chretiensucks's Full Review: Sceptre X 7G Naga 17 inch LCD Monitor
Yes, it’s 2006 and I still had a 15” CRT monitor it for my computer. Even though we had gone through several computers over the last 10 years, I never replaced our original monitor. Since I have a laptop from work, and my wife has her own laptop, our personal usage time on the old computer is usually under a few hours a week. Basically we use it to transfer and print photos, send emails and transfer movies from our camcorder.
So why the new monitor?
Besides the fact that CRTs consume more electricity, it’s actually worse for your eyes if you’re using them for extended periods of time. But with the some untimely renovations happening, our study had to double as a guest room. If I didn’t want the computer relegated to the basement, I’d have to downsize the footprint and our computer desk, hence the new monitor.
I’ve actually been waiting to get an LCD for a while but being the frugal (cheap) person that I am, I kept putting it off. Finally with LCD’s basically at half the price they were only a few years ago I felt that it was as good as time as any to buy one.
Physical Attributes and assembly
At the time of purchase, the only available color was a black bezel. I believe that is still the case.
There’s no assembly required, basically, I pulled it out of the box and swiveled it to an upright position, plugged it video card of the computer with the pre-attached monitor cable and was ready to go. Unfortunately, this also means that it can not be removed or replaced with a longer cable. So if you need anything longer than 3 and a half feet, you’re going to be out of luck.
The stand itself takes up about an 8”x7” footprint and tilts forward only about 15 degrees, but backwards anywhere from perpendicular to flat on the desk (0 to 90 degrees), basically to permit VESA 100mm wallmount compliance.
Controls and Display
The monitor has a native resolution of 1280x1024 pixels.
Out of curiosity I tried other resolutions as well. I went down to 800x600 but on a 17" screen, I can't really find a reason to do this. 1024x768 was the worst in terms of font crispness.
Usually when you change screen resolution, the desktop tends to get cut off or distorted on one side but pressing one of the 5 front chrome buttons on the bottom right auto adjusts the screen frequency and fit without additional fiddling.
You can make the following adjustments through the onscreen display:
Vertical position, horizontal position, phase and clock rates
Force an auto adjustment
Color: Red/Green/Blue adjustments, contrast, brightness, sharpness
This display is connected to an old ATI Rage 128 pro video card that I have through an RGB cable. The cable that is included with the monitor is pre-attached and can not be removed or replaced easily with a longer cable. Factory Default settings yield a pretty clear picture. Every default setting is 50 for color, brightness, and contrast.
Colors are not washed out and action videos do not produce noticeable ghosting. The screen is also viewable from almost any angle. Pretty standard these days, the monitor will go into power saving mode after an idle period timeout and the Power LED indicator will change to Blue to Red.
Other features
Basically, there aren’t any. This is a strictly bare-bones 17” LCD screen that costed me $130. There are no other S-video or DVI, and no built-in speakers (though most built-ins are pretty useless anyways). It comes with a 1 year warranty from the date of purchase (if you mail in the registration card within 7 days) otherwise it’ll default to 1 year from manufactured date. Overall I’m very pleased with this value purchase and haven’t had any issues to date.
Specifications
LCD Panel 17” SXGA
Display Area (mm) 338x270 (17”diagonal”
Display colors 16.2 M
Video Interface VGA compatible Analog RGB (15-pin)
Standard Frequency H/V Hz 30-81K/50-75
Power Management Vesa DPMS
Power Consumption (ON/OFF) 35W/1.5W Max
Dimensions (WxHxD) 17.32”x19.57”x4.33”
Net Weight 9.41 lbs
Operation temperature: 0-35 degrees C
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