Very good performance at an excellent price!!!!!
Written: Oct 24 '06 (Updated Oct 30 '06)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
|
Pros: 19" lcd, price, good quality picture, lightweight even with stand
Cons: stand not very flexible ...
The Bottom Line: If you are looking for a cheap LCD and find a good deal on the Q9b, take it, you won't be sorry.
|
|
|
| junebugz's Full Review: ViewSonic Optiquest Q9b 19" Flat Panel LCD Monitor... |
This review has been updated!!!
So there I was getting ready to do something very important online ... (set my Fantasy Football lineup) ... when my cheap already half-broken eMachines monitor decided to fade into oblivion. Well, it was time to go monitor shopping anyway I suppose.
Well, I decided to look at Staples.com to see if by chance they had it there. BINGO! The 19" Optiquest Q9b was online for $149.99 after the rebate. Sold. I hopped on upromise.com and logged onto Staples.com so I could even get college credit for the purchase. Because of the price, it obviously qualified for free shipping and two days later I was back in business.
The base of the monitor doesn't give extreme flexibility but it does move some and is very adequate for average users. It claims to have viewing angles of 150 degrees horizontally and 125 degrees vertically. I really haven't messed around with any of the settings quite yet, because I have been satisfied with the default settings for now. I popped in a DVD to see how it would play and it worked great.
Here are some of the specs of the Q9b ...
- 19" TFT active matrix SXGA LCD ... there is no digital hookup to this ... since my pc is probably not going to be replaced for another few years, this does not bother me because my monitor port is analog anyway.
- 1280x1024 optimal resolution
- 700:1 contrast type
- 8ms response time ... most "budget buy" lcd's are only 10ms so the Q9b is faster than most other low end monitor (the Westinghouse monitors were 10ms I believe)
- RGB analog input signal only ... no digital
- Works with MAC's G3/G4/G5
- 15-pin mini D-sub connector
- 36 Watts of power consumption ... meets energy star standards
- Various controls which include ... auto image adjust, brightness, contrast, color adjuster, vertical and horizontal positioning, language, clock, phase, recall, and volume
- 2 speakers ... which I have not tested, I have separate speakers so I did not even hook up the cable which came with the monitor. i am sure the speakers are adequate but also nothing to write home about either.
- 1 year limited warranty on parts and backlight
Overall, I have had the monitor for probably close to 2 weeks now and have been extremely happy with it. It takes up much less space with a bigger screen than the previous bulky 17" CRT I had. While the screen picture is not as "precise" as a CRT, it is more than suitable as far as I am concerned. I popped in a Fast and Furious DVD and it played great, also one of those baby DVD's and it did wonderful again. I did try playing a recorded DVD ... a friend had recorded a few World Cup games for me last summer and then put them onto DVD's I game him. Granted, they weren't the highest quality DVD and he probably didn't have the highest quality recorder, but the picture was noticeably "digital" in my opinion. However, I can say the same thing for my 27" tv in the basement as well when I watch it on there. There are not any dead pixels on the screen and the navigation menu for the controls is easy to use, however, since the button is black on a black frame, it is not easy to find if you do not have lights on. The monitor and stand are very lightweight ... I think it is between 12-13 pounds with the stand attached, certainly easy to move about the desk if needed. So far, I do not have any dislikes about the monitor.
I know the rebate offered when I got it is now expired, but it will probably be back out and even better around Christmas time. So if you see it and need a monitor but don't want to spend hundreds of $$ ... buy it.
Happy hunting.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 150
Operating System: Windows
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
junebugz
|
|
Location: Mansfield, OH
Reviews written: 73
Trusted by: 2 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.