A Serious Issue

My Little Loves,

The Sony Trinitron Multiscan E400 is beginning to pass on to the other side. It has also perched several cats over the years. I need to get a new monitor.

1) I am old must have easy instructions (Dell Deminsion 8300 souped up by another SL resident that alas, died.)

2) To see what I had, I was using a flashlight AND a magnifying glass.

I really want to start building things again. The small screen (I have a 19 incher) is giving me serious headaches: the wiggly lines of old age are not attractive...the monitor NOT me! For an old gal I have lovely skin.

At the moment we have two really big mortgages ( The old poop has been transferred) so price is an issue for the next six months or so. What brand and how big can I go for around 500 USD that will mesh well with our beloved abode Second LIfe? Over that and it cuts into the dog show budget...That's a no go.

And what do I put around the new Monitor because of the cats? New ones are not thick enough for cats to sit on. One is on the monitor as I type (Genji the Siamese) and the other is draped over the mouse. I need to move Grady (The Russian Blue) to click send.

Your help is greatly appreciated!

Ever Yours,

Mrs. Showdog Tiger

Dearly Darlings,

I'm so surprised no one has a response.

Ever Your,

Mrs Showdog Tiger

Hey Show,

You have to remember not all the helpful folk are in your time zone. As your old RL neighbor I know how you struggle with your sight. Be patient! By the Bye...The people who bought your house are not as nice as you and Maneo. I'm so glad I'm still your neighbor in SL.

MS

Madame Tiger,

I don't know what retail outlets are in your area, but a quick visit could be in order, especially if you wish to pre-view a new monitor. I highly recommend viewing a monitor before purchase, if you have vision problems.

That said, various on-line retailers, such as zipzoomfly.com, newegg.com or mwave. com offer some fine deals on monitors.

You can find monitors up to 24 inches in size for under $500, from reputable manufacturers such as Samsung and Asus. If you want Viewsonic or Sony, you will have to pay a little more, or purchase a smaller monitor.

A few other things to think about:
Brightness, expresses in number followed by cd/m2. The higher the better, 400 or 500cd/m2 or higher.
Contrast, expressed as a ratio. 1000:1 is good
Response time, the lower the better. anything under 5ms is very good.

As for the cat issue, I can't help you there, my home is animal-free, as I can barely clean up after myself.

Good Luck in your quest.

Didnt they value a Sony Trinitron on Antiques Roadshow last season? Hahahahaha!

Okay, sorry, I couldnt resist that. Good luck in the quest for a screen. And apologies
Your Little Love,
Jig.

Hi Showdog....

Try DellOutlet.com or Tigerdirect.com. You can get some great deals. I have a 24" flat panel moniter and it rocks for SL~!!! And....my cat can't perch on it.....lol so she lays on the desk in front which is fine because I can raise the moniter enough so that her fuzziness doesn't block my view.

My fiance bought my Dell from the Dell outlet....and lemme tell ya....after 2 years this computer still rocks~!!! It's a refurbished XPS410 and it was half the cost of new....can't beat that!!!

I don't know what the price is like in the US, but the Dell 2408WFP is generally very wonderful.

I picked up a great 22 inch Flat Screen LG at Best Buy a couple of months ago. The marked price was around $269 I believe.

Hello Showdog!
I'd recommend going to a big box store like Best Buy or Circuit City to look at all the different monitors available these days. Last I was in Best Buy they had literally 30+ different monitors. It's nice to be able to compare features and brightness/sharpness in person, and then go to somewhere like newegg.com, which has fabulous prices and selection.
Hugs,
Oryx

Once you got a large widescreen monitor you can never go back. I like ViewSonic a lot. If it were me, I'd look for something like the VX2262wm.

Newegg.com has it for around $279.

Ms. Showdog, maybe you can buy some sort of box to place around your new moniter so your kitties can still nestle by you. good luck.

Good Product and a good shopper

Viewsonic rocks - I have been using them without fail for years. And I certainly advocate NewEgg as well.

I recently replaced my 19" screen with a Samsung SyncMaster T220 widescreen (22" and it transfomed my view on SL, it also looks incredible. It set me back £199 here in the UK, no idea what the price would be in your location but I'm sure you'd find it under your $500 (you'd probably get the 24" version for under $500 also).

good luck..

Perre..

I love Newegg.com. They have fantastic service and response time, but for a monitor, hit the local Bestbuy or whatever and actually look at the screen before you buy it there or newegg (or wherever). Screens with the exact same specs often have a different look. Colors, clarity, depth, etc. So it will be easier to pick the perfect one for you. Once you know which one you want, shop around.

I have a 24 inch screen, and it's really nice to have that kind of size.

i got a Benq 22" wide.. cost about 300$ but I had to pay in Yen...
Monitors are cheaper than they used to be..
go wide ... its great for building..
also the very expensive flat monitors.. hurt the eyes.. LG and Benq both are great pricewise and eyewise

The tricky thing here may be judging legibility of text on a monitor set up in a store. What I'm thinking is that a higher resolution monitor (say 1920 x 1200) may be better, but until the OS is configured to use larger than normal fonts, text will look painfully small on it. A lower resolution monitor of the same size will show more readable text in the store, but the fewer pixels, the less ability to scale those fonts smoothly when it's back home.

But I really don't know how well scaling-up fonts actually works in practice. (I try to cram as much stuff on the screen as possible, so every pixel is precious to me.) Perhaps someone with more experience could comment--or perhaps the OP herself is already an expert.

Oh, and after shopping around the local big box electronics stores to compare models, one can always come back home and order from newegg, etc. I guess it's possible to get one with dead pixels or other problems right from the start, but I've never seen it myself, and the big stores will want to just give you an unopened box anyway. The online savings can be substantial and it comes to your door instead of you needing to schlep the thing from a store.