
If you’ve read most of this blog, you’ll have noticed that I tend to use my “toys” for a long time (I had the same mouse for 10 years and used my Sony Mavica digital camera for many, many years before upgrading). My monitor was in a similar position: I had purchased my MAG Innovision DX15F (a 15″ CRT) at a computer show in July 1993. So it was no wonder, almost 10 years later (sense a pattern here?) that it was starting to get dimmer and blurrier. Sounds like a good excuse to me to make the jump to an LCD monitor!
I selected the Samsung 172N, a black, thin-bezelled 17″ flat screen LCD. With its native resolution of 1280×1024 I have plenty of screen real estate, fonts are crisp and colors are good. The only annoying thing so far: one dead pixel, stuck on green (according to the Samsung site, however, a certain number of dead pixels are acceptable, so there’s not much I can do about it). Now I have a lot more room on my desk and the screen is farther away from my eyes … good news all around.
I still have this monitor, by the way! It’s in the equipment closet connected to my Linux server for when I need direct console access.