Monitor Reviews

I have owned this monitor for 6 months now. I've been very satisfied with it up until a couple weeks ago. After the monitor is on for a few hours, it begins to produce a high pitched noise. It makes the monitor unusable because you literally cannot stay in the room. It's happening now as I write this. As soon as I finish, I'm going to shutoff the monitor. The noise is consistent in that it comes back each day after the monitor has been on for a few hours. Keep shopping if you are looking for a 19" monitor, unless of course you don't care hearing damage.

Good monitor... except, sometimes it buzzes like some sort of humming bird on crack. That's incredibly annoying and surprisingly loud. Doesn't do it all the time, but I certainly believe the other reviewer that says his buzzes all the time.

I've had this monitor for over a year and have not had a single problem with it. Granted, it isn't flat screen and it doesn't have anti-glare, but for the price you can't get a better monitor.

I purchased a Zenith r50z26 new and the TV was stuck in HDTV and could not choose standard or DVD format. I called Zenith and I was very rudely told to call a local TV repair shop. I did so to find out the local TV shop that Zenith recommended knew nothing about HDTV's. I called Zenith back and was referred to another local TV shop. The repair man came out and said there was a bad chip in the TV that they had to take it to the shop to be fixed. It has now been 2 weeks and the repair man told me it should be 7 to 10 days. The repair shop still can not fix the TV. So I called Zenith back to ask how long I would have to wait and I was told "You have to wait as long as it takes" I replied "Why do you customers get such poor service" and I was hung up on.

BEWARE
G .GILL
(VERY UNHAPPY)

I was very tempted to buy this unit, almost clicking the "Add to Cart" button, when I noticed the reviewers had listed it as 1 star. Quickly reading the review posted by a very helpful purchaser, I decided not to buy this unit. Now back to the drawing board!

Excellent TV Never thought a projection TV could be so clear. I use a S-Video cable for our DVD and Cable box. The picture is awesome. When friends see the TV they can't believe it's a projection monitor either. Set up is easy and with the rollers anyone can move the TV.

I don't know whay happened to the other owner of this TV but I've had nothing but good luck when talking with Zenith.

5 stars for this baby :)

I guess I should have known better! You get what you pay for. The monitor is very fuzzy and has trailers/shadows running about an inch to the right of everything. i.e. text, icons etc. Don't waste you money!!!!

I like these monitors for the price. We are an eng. company and the work fine for us so far.

This product has no business being sold for anything but JUNK. I bought this product and took it right back. The right speaker was blown out of the box, The cd when spinning was louder then the speakers and the tv wouldn't pick up anything.

I bought this for $135.00, and at that price it was a great deal!!! I have no complaints or problems with this unit!!!! Highly reccomend!!!!!!!

3 year warranty eh? When I received this monitor it flickered horribly. I returned it for repair or replacement and was told nothing was wrong with it. I then dealt with the shop I purchased from who were able to verify the problem, but Formac wouldn't issue a refund, they'd only accept it for more repairs. (what's the point if they can't seem to find the problem in the first place). After 3 months of this back and forth I decided Formac wasn't worth dealing any more and I bought an Apple monitor instead. Think twice before dealing with Formac.

Contents:
1. Review written after a couple of days of use
2. Addendum written after 9 month of use

+++ 1. Review written after a couple of days of use:

First the good thing: The gallery 2010's picture is excellent. Brightness can be adjusted in a wide range, thus pleasent to look at from night till noon. High contrast, wide viewing angles without color distortion. Acceptable motion blur due to relatively fast switching, video is ok.

No dead pixels on my one, just a small (ca. 1.5 mm) spot which is slightly darker than the rest, (barely) visible only at certain gray scales.

Now for the drawbacks: cable fix (no problem until it breaks), no OSD, only brightness can be adjusted. Brightness adjustment too sensitive, accurate adjustment hard. Although active surface has good anti-glare coating, the frame has not. Picture displayed may be mirrored on the inner edges of the frame.

I use the gallery 2010 with a Windows PC. The gallery has a fixed gamma of 1.8, but on Windows 2.2 is standard. Thus I correct the gamma using the graphics card causing some gray scale resolution loss. The gallery has a fixed white point of 6500K, that's ok for me. If it wasn't, graphics card based correction would cause more loss of gray scale resolution.

Dot pitch is 0.255 which is less than what I had before. It took some days to get used to this. Be careful, that small dot pitch might strain your eyes!

Information from Formac is quite poor. They don't specify gamma or whitepoint, I got the specs from the info reported via the DVI interface. Formac also does not offer an ICC/ICM profile.

I like the gallery though, because its the picture that counts when using a display. Also, the price is quite low in contrast to comparable displays from other manufacturers.

+++ 2. Addendum written after 9 month of use

No regret having bought this display. The picture is as good as it was on the first day, no dead pixels, cable didn't break.

The 1.5 mm dark "spot" is still there, but I notice it only when intentionally seraching for it, because it didn't get darker and is only visible with certain gray scales. I also got completely used to the relatively small dot pitch, but YMMV.

The gamma I'm using now is the native 1.8 rather than Windows' 2.2. This is also just a matter of getting used to and this way there is no loss in accuracy.

I've also tried the Gallery CAL color calibration device offerered by Formac. Better save your money, this was a complete failure since that device (and a replacement I got from Formac) is so inaccurate. It degrades the otherwise good default picture with completly unpredictable "corrections".

Some experiments indicate that the Gallery 2010 has mechanisms in its LCD panel driver to improve the switching times between different grayscales, although Formac doesn't mention this. The result is that the panel driver ensures the best achievable response from the panel, good for videos and games.

The simplistic approach with digital input and brightness control only is not a drawback. You wouldn't like to have a sub-optimal analogue input with such a display. And being in the digital domain, adjusting contrast (which is analogue gain) is not necessary.

The more important thing is that brightness control just affects the CFD brightness (the light source behind the screen) in a wide range and not some other fancy combination of parameters as seen with other displays.

Offloading gamma and color correction into the display (via OSD) is not supported by the 2010, but it can be done in the graphics card. A real benefit in using display-based correction other than being convenient would occur only when the display's internal resolution was higher than that of the graphics card (which it isn't).

For me the best results are achieved with no settings other than for the CFL brightness. Simple and effective.

The bottom line is that I'm very pleased with this display: Its a pleasure to look at and better than anything else I see every day. It is still a good deal and if it broke, I'd buy it again.

I'm a wildlife biologist in Montana, and use GPS units daily. I originally purchased 5 of these units for my research, and had 3 units malfunction -- with three different problems. One would shut off if tapped, one would shut off if you hit the page button, and the light stopped working on a third. Because of Amazon's great service, and my need for quick and compatible replacements, I ordered three identical units to replace the broken ones. I just had a fourth unit die -- the same problem where it shuts off if tapped. Features are nice, interface is intuitive, but quality is sorely lacking.

I received the Garmin 12CX for Christmas, replacing my older Magellan 2000XL. The Garmin is definitely a more versatile unit, having the ability to upload/download topo map waypoints and routes. However, the color display is difficult to read unless facing the light source. I am also not completely satisfied with the contrast adjustments for the colors. When you get a good contrast with one, the others seem to be "washed out". I would like to see more icon symbols that are related to hiking rather than boating. The icons can save time in establishing an easier method to find a saved waypoint. Overall however, I would say that this unit is very user friendly and has a much better use (with power saver) of battery power. I will be using rechargable (1650 mah) AA batteries in mine to save $ over the alkaline variety.

Hi!
this monitor that i received,. does appear to be a flatscreen. why?

Only Amazon's product title is misleading. HP's text is accurate. This is a big CRT "normal type" PC monitor. It does have a flat front, not curved like many [other] CRT monitors. However, it is not a thin LCD or Plasma display.

If you are looking for a regular 17" monitor, this unit is very good for the price. The picture is stable, sharp and accurate with good contrast and brightness. This may not be the very best possible 17" monitor...

If you are doing pixel accurate graphics work all day long, then spend the money on a better monitor. If you are running games, standard applications, surfing the web, looking at pictures, or watching DVDs, then this is a good monitor for you at a great price.

At the lower range of blood pressure the device is accurate. BUT- as blood pressure goes higher, it is very, VERY inaccurate. My Doctor says it is not safe to use. If you have one, DON'T TRUST IT !!! Using the device has resulted in very misleading info.

I bought my Lumiscope1092 and could not wait to try it out. I followed all the enclosed instructions to the letter and away we went to check my BP. Wow!! 202/62...Am I comatose?? I took another one 192/92..whoa! I better get to a hospital Fast!! Wait I'll try it again 185/60 with a 40 pulse. I am Doomed!! Are you getting my point. I brought this product with me to 3, Yes 3 of my Doctors to get it calibrated. Whoops cannot do. no way to correct it. I am stuck with a new toy for myself. These numbers are all over the place. Totally useless I was told by all of my doctors. Only get the mercury upper arm one the doctors use for a true reading. Stay away from this one!!

it is a great product. The machine does all the work, ones you put it around the wrist and push the button, you are done. The most important - it is really easy to use. It displays large numbers, so a person does not need glasses to read it. It stores readings in the memory, so their is no need to record them.

My mother would not live the house with out it. She has high blood pressure which is controlled by medication, but sometimes it still elevates, so she need to take an additional medication. She uses the machine at least three times a day to monitor her bood pressure.

Check out the Consumer Reports review of blood pressure monitors. This is in fact the case. Wrist monitors, even when they "work", are not accurate, partly due to the distance from the heart.

My husband & I followed directions, tried different batteries but the blood pressure (B/P) reading is way off. With this machine my husband & I both have unbelievable, inaccurate & consistently low readings (averaging 70/48). He & I both haven't had B/P's lower than 120/80 for yrs. I'm returning it back to the store.

I purchased this product, very leery about its accuracy and just of the fact that I need to start taking charge of my own health in general... Very happy to report that after intermittently playing with it over the course of 24 hours, I have complete faith in its accuracy. Not only has it been on target for a total of ten times measuring my own blood pressure, but I also did two other people in my household and received accurate readings with theirs also.

Rarely do I recommend products to other people via this forum, but I have to tell you that this is a valuable tool in taking charge of my health and that I believe that its usefulness could be of value to others.

Bought one for my Mom who has moderately high BP. When we tested her BP with this instrument, it showed her BP as 165/80!! We took her to her Doctor to get a checkup done. Measurement using their Sphygmomanometer showed 132/75. We were relieved that she was OK but were upset that this instrument would give a reading that was so off.

We returned it.

If you are a serious user, consider buying a Sphygmomanometer.

The hospital provided me with this monitor after my kidney transplant. Right away, readings were 20-30 points too high. Luckily, I didn't pay for it.

It gets two stars only because I always assume it's 20 points too high and subtract.

Okay, I think I must have joked too many times with potential dates and amours about their heart and blood pressure...So what popped up at Christmas a blood pressure monitor.

I must say it works great!!! It comes with a nifty little booklet on Managing High Blood Pressure. It explains the basics: What it is, What it does to your body, and What you can do about it.

It is very easy to use: pretty much just put the cuff on like the directions, relax, press the on button, wait for the heart symbol, and then press start. Easy as can be, until the cuff starts feeling like your arm is being squeezed off.

This monitor gives the systolic and diastolic pressure along with the pulse rate. This monitor even keeps memory of your readings. Kewl, huh!!!

So if you want something simple and easy buy this one I have found it fun to take my blood pressure during the day after all kinds of activities:)

I can absolutely say I am in great health, blood pressure health that is, 110 over 70. So take care of your heart and blood pressure.

girldiver:)