Sunday, December 11, 2005

My New LCD: AOC LM929 Silver-Black 19" 25ms LCD Monitor!!



















"As we unpacked the display we were very impressed with the good quality. The silver and black case is clean and edges are smooth. Attaching the display to the stand was not difficult as it is with some manufacturers. Once the display was on the stand all we had to do was hook up the power and decide if we were going to run an analog or digital signal. Many mid level monitor do not include both options, especially in a 19" monitor at this price. Since we were hooking it up to a KVM switch, analog was the choice. Most displays these days have a power cord that plugs into a power adapter which then has a mini plug to the display. It was kind of nice to be able to just plug the power cord directly into the display as you do with a CRT monitor. Keeps the desk a little less cluttered.

Now with the monitor plugged in and ready to go I sat down and positioned the display. I really like the height adjustment options. You can adjust the display to be about 6 inches from the desktop. For me that took the center of the display above eye level. So for normal viewing I use it about 3 inches from the desktop. The tall adjustments are great if you like your monitor high but it's also there to allow you to pivot the display and view it long ways. Turning the display was simple and I did not feel at any time that it was off balance and would tip over. With a large display that can adjust as high as this does, having a sturdy base can help you rest easy without fear of damage.

Now that the display was positioned comfortably we fired up the PC. Upon powering up, a quick AOC splash screen displays before it loads the image from the video card. Once the OS was up and running I inspected the display for any dead pixels or distortions. There were not any dead pixels. The picture was clear with no anomalies or distortions visible. The tagline with the AOC logo says "Eyes Value". As we first powered up this LCD, in the testing process, and with continued use for several weeks, this tag line means many things. AOC has packaged a quality display in all aspects of workmanship and functionality. This display is very easy on your eyes even after many hours of continued use.

After the easy set up, we spent some time putting the display through the paces. First off was checking out the display controls. The controls are placed on the right side of the display case. This novel placement makes the controls very easy to use. Often with most monitors and displays these controls are hid underneath the bottom front edge. Depending on how high the monitor sits, these buttons can be very difficult to use to make adjustments as I am sure you are aware of.

Next we checked out some basic software applications. Email, word processing documents, spreadsheets, web browsing, etc. The picture quality was excellent for these uses. The whites were definitely not too bright, but the images are crisp and clear. However, because I noticed that the white backgrounds of documents and web pages was not glaring, I wondered how the display would fare with darker images and even dark scenes from games and movies. This did made dark scenes from our test DVD movies a little difficult to see. The specs say it is capable of 16.7 million colors. Compared to a more high end LCD the color shades were a little less definite but still good quality for a mid-level LCD. We knew that with only a 25ms response time that we would probably see some ghosting or blurring of images in both DVD movies and Gaming. What we saw in testing wasn't unbelievably bad, but was noticeable. And the darker images and scenes are darker than they might appear on higher end displays.


















The AOC LM929 is not for hardcore gamers or graphics users. For day to day use, this is a great display. If you spend most of your time in office or business related software and web browsing with occasional gaming and movie watching, this display is golden. I'm using it now for my office display several hours everyday on development and email and web browsing...my day to day work. For a large 19" display, with a good array of features, with good solid quality at an affordable price, the AOC LM929 display is for you!!

Because of the excellent functionality and usability at an affordable price."



Pros:
Love the Pivot, Swivel, Tilt, and Height adjustment options, Monitor feels sturdy and still looks nice.

Cons:
25ms response time, it's a little on the dark side, speakers aren't that good....

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