Monitor Reviews

I've just received this SONY HX93 today. I've been looking at the models at local retailers but could not really see much difference between different LCDs, say, between this one and a lower priced samsung...Until I've seen it on my desk!

pros:
1. nice panel. don't really know who manufactuered the lcd panel, but sony definitely picked up a good one as the basis for the product. I have it delivered to my office and I can compare it to my office 19" LCD, which is a lower priced SAMSUNG 192T. That was a nice one, but not as bright as this SDM-HX93. I am sure a similiarly priced SAMSUNG will probably look as nice, but hey, it's a SONY and it's on sale. $700 is not that much more expensive than $660.
2. nice overall package. elegent looking. cable nicely organized.

cons:
1. the speakers in this LCD are of a much lower quality comparing to how nice the LCD panel is. I can not believe it when I first heard the cracking sound out of them when I turned the volume high. It sounds OK when the volume is low though. And there is absolutely no bass, and since the speaker units themselves are so bad, the SRS WOW system can't do too much to improve it.
2. since it is still quite an expensive model, I will like to see the pivot feature and composite/s-video inputs. Lacking both.

Overall a good product.

This monitor is by far one of the nicest and most crisp monitors I've seen. The display is very well illuminated, the text sharp and very readable at 1280x1024, and the colors are very, very vivid.

Unfortunately, the monitor was not built for the First Person Shooter (FPS) in mind. I found that the display had a hard time keeping up with the refresh rate of games like Far Cry and Unreal Tournament 2004.

I was using the DVI cable which locks in the refresh at 60hz. I also tried the monitor without the DVI input, but unfortunately it didn't make any difference. Games still appeared to suffer from video lag. :(

This monitor is perfect for everything except for fast paced games.

I've been in the broadcast industry for 17 years and am accustomed to working with high quality CRT monitors, most of them Sony. When it came time for a new computer monitor, I decided to check out Sony's LCDs. After months of research, from reading specs and customer opinions, to viewing them at electronics stores, this one came out on top. The picture quality is impeccable...not quite the quality of a top-of-the-line CRT, but it's close. LCDs still have a ways to go to match the clarity of CRTs. But for an LCD, I am very impressed. Yes, this is not an inexpensive monitor, but it is well worth the extra money.

Some things to remember when researching a monitor:

Read the specs. Look for things like -
Is it and Active TFT? Yes is better.
The lower the dot pitch, the higher the picture quality.
Contrast ratio: the higher the better.
Lower response times are better.
Higher brightness is also considered better.

These are admittedly, generalizations. One brand's .25 dot pitch might not be as good as another's .29 dot pitch.

The best thing to do is find some good monitors by doing the technical research, reading reviews, and obtaining information from as many resources as possible. Ultimately, the decision comes down to you and your eyes. View some monitors at local retail shops. Look for text quality, black on white and white on black, (is there ghosting?); check for pixelization in photos and video; if possible, look at a black screen for dead pixels, and at a white screen for hot spots. Some of these may be hard to see at a store, but compare the best you can.

Admittedly, I have not tried gaming on this monitor, and the video is slightly pixelized, though much less than I expected an LCD to be. Text is crystal clear. The only down side to this monitor, as with many Sony products, is their menus. They are somewhat difficult to navigate and the buttons are awkwardly on the side of the monitor, so you have to feel your way around. Aside from that, this is an excellent monitor and I feel you will be highly pleased with your purchase. By the way, after viewing the HX93 at a store, come back here to buy. You'll save lots of money.

UPDATE - After reading the above review, I put the speakers to the test and regretably, found that the speakers do indeed lack quality sound. For visual accurancy this is still hard to beat, but invest in some decent speakers.

I bought this monitor as a replacement for my Apple Studio Display 17 which perished suddenly in a flurry of hissing and popping. Sigh. You get what you pay for. I could tell right away that the Apple monitor was clearer, sharper, and brighter, not to mention more stylish. But oh well. You can't beat the price, and hopefully this one, backed by a solid warranty, won't suddenly die like the old one did.

I purchases my first computer 5 years ago, and it's still going. Of course I now have 5 laptops and a PC besides this...but it's still a nice back up computer. But it needed a new monitor. I kept putting it off, because frankly I did not want a pricey item for a old set that stick it's spoon in the wall at any given moment. So when I saw this I was delighted. It got it with free shipping so off the bat saved $30+. Also, I had an amazon.com gift certificate I received from buying electronics. So I ended up getting this monitor for a song.

But when I opened it up, I was very impressed. The picture was clear and sharp, does not look "cheap" at all. The PC picked it up immediate and within a minute all was perking right along.

So for a replacement on an older PC, or building a PC on your own, this is one super buy for one very good monitor.

This is a great monitor for the price. (...) The quality of the picture is also good and the warranty is another perk. I searched all over the web and this is the best deal out there. Good Luck!

Not only is this an excellent price for a 19" monitor, but after several months, I am amazed at the quality of the display. It scores outstanding marks for the brightness and contrast. I have run this monitor at 1600x1200 and it looks great. The only minor issue I can find is that the control screens are a little hard to navigate through, but hey, I have a $1200 Sony as well that is even harder. If you are on a budget and want a great monitor, you won't regret this purchase.

I'd really give this monitor 4 1/2 stars - the extra half being for the outstanding price.

The other reviews are completely correct: this monitor needs serious adjustments to the factory settings, however these are easily performed for the most part. I did also have to go in and manually adjust the refresh rate.

In addition, as someone below mentioned - this screen is a little less round than the usual, but by no means "flat"

I'm using this monitor for graphic/web design and desktop publishing at an institution on a budget - the graphic display is quite good, but not stunning... although, considering the price, I'd say you're definitely getting a little more than what you paid for.

Love my new monitor,

Out of the box the settings needed adjusting but were easy enough to manipulate to fit my personal preferences.

Customer Service @ ViewSonic was a dream, I received a damaged driver disk, but I let them know and my new disk arrived as fast as fast can be.

I would recommend this monitor to anybody looking for a great value in the 19'inch category.

The image clarity and color definition on this monitor are simply fantastic, and the refresh rate is high enough to display fast action videogames with ease.

My only regret is its low resolution (1024x768) which makes it difficult to work with modern OSX applications and pallette-hungry programs such as Adobe's Photoshop 7.

Apple's flat panels are truly works of art. The picture and contrast are excellent; however, when I use it in a 90 degree room (most of the summer), the power switch constantly activates itself. This used to put the computer to sleep while I was using it, but now I can disable the sleep feature in the Energy Saver control panel. Note: I bought this almost a year ago, so Apple may have corrected the problem.

This moniter has almost the best quality that I have seen in the flat panel display category. You can look at it from a fairly steep angle and it doesn't smuge blur, or otherwise mess up the image of what's on the screen. Overall a great product

First off, why in the heck would you want to run at those lower resolutions with a 19? I bought mine so i can take advantage of the higher res.

Here is some common sense logic for you, if you want to run those lower res, why dont you buy a Packard Bell 15 inch and save $$???

Johnboy

I have performed an exhaustive search for the ultimate 19" computer monitor. Being a perfectionist, I wanted the best monitor available at a reasonable price that included style, high quality color picture, sharp focus and brightness, complete and easy-to-use picture adjustments, totally flat screen and minimal cabinetry surrounding the cathode ray picture tube to give the appearance of a larger screen without the annoying distraction of an oversized cabinet. Since, it seemed that all of the monitors examined had at least some flaws noted in the reviews, I was pleasantly surprised that they were minor and basically unfounded in this particular NEC monitor. I am totally satisfied with it's performance and it's exceptional style. I already had the NEC Multisync FE700 17" monitor which I equally treasure. There is no other like NEC!

This is a great monitor. The lines are sharp and text is very clear. The screen controls are outstanding - supporting a number of adjustments to ensure the display is positioned and sized correctly at various resolutions. Glare is much less than it was with my older Dell 17" Trinitron monitor (it being a flat screen with anti-glare coating as well). The cabinet is stylish and compact - fitting in about the same space as the Dell 17" Trinitron monitor it replaced.

Large monitors are designed to give you greater desktop real estate yet display images and text at about the same size as you would typically see on a smaller monitor running at lower resolutions (640x480, 800x600). Just as smaller monitors (15 and 17") are not optimized for higher resolutions (1152x864 and up), larger monitors are not optimized to run at lower resolutions. This isn't isolated to NEC monitors. I've used large monitors from many vendors and they all struggle to display lower resolutions as clearly as they do at resolutions they were design for. However, I wouldn't say it's so bad that you cannot bear to run at the lower resolutions.

If you intend to run at the lower resolutions with a 19 or 21 inch monitor, I would suggest you go test drive a few large monitors at your local retailer just to make sure the clarity is what you expected.

Yes DVD's and the 10% of cable programming that is hdtv look great, but this model's upscaling (for viewing normal non hdtv cable channels (and even your digital cable consists, and for years to come, of mostly of non hdtv channels) the sony is the worst of all its competition...and at a much higher price...as many technical hdtv reviewing sites have noted.

There is a lot of BS around and delibertate confusion between "hdtv," "digital" and "widescreen." Digital is mandated and is coming. HDTV is not mandated. Compare samsung and toshiba's competing hdtv models. they are $500 bucks less and their non-hdtv (again 90% of broadcasts) look way better. The comaprative differences in hdtv and dvd playback is negligable.

Is sony the best in the class for hdtv broadcasts? Yes. but it is worst for non hdtv and the sony's price premium means that you would have to keep the sony for eight years but replace eitherr a toshiba or samsung in five at the same per month cost!

I've had this set for 6 months and absolutely love it ,The picture quality is crisp & vibrant, even my standard analog cable signal looks very good,I seriously think those who complain about its upconversion on non-hd content have signal strength issues,it is well known a weak analog signal can look horrible on any HDTV, Standard tv sets are much more forgiving about this, to be honest some channels look near DVD quality for me, I also noticed having the DRC mode set on Interlaced looks best w/ analog channels.

As for gaming you simply wont find a better 32" in fact its the main reason I purchased it ,Gamecube & Xbox games look amazing even in the lowest progressive mode (480P),so many details that were lost on my previous analog tv are revealed with the 32HS510, thanks to its lack of visible scanlines and higher resolution tube.

If you don't have a home audio setup you wont be disappointed by the built in sound on this TV, I have a 5.1 audio setup so I wasn't really considering the sound quality when buying this TV But I was impressed by it ,the sound is clean and can be turned up loud, it's also got a built in subwoofer mounted in the rear wich delivers a decent amount of bass. I also like the 'Steady Sound' auto volume option wich attemps to keep the volume at an equal level between channel changes, commercials etc.

DVD's look superb on this set just remember its a 4:3 model so you'll still see the black bars, I'm used to this so it doesnt bother me. The best way to view dvd's is to set the dvd player on 16:9 aspect,Then on the tv options set the 16:9 Enhanced option to Auto,this way it will automaticly enable 16:9 'squeeze' when viewing widescreen content, this actualy increases the overall resolution and it looks great.

Bottom line: Highly recommended OR if its to pricey you might take a look at the recently released 32HS420 model,It's a lower priced version of the HS510 with less features (lack of 2-tuner PIP,No subwoofer etc.) but supposedly it uses the same picture tube wich is a good thing =)

HDTVs come in many forms these days, and they can get quite confusing. LCD, CRT, Plasma, Projection... you have many options to go with if you're planning on making the HD jump. But if you're like me, and are an avid video game player (past systems to the new crop), you owe it to yourself to scoop up this TV. I have many friends that have different brands of HDTVs and I also work at an electronics refurbishing place that sees its share of TVs through its doors, I can fully attest to Sony's quality. No other brand comes close to the sheer perfection of the colors and picture on this set.

First of all, please have at least 2 friends handy whenever you pick this TV up from whatever store you're buying it from because its the heaviest TV ever made. No joke. It almost gave me an instant hernia. This baby has 7 inputs of all varieties, 2 components and 1 DVI input. Being that this is a 4:3 TV, and not a 16:9 widescreen model, let it be known that your black bars will not being dissapearing from your favorite DVDs. If you're strictly a DVD buff, this TV is probably not for you. Likewise, if your into watching TV, more specifically an HDTV signal being transmitted in 720p or 1080i, this TV is ALSO not for you. Your picture will be letterboxed, not only on the tops and bottoms, but also on the sides in some cases. This is because 720p and 1080i signals are meant for 16:9 TVs and take advantage of that aspect ratio. Don't get me wrong, DVDs actually do look GREAT on this set, its just this TV is so high quality it brings out ALL the imperfections when viewing movies in progressive mode. Plasmas and the like do a better job of hiding these imperfections and smoothing out artifacts. Movies in 2.35:1 aspect ratio look especially nice on this TV, the TV itself has a great built in 16:9 enhanced mode. I tend to find movies that have lots of action and people on the screen at once, look reall good. The Lord of the Rings series and LEGEND look awesome on this TV, some of the best ones I've seen in my library of over 150 DVDs.

NOW.... what this TV does do the best is the displaying of VIDEO GAMES! If you're like me and don't give a flying fudge about watching an HDTV signal, or any TV period, this is THE TV for you. Ninja Gaiden in 480p mode is quite possibly the best looking, most fluid video game that will ever grace your eyeballs. The textures used in that game in 480p JUMP off the screen and it's almost as if you can touch them. This TV feels like it has the most insane refresh rate ever, I run my computer games in 1600 x 1200 w/ a refresh rate of near 90 Hz, and this TV seems to be at least that if not higher. Everything just moves so freakin' SMOOTH. Gamecube games run w/ the component cable also look incredible (Check out Metroid Prime). Thanks to the DRC chip inside this baby, now all your older video games can also look greater than ever. The DRC claims to upconvert all 480i signals to 480p -- now I don't know if my Sega CD and Playstation are running in progressive mode, but regardless they look better than they have ever looked on a traditional CRT TV.

Couple this TV with a top notch surround system, and you got yourself a killer home theater for under 2000, that would make even your friend with a 60 inch plasma drool his pants. Don't be fooled in thinking just because a 60 inch plasma is 6000 dollars that it's a superior set, because they simply are NOT, they have their uses and advantages, but most of that price tag is for the convenient thin size. Regardless of the HDTV you decide to buy, go with Sony, there is simply no substitute.

I work in a small office and we have 3 brand new VG191b's along with one VX900 and a couple of 20" VX2000 monitors. With our 3 VG191b's there are varying degrees of flicker/flutter on the screens. With 2 of them the flicker is a minor annoyance, but on the third monitor the flicker is downright maddening. We installed the Viewsonic drivers, tried swapping out the video cards, replacing the cabling, but nothing improved the flicker problem. We're using the analog interface rather than the DVI, but I wouldn't think that should cause such a noticeable problem.

My recommendation would be to buy one of the older VX models instead. We have had absolutely no problems with them.

I have had this monitor for six months now and have found it
very good (I even watch TV on it (suggest getting the add on box from viewsonic for this, I tried a tv card and resonse time was too slow, picture would pause for a second about once a minute since it couldn't display in native resolution, my card only supported 800x600 resolution for tv signal).
The response time may be a bit too slow for games that run in lower resolutions (monitor native is 1280x1040). Stand adjustment is very simple and hookup and setup are also. This one is agood value even though prices for LCD's have gone up a bit lately. Have used this monitor with win98 and XPhome, driver for XP is superior. For a lightweight LCD this model is very sturdy and has clear/easy on screen adjustment features.

I've had this monitor for a year now. I have to say, it's the best monitor I've ever used. The response time is good, the picture is supurb when running in its native 1280x1024 mode. Like other LCD's, text will be a bit fuzzy if you run in a different resolution. Some flat screens tend to dim if you look at them at a different angle, but not this one. The picture stays nice and bright from most angles. It has both analog and digital inputs. I recommend you use a video card with a DVI port as the picture is even better. However, even in analog mode this flat screen is great. I haven't had a single problem with this monitor so far and I'm thinking about getting another one for my second computer. A comparable CRT monitor is cheaper, but the andvantages of a good flat screen monitor make it worth the extra money.

I love my e400, only odd problem is the power switch. I'm having problems similar to the one mentioned in Bryan Davis' post. The switch always turns the monitor on...but sometimes doesnt turn it off...

3 power switch problems..Hmm....whats going on here...

other than that....its a-w-e-s-o-m-e.

I've done some research on all the 19" Flat monitors on the market before I bought the Sony E400. It's one of the best quality monitors you can buy for the money. The picture is incredibly sharp and clear.

Incredibly crisp image - even miniscule text is sharp a legible. Great color saturation - colors look rich. Image is so sharp I can display at 1280x1024 and leave the settings on "small fonts and small icons" without any strain. Fairly short for a 19" monitor too - takes up less space than my 17" Nanao did. Image sharpness blows away my old 19" Viewsonic 790 - which it has, ahem, replaced.

The ViewSonic E771 has been with me through college using two different computer systems. As a Computer Science major, it has been through a lot of use. The picture is crisp, colorful, and bright.

At about two years into its life, it started malfunctioning. The monitor was caught in an odd resolution. I called ViewSonic, and without any hassle they had me send it in. They sent me back a new one in no time, even though I had no receipts or original packaging.

As a basic 17 inch monitor with no frills or extras, the E771 does a great job. I definitely recommend this monitor along with any ViewSonic monitor. ViewSonic is a very trustworthy company that stands behind its products.

This monitor is great for day to day usage of just internet browsing and checking email and such. It goes for a great price and is easy to set up with a nice picture. I did have a problem with it before and had to return it to Viewsonic, however I was given a replacement monitor at a Viewsonic location in my city for no charge right on the spot without having to pay shipping charges back and forth to California or such. If you're into gaming I'd reccomend spending the extra bucks for a better monitor however this is just great value if you can't afford anything better.

I recommend this monitor for anyone that can't decide what to get because of it's well-rounded features. Personally, I am more concerned about image quality than size. When I looked at the slew of monitors that were offered at the store, this one seemed to have the clearest looking images. It's also not too big or too small, so it's a decent "first monitor" as well. I work at an engineering firm, and we have used Viewsonic monitors religiously with little or no problems. The USB hub is extremely useful if you have the right drivers for it. It eliminates some of the wire cluttering in the back of the pc, plus you don't have to reach back there as much anymore. The on-screen menu is easier to use than most TV menu's. This product has been running over a year for now me with no problems. Hope that says something.

I built my PC and added this monitor about 3 years ago. It's still performing just as well as it did when i bought it. It's easy to learn to use (as far as video adjustments like horizontal/vertical and pincushioning), displays colors really well, and is easy to get drivers for. I tend to update my drivers once every 6 months or so since there seems to always be a newer one available. I run Win2K with a Voodoo 3 video card. It's a more than adequate monitor at the cheap end of the spectrum. I paid $250, but nowadays you shouldn't pay more than $150 for a new one.

The best monitor I ever had. 3 years and still going strong up until today. I bent a pin in the connector and tried to straighten it out. Well guess what, I broke one off. Looking for a replacement cable. Other than today this monitor has never ever failed me. If you come across a VS-7e "GRab it". You wont regret it.
William

This is an excellent monitor. Used it for over a year and still sharp as ever! Great deal if u can find it at a good price. But its discontinued so u may need to look for the replacement.