Okay, truth time. I’ve been running off of a borrowed 19″ LCD monitor for the past couple of months and I just really felt it was time to buy my own. I’ve been scoping out flat panels for a while, looking for something better than the standard 25 ms response time, which is pretty lame for gaming. A little while back, I found the Acer AL1914 on buy.com for less than $300. I had saved it to my wishlist, but was balking at even that extraordinary price, thinking I didn’t use my home computer enough to warrant it. Well, with last month being an extra paycheck month, plus our profit share check month, too, there was just no reason not to…
I went out to buy.com’s site a couple of nights ago, opened my wishlist and proceeded to add to cart… no wait, it says it’s no longer available from the manufacturer – NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Crud, I waited too long. And it had a lovely 12 ms response time and 600:1 brightness (which isn’t too bad) for that price, too. Now what? Well, I looked some more, found out that Acer actually sells the same model in a 8 ms response time version, as well. Found it at newegg.com for $330. Okay, so they don’t do free shipping. Add another $12. Still not too shabby. Ordered it and two days later, it’s here!
I have to tell you, it’s a beaut. No dead pixels (thank goodness), digital and analog output (I’m using digital, of course). Leaving me open to do dual monitors… heh-heh. Geekdom rules. It’s crisp, clear and actually way too bright for me. I have it down to 50 out of 100 right now and I’m still debating as to whether or not it’s going to sear my eyeballs. This weekend will have to include some playing of Diablo II so that I can really test out that response time. I’m way excited, though. The first purchase to arrive this week that was actually satisfying. For some reason, all of the needlework stuff I’ve been waiting for that arrived didn’t hit the spot. I guess it was a computer craving!
I’ll be giving it a workout with Adobe Photoshop this weekend, as well, so I’ll see if the images are all really as clear as they seem to be right now. And now, time to eat dinner. This geekfest is making me hungry.
