Apple Reviews

I ordered this unpictured SmartDisk product after breaking the fragile wire on my ultra-compact Apple AC adapter with its cute stow-away prongs that never seemed to seat properly in an electrical outlet. I liked the cheaper price of the SmartDisk along with the promise of more rugged construction. What I didn't expect was another Apple-designed product, very similar to the one I'm replacing. The only difference is a slightly heavier gauge wire and a far more practical plug--it fits securely in the outlet and doesn't take up two spaces. And it's porcelain white, just like a real Apple. Life is good.

This offers powerbook users a great way of using universal drives. Either 1.4MB, 120MB, CD, DVD (these two come standard on the laptop). Definitely recommend.

This monitor had the most detailed picture and IS worth the cash. If you purchase this, you will not regret it. Along with a decent Sony computer it wonders everyone with both its looks and performance. I really like the input setup for two different computers so you can save some money and have one monitor for two systems if your occupation needs that sort of power. I highly recommend this Sony monitor.

We have owned our SONY SDM-N80 for 2.5 years & we enjoy its high-level function & understated style daily. Once I decided I was going to build a computer to better position ourselves for future upgrades, I knew the monitor had to be a choice of quality, utility & form.

Sure, you can get a boxy CRT monitor for super cheap these days, taking up your space, - but an LCD is most likely the wish now, right?....No worries, LCD prices are falling!

So, helpful pushes toward SONY's SDM-N80:
1. Classical, understated design which inspires!
2. If you go for an LCD, make sure it's Digital (otherwise it's a bit of a waste technologically speaking) => This model offers both Analog & Digital capabilities
3. Truly clutterless workspace with one-cord, break-out box
4. Base has two USB ports, act as a hub for other peripherals, -clever & helps hide more cables, et cetera
5. SONY picture quality
6. SONY reliability (especially since we're here rating it high after 2.5 years of ownership)
7. *You DO NOT want to save a little now & look at beige/black plastic framing bezels for the next some odd years! ;)

...P>One thing that's VERY nice about this LCD is the dual input option. The base break-out box has 2 video inputs (w/ USB & Audio input). The inputs are configured as one normal VGA port & one DVI port. The cable that comes with monitor is a DVI to analog converter cable so you can hook up 2 normal PCs right out of the box, - quite handy. Two PCs may be utilized at once, - switching between them with one button-press; highly convenient features.

The speakers are tiny yet sufficient, but, you're not buying an LCD monitor & comparing speaker quality. Thus, SONY includes them, plus provides jacks for upgraded audiophiles.

Video quality is excellent. The display is very high contrast & colors are rich, textured, realistic & vibrant, like SONY Trinitrons of legend. The LCD we received had no defective pixels.

The viewing angle isn't quite as broad as some, - but plenty wide.

The A/D Converter is of superb quality. On other LCD's the sharp pixel boundaries are jittery, - here, it's rock solid.

The scaling of input signals is wonderful. The LCD smoothes out scaled images, so you are treated to a very smooth picture.

Ok.
Good luck to you.
I'll leave you to choose with your priorities.(...my wife has been happier with my monitor choice than with my computer-building skills). ;)

I know there are better contrast ratios to be had on LCDs or bigger sizes for less dough, - but we'll be getting another SONY SDM-N80 from Amazon; 18" & superb build quality is big, better & best enough!

***Wait until you get the reactions from guests at the home office! "FOR-get-aboutit!!" You'll see Delight, Awe, Respect & then a little friendly Jealousy come into their eyes! Then, you'll know. You made the right LCD decision.

I bought this 15" LCD because I needed to downsize my clutter.
I had a 17" NEC (bought here 6 months ago)
I've always relied on Sony products before and thought I would try out the NEC. What a mistake!
The brightness and the clarity of the Sony have to be seen to be appreciated.
The zero footprint is a bonus to the space impaired.
You won't be dissapointed with this one.

I've finally crossed over into the world of LCD displays, and I could not be happier. This monitor is crystal clear, sharp, and displays colors wonderfully. I was skeptical about whether a 1280 X 1024 resolution would be large enough to read on a 17-inch flat panel monitor, but that turned out to be a non-issue once I saw it in action. My screen can display multiple applications simultaneously, with each being large enough and clear enough to easily read. And at [this] price, this monitor is a great way to enter the LCD world with style.

I just purchased two of these VG 150mb flat panel LCD screens for my home office. One question: why in the world did I ever wait so long to replace my CRT screens that weighed 50 lbs. each and took up way too much space in my office??

The VG150 is clean and vivid. The 15 inch screens I just received replace two 17" CRT monitors. There doesn't seem to be much size difference between the incoming LCD screens at 15" and the outgoing CRTs that were 17".

At roughly $... per screen, these VG150mbs are a screaming bargain.

EDIT: After eight months, the monitors are still performing flawlessly. There is one dead pixel on one of the monitors and no dead pixels on the other. I am now in the market for yet another LCD flat panel monitor, and I will definitely be picking up another Viewsonic. Highly recommend. (Edited on August 21, 2003.)

I spent a lot on this monitor, but it was well worth it! I truly believe now my old 17" CRT monitor is a thing of the past... the shear elegance of this monitor far surpasses any other type you could by, and if you think this 18" LCD wouldn't be a big improvement over your 17" screen, think again! I for one am glad to get rid of that old heat-bearing CRT screen, and the colors and sharpness on this Viewsonic VG800B are absolutely amazing!

I had heard many good things about flatpanel monitors and my eyes get tired after long hours in front of my old monitor. since prices have come down in the past few months I decided to splurge and take my co-worker's advice. Glad I did! There is no going back to a regular monitor again. This Viewsonic model I found to have the clearest picture and much better color representation than the other brands. It's unbelievable how sharp this unit is. I saw it at a local store (Compusa I think it was) and it looked great there, it's even better sitting on my desk at home. I can't say enough good things about this monitor. The clarity and everything is fabulous! I could sit in front of the VP150 all day long and not feel any eye strain. Even works great with some games I like to play.

I've been wanting an LCD flat-screen monitor for some time, but I kept putting off the purchase since they're so expensive. But a few weeks ago I decided to get serious and purchase one for my Windows98 system. I looked at the reviews on CNET and Amazon, etc., and at first I decided to purchase a VP151. Then I learned about the new 150m. It was a difficult choice, but I eventually purchased the 150m; so far, I'm delighted with it!

Installation wasn't completely smooth, since I ran into the usual so-called "plug-and-play" problems. Despite years of experience with this sort of thing, I always find that reality never quite matches either the printed instructions (in this case, half a page from the large, multi-lingual manual) or the Windows98 screen instructions. This was slightly more annoying in the case of installing a monitor, since a monitor is REALLY important, to say the least!

Nevertheless, once I rebooted a few times and tinkered around with reported-to-be-missing files, eventually I got things working. From this point on, everything seems great.

The display is BRIGHT (perhaps even too bright -- I've taken to reducing the intensity using a setting in my video card driver) and, as advertised, viewable from quite a large range of angles. The unit is reasonably attractive, and seems more-or-less mechanically solid.

I installed the included "PerfectPortrait" software; this allows me to easily rotate the screen display 90 degrees to see full-page display. "Full screen" might not be quite the story if you take into account the screen real estate taken up by your application's menu bars, etc. With Microsoft Publisher, for example, I find that I need to zoom out to the 90% setting in order to actually see the entire page. By some stroke of luck, though, this 90% setting seems to render the page almost exactly to scale.

The display seems a bit less mechanically stable in the rotated configuration; sometimes it lands at something more like 88 degrees instead of 90. But it returns to the horizontal position quite accurately, so this is OK with me.

The built-in speakers are fine for general use. I compared them with somewhat larger stand-alone speakers that had come with my Sony Vaio 526, and I decided I could live with the built-in speakers.

Anyway, I've been up and running for about two days so far, and I'm quite happy with the VP150m.