You reckon 19" budget monitors are rubbish?
Written: Jul 05 '03 (Updated Jul 05 '03)
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Pros: Price to quality ratio, its a Philips
Cons: Minor quirk that I only experienced once
The Bottom Line: If you want quality and size on a tight budget, the Philips 109S4 is your best bet. The best feature set of them all.
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| sanjayschrapel's Full Review: Philips SoHo 109S40 19 inch CRT Monitor |
Introduction
Back in late 2000, I bought a HP Vectra PC with a P3 800 MHz, a 15 GB hard disk, 128 MB RAM and a HP 9300 series CD writer (that cost me a cool $400 in itself). I spent so much on this system that I couldn’t afford a new monitor with it, so I kept my Diamond View 1550 15” CRT monitor. This was all good, but a few months ago I found that the monitor would go a blue tint at certain times. Mitsubishi advised me that it would be the VGA cable and because that was connected to the monitor permanently, I had little choice but to upgrade my monitor. That’s when my father said he could get cheap monitors at wholesale prices from his work, so I asked him to order a 17” Flat CRT monitor (I wasn’t fussed about the brand), but I certainly didn’t want a cheap 19” non-flat. Three weeks later he brought home a 19” Philips 109S4 CRT monitor. AND IT WASN’T FLAT!!!
My major gripe with 19 inch non-flat monitors in general is the fact that their quality is absolutely $#!t. Their colour reproduction is wrong, they only support low resolutions and their settings give me migraines. Too bright or dim, too flickery, and just too darn crap.
He brought it home and I really needed to use my computer that night so I rushed out to the car straightaway and brought it in. It was a huge box, but I managed to bring it in (hey, I’m only 13, my muscles haven’t fully developed yet). Then I took it out of its box, plugged it all in and turned the system on. I am now willing to swallow all my words about cheap non-flat 19 inch CRTs.
Installation
I read about these Philips monitors in a copy of Australian PC World, and they gave it a pretty good wrap. So already I was feeling better. Anyway, I logged into Windows 2000 and figured that I wouldn’t bother installing the software (the monitor was actually recognised as a PHILIPS109S4 monitor, not as a “plug ‘n’ play monitor” as many are). Then I set the monitor to 1024x768, 75 Hz and 16 bit colour, and began using the monitor. Installation: Plug in the VGA and power. No need to add water or stir.
Ease of use
The monitor has an OSD which can only be described as divine. It is laid out in a list fashion, with horizontal adjustment, vertical adjustment, language and moire all listed. Select horizontal, and you get two bars, one for size and the other for position. The OSD is navigated via up, down, left, right and OK buttons, and they are easy to press.
Features
There isn’t really much you can say about the monitor here. I haven’t installed the software, so there may be some things on there. It can support a maximum resolution of 1440x1280 at 60Hz, up to 24 bit colour. Aside from that, the monitor has a feature called LightFrame which is a name for two delightful aspects of the monitor. The Philips 109S4 is extremely light, which was good for me because my computer is a desktop, not a tower, and the monitor sits on top. It also has the shortest bezel out of all 19” CRTs. The second feature that the LightFrame trademark stands for is the monitors ability to change the settings automatically whenever the monitor begins to display different things. For example, when you switch from viewing web pages to full motion video, the LightFrame software will detect this and change the settings. I haven’t installed the LightFrame software, so I don’t know just how good this is (my computer isn’t powerful enough to display good quality video anyway) but it sounds really useful.
Everyday use
When I became accustomed to the huge desktop I had just acquired, I became aware that I would often lose focus of things on the screen. A quick fiddle with the colour settings fixed the problem. I also noticed that things were a tad stretched on screen, so I reduced the horizontal size of the screen and now everything is OK. But this means that I lose about a cm overall on the bottom of the screen. Oh well, a product can’t be all good news.
A minor problem…
I noticed one time when I was booting the computer that whilst the computer displayed the Loading Windows… screen, the monitor output was totally mangled (sort of doubled up). This problem went away as soon as the screen refreshed into the Windows 2000 splash screen, but it was still concerning. It may even have been the computer itself.
Conclusion
The Philips 109S4 19 inch non-flat CRT monitor is an excellent buy. All issues with it can be rectified by adjustment, and afterwards you will too have nothing but praise for this monitor (well, Philips has always been an utterly excellent brand…) And even though it is non-flat, the curve was much less than found with another brand (I saw an LG Studioworks 19 inch model which had a HUGE bulge) and overall provides EXCELLENT VALUE for money. I would recommend it to anyone looking for quality on a budget. Oh, and by the way, I only paid $370 for the monitor. That was some $300 less than what PC World quoted it at (they said $670) so really I picked up the best bargain.
PS: All prices are in $AUST. I suggest you whip out that currency converter!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 250 ($370AU)
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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Epinions.com ID:
sanjayschrapel
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Member: Sanjay Schrapel
Location: Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
There just ain't enough space here
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