle delay between when I moved the mouse and when the cursor would move on the screen. This bothered me but if you are less picky than it may not be a problem. If you plan to play fast-action games like Quake on this monitor prepare to be frustrated.
I think Sony definitely should have built a video input, if not a tv-tuner, into this monitor. Although the Samsung 170MP is an inch smaller, I preferred it in every way to the Sony. The Samsung has better picture quality with a good VGA cable, and lots of multimedia features (PIP, TV, S-Video).
The Conclusion:
I feel bad not recommending this monitor because I really love Sony products. Unfortunately this one is far below their usual level of quality. When I spend $1200 on a monitor, I expect a decent cable. I also don't expect to see mouse trails because the monitor didn't update quick enough. Considering that decent 18inch LCD panels from other brands have dropped to about $1000, Sony could definitely charge a $200 premium for the Sony name IF it were couple with great quality. Unfortunately this monitor falls short.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 1200
Operating System: Windows
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
tedpostula
|
|
Location: Atlanta, GA
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Computer science and business student at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.