Took the plunge, got a 20" widescreen lcd

[[JiF]KellysHero]

Up until January I was using my 20" Dell Ultrasharp LCD monitor and then it went kaput. Back to my old 17" crt and started looking. The Dell was awesome, but getting a near replacement was much more than I wanted to spend. It used an S-IPS panel instead of the common TN panels found in the majority of LCD's out there. Came across this deal on hardforums.com for a refurbished NEC 20" widescreen with tv tuner and speakers with the S-IPS panel. Not sure if I could really tell the difference between the IPS and TN panel, but this was a pretty good deal. And who knows, maybe I'm becoming an LCD panel snob!

http://www.etech4sale.com/NEC_Display_S ... 21016.html

It shipped yesterday and the arrival date is tomorrow!

[[JiF]Stepovich]

Congrats on the new monitor.

Can I ask what happened to your Dell?

I have one that's been going strong for a while now, just waiting
for the day it craps out.

[[JiF]KellysHero]

After 3 years and 6 days (note Dell has a 3 year warranty on the monitor) I noticed a gray bar about 1.5 inches wide going from the top to the bottom of the monitor. I only noticed it on white backgrounds so wasn't that big of a deal. A few weeks later that 1.5 inch wide problem turned into a 6 inch wide problem that became a distortion from top to bottom. The image would jump around, completely unusable. It was a known issue on the Ultrasharp 2001FP and Dell sounded like they were going to take care of it, but I couldn't find my order # or my invoice (thrown it away a few weeks prior, why would I need a 3 year old invoice anyway??? . They typically have a detailed list of everything you bought from them, but it wasn't in their system. I checked online before calling them too. The only reason I knew I was 6 days out of warranty is that I found the charge on my credit card statement. My CC extends warranties, but needed the original invoice.

Long story short, you probably won't have an issue since it was common on my model. You did save your invoice???

The link below gives info on each Dell monitor and the panel used. In other reading, I found out about the Dell Panel Lotto. Basically they would change panel's from S-IPS to S-PVA, etc...the consensous among geeks is the S-IPS panels are the best. So if you ordered a specific model from Dell, you couldn't be sure which panel you'd get.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_monitors


And if you want to be a geek for a bit, read all about the different panels here...
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1039222

[[JiF]KellysHero]

Got the monitor today, and WOW. Great picture and even though it's a refurb, it looks to be in perfect condition. I got everything (including a remote control) except a manual which I downloaded. It has side inputs for cable/antenna, S-video and RGB component inputs as well as DVI and VGA. Plus an okay speaker bar and a TV tuner. While writing this, I'm using the picture in picture and watching South Park! I think with the RGP component input, I might be able to get HDTV out of my cable box too!

[[JiF]corn]

Sweet Deal!