Thursday, May 10, 2007

Should I buy this monitor?

Should I buy a wide-screen LCD? I'm looking at the SAMSUNG 226BW 22" widescreen (1680x1050 resolution). They appear to be pretty popular, Fry's is out of them and sells them at $349 list price when they have it (which, BTW, is only $50 more than I paid for my current 17" LCD monitor five years ago). And being able to watch DVD movies without windowboxing (the black bars at top and bottom that appear on full-width theatrical movies shown on a regular-dimension screen) would be nice...

My Samsung ML-6060 laser printer is now seven years old and works as good as new (albeit with a new toner/drum cartridge in that time period of course!). So I know Samsung can build good sh*t. Heck, I am not even *thinking* of replacing my ML6060, even though, in computer years, it's 70 years old and ready for a nursing home. It's a workhorse, with low per-page costs, reasonable speeds (hey, it's an old printer with a 160mhz processor and 16mb of EDO RAM, there's limits imposed by the technology available at that time), and good resolution for a laser printer (1200x1200).

- Badtux the Linux Geek Penguin

Labels: technology

Comments:

Check out these two sites to see if there are similar deals available:

http://dealmac.com/headlines.html

http://www.dealsontheweb.com/index.php?headlines=true&filter=none
# posted by Anonymous : 10/5/07 8:43 AM  

Go for the monitor, just in case you ever (inadvertently of course) happen upon a human wet t-shirt contest photo. The larger screen will strain your eyes less.

And, as you say, you're feeling down, and penguins don't wear shoes.

Re; the discussion about the printer, you can't fool me. I remember this exact same discussion some months ago abut Jeeps.
# posted by Lurch : 10/5/07 9:56 AM  

I've got a similar screen. One of the things that I've noticed is that some sites, pics, and other things will get stretched wider than what they are 'in real life'. So, take that into consideration.
# posted by Anonymous : 10/5/07 10:02 AM  

Lurch, my ML6060 is a classic, like my KLR. It ain't going anywhere. The newfangled whatsizts don't have the duty cycle, paper capacity, or toner capacity of this chunky workhorse.

Anonymous #1, The price from NewEgg was the lowest I found from a reputable dealer on the 'Net. My brother buys from NewEgg all the time (he's out in the boonies of Louisiana so has no Fry's Electronics nearby) and has good luck with them.

Nope, it doesn't rotate, georg. It's just a widescreen monitor/HDTV display.

As for Anonymous #2 and things looking wider, that depends on whether your OS properly supports aspect ratios. Since both Linux and MacOS properly do so, this isn't going to be a worry for me :-).
# posted by BadTux : 10/5/07 10:17 AM  

I vote for the shoes.
# posted by angry ballerina : 10/5/07 11:14 AM  

Penguins avoid shoes, Angry One. Except when encountering shopkeepers who say "No shirt, no shoes, no service." Even there, a pair of Chaco sandals typically suffice to pass the "shoe test".

Electronic gadgets, on the other hand... Linux penguins in particular are awefully fond of electronic gadgets. Hmm...
# posted by BadTux : 10/5/07 11:20 AM  

Buuuut, you have no hands!
# posted by angry ballerina : 10/5/07 11:35 AM  

When evaluating the purchase of expensive electronic equipment there are a lot of serious questions that should be asked and a lot of research that should be done...but really the only important bits are:

Do I want it? Can I get the money together? The rest are details that fall by the wayside.

[You didn't honestly expect anyone to talk you out of it, now did you? You just wanted people to blame if it turns into a disaster.]
# posted by Bryan : 10/5/07 11:42 AM  

Egads! The penguin is unmasked! I feel so ashamed... :-).

- Badtux the Abashed Penguin
# posted by BadTux : 10/5/07 11:52 AM  

Ah, you're correct. Fry's doesn't have a store in Louisiana, although they have a bunch over in Texas.

It looks like Geeks (http://www.geeks.com) has them for $344.95), and I've had good luck with Geeks.

As for what to get, well, some of my relatives go buy a new gun when they're depressed, and then go shoot something (inanimate, of course!). Then, again, that's more appropriate for the backwoods rather than urban California. Maybe it would be safer to get a new monitor. Plus, you can't watch porn on a gun (err, at least, not yet!).

Dave
# posted by Anonymous : 10/5/07 11:52 AM  

Get real. Once you get a craving for something, nothing else will suffice. Go for it!
# posted by Share Cropper : 10/5/07 2:16 PM  

Well, Dave, if you ever have been to a gun show and seen the booth babes stroking the guns, you might well be excused for *thinking* that you can watch porn on a gun...

But you are correct, shooting inanimate objects in the middle of a major metropolitan area tends to attract unwanted attention, generally heavily armed unwanted attention with a bad attitude driving automobiles equipped with oddly-tinted strobe lights... electronic items are much safer. Much safer. Even to the pocketbook, really.

- Badtux the Electronics Penguin
# posted by BadTux : 10/5/07 2:20 PM  

Someone should slap you down for saying depressed women go for the shoes or chocolate.

Hell, I've got a fried lemon of a Dell monitor, that I did a good bit of research on before purchasing in the winter of 2006, which was supposed to be great for graphics without costing an arm and a leg--and believe me if I go for chocolate instead of a new monitor it's because the bagful of chocolate raisins is affordable whereas a new monitor is out of the question. Especially with my son now needing a new monitor as his Sony just began fritzing out, its screen periodically a panorama of psychedelic madras shirts that can presently (today, tomorrow) be fixed by giving it several hard whacks. And that's a kind of new monitor too. Went bad while under warranty, was shipped and fixed and five months later, two days after we get his computer back from being repaired (bad mother board) it's traumatizing me.
# posted by idyllopus : 24/5/07 5:27 AM  

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