Samsung Touch Of Color T220HD 22-inch LCD HDTV Monitor Review

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(More customer reviews)I have a 20-month-old boy who loves to break things, so I have to take all my gaming consoles out fo the living room and into the study, where my PC is. So I thought it would be nice to get a LCD monitor with component input for my old consoles, as well as HDMI for potential new consoles. After lots of research I picked the T220HD, because it also comes with digital tuner. I am very happy with the choice because it is exactly what I thought it would be. it's very versatile and display everything well, and I am especially impressed with the digital tuner which picks up all the network OTA HD broadcast using a cheap indoor HDTV antenna, when my PCI tuner card (Avermedia A180) could pick up 2 or 3 using the same antenna in the same position. It's not perfect, however.
What's to like:
- Component input allows connecting older devices without HDMI.
- 2 HDMI ports
- Input source button cycles through only ports that are plugged in.
- digital TV tuner is excellent.
- Build in speaker/headphone jack/audio out port. Speakers are not great, but having them means you don't need extra adaptors to capture the audio from HDMI/component devices.
- Remote control. OSD navigation is so much easier and more intuitive with it. And this is really useful when turning the unit on/off, making this a true LCD TV.
- Has 16:9 aspect ratio option so that pictures don't have to be stretched to full screen.
- Unit is very light, only 13 lb.
- Picture is bright and clear, no dead pixel for me.
- Screen is matte, not glossy.
What's really annoying to me:
- Unit is light because base is mostly plastic, not very rigid.
- touch sensitive power on/off button. Everything else is tactile and on the side of the monitor, except for power. turning the unit on/off using this button usually requires several presses. Might that be that big of an issue if the unit is not so light and stand so flimsy, I have to grab the whole bottom edge when I try to turn it on this way. Good thing there's the remote.
- My unit has quite a bit of backlight bleed at the center of top and bottom edge. Hard to see when using DVI input, but when viewing HDTV, with the black bars on top and bottom to get the correct 16:9 aspect ratio, the bleeding is obvious.
What are the missing features which I don't care much about:
- the stand is basic, no height adjustment, no portrait mode
- no PIP
- can't be mounted to the wall
- Cannot customize the individual RGB color tone when in DVI mode. Can only select between one of the 3 presets (warm, normal, cool).
Other nitpicks:
- monitor frame has piano finish (glossy), including the inner side which reflects what's on screen. Kind of annoying , and maybe makes backlight bleeding seem worse than it really is.
- most of the connection ports are on the back of the unit facing back. While this makes the ports easier to see than a lot of other models that has the ports on the bottom facing down, it also makes insertion of wires, especially the component video ones, harder becasue you are pushing/applying force perpendicular to the LCD panel. You don't want to put your other hand on the LCD screen, but if you don't, then you really can't get a good push.

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USB 2.0 Multi-Display Adapter Review

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(More customer reviews)1. Insert the CD and install the driver
2. Reboot your computer
3. Connect one end of the USB cable into the adapter, the other into your computer
4. Connect the adapter to your monitor and turn the monitor on
5. If you monitor has multiple sources, choose the correct source (DVI, Video, etc.)
That's it! It automatically extends the desktop to the new monitor. Use Display Settings for further configuration, such as placement of the new monitor (on the right or the left), screen resolution, etc.
We got dual monitors at work about a year ago and it's been rather painful to work (or play) at home with a mere one monitor. I wish I had bought this a year ago!

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J-Tech Digital Multi-Display USB 2.0 to DVI/VGA/HDMI with Audio output FULL HD 1080P Adapter External Video Card Link up to 6 Displays (The latest & the best) Review

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(More customer reviews)The product description says that you can connect up to six monitors and play audio and video at the same time. What it fails to tell you is that you have to have six different devices. You can only connect one monitor with the device. You can not play audio and video at the same time unless you use the HDMI port. The product works just fine, but due to the description being misleading, I am very disappointed.

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ViewSonic VX2235WM 22-inch Wide LCD Monitor Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a superb monitor at a great price. The picture clarity, viewing angles and responsiveness are all I could wish for.
This is my first LCD monitor, and my first widescreen monitor, so I was a little wary of swapping out my CRT (which was also a Viewsonic). But the need for a bigger monitor and smaller desk space made this monitor attractive - particularly at this price. After using the vx2235wm for a few days, I couldn't be happier.
Running the monitor at its native resolution of 1680x1050, the image is remarkably crisp, and the colours are very consistent across the entire screen area. At other resolutions, the image is still extremely good, and only suffer when compared to the native res. The controls are fairly intuitive, and provide a nice balance between simplicity and flexibility. There are some preset contrast/brightness modes, but I selected "standard" and set my own levels. While running programs with a lot of movement - okay, games - I noticed little if any ghosting or shadowing. Playing movies is a joy.
A few points I would note that may be negatives for potential buyers:
- The maximum resolution of 1680x1050 is great, but there are 22" monitors out there with higher resolutions. Personally, I don't like to peer at small text or fiddle with font sizes or DPI, so this monitor suits me well. But if you want the highest number of pixels per screen inch you can buy, this ain't it.
- The monitor doesn't have a 1:1 or fixed aspect setting. This means that unless your graphics card supports these features, the monitor will stretch any image you send it to fill the entire (wide)screen. If you spend most of your time running desktop applications or playing newer games, this won't be a problem. But if you play older games that only support 4:3-style full-screen resolutions (800x600, 1280x1024, 1600x1200) the image will be stretched horizontally to fill the screen, making your opponents look chubby.
What's worse, determining whether a graphics card will fix this for you is tricky. Generally, Nvidia seems to do it while ATI doesn't, but there are exceptions in both cases. In short, if you're a hard-core player of older games, and this stretching will bother you, then this is not the monitor for you unless you *know* your graphics card will preserve the aspect ratio of 4:3 resolutions.
- The preset modes all have the brightness setting way too high for my tastes. I have a fairly dimly lit office, and some display modes are like staring into a headlight! After reducing the brightness manually, it was fine, although the image seemed to dim more noticeably when viewed at an angle. Maybe this is just business as usual with TFT LCD monitors, but it's behaviour you don't get with a CRT.
For most home users, office workers or game-players, this monitor has exceptional performance at an exceptional price. For those wanting a monitor for graphic design or professional photo editing, or hardcore players of older games, I'd recommend getting a more specialized monitor.

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Elegantly styled, fast widescreen. ViewSonics 22-inch VX2235wm widescreen LCD brings high style and high performance to desktop displays. Get set for intense GAMING, MOVIES AND ENTERTAINMENT with fast 5ms video response, DYNAMIC STRUCTURE TECHNOLOGY and an ultra-high 700:1 contrast ratio (typ). Images come at you in AMAZINGLY, CRYSTAL-CLEAR DETAIL with no blurs or ghosting. The widescreen enhances productivity because it lets you work in two applications side-by-side simultaneously. The integrated speakers provide rich sound to accompany your games, DVDs and other visual entertainment. OPTISYNC DIGITAL (DVI-D) AND ANALOG INPUTS provide flexible connectivity options. Mount this glossy piano-black, slim-bezel LCD on your wall and get to work - or play.

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HP W2408H 24-inch Widescreen LCD Monitor Review

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(More customer reviews)I recently did some much needed upgrades for my home office and this by far my favorite. I first saw it in Best Buy, came home to check for online reviews and to see if I could find it cheaper...I did at Amazon!
It's VERY easy to set up and is crystal clear. ( I mean, razor sharp -- no stretched or blurred look anywhere!) However, there was something not quite right with the colors (especially greens) that really bothered me. PLUS the HP "My Display" software that goes with it that contains all of the drivers etc, is not fully functional on non HP machines. (meaning no calibration was available for color or contrast beyond what's built into the monitor itself which was never enough to fix my problem) I was so frustrated and disappointed. (I had been warned of this on another site but thought I'd take a gamble) Well, after trying to hook it up via the HDMI (from VGA) cable that came with it to a new $150 video card -- the colors were still way off and now the screen was all jumpy from that stupid card...(that went right back!) Then, I noticed something when I right clicked on my desktop to adjust my display settings (in XP pro) there was a selection (that had been there all along...duh) that said NVIDIA Control Panel (my internal graphics card) and I was able to calibrate the colors and adjust everything else there and now everything's hunky dory! When it first boots up, the colors look a little neon-ish again but within seconds it goes to the profile I created from my graphics card software. I am sure many would have figured it out sooner than I did, I just wanted to prevent anyone else from beating their head against the wall for a week like I did if I could. (BTW, I have completely removed the video card that I bought and it's hooked up via VGA and it is still crisp and clear)
**BTW, even though the My Display software is largely useless for me, I left it there. For some reason when I uninstalled it, the light that's under the transparent power button on the top of the monitor goes away. That was the only noticeable change after uninstalling it but it annoyed me, so I reinstalled it and it's back on and I just ignore the software**
My husband and I publish a local magazine that is glossy and full color and I am able to do so much more with this monitor than I could before. I can view two (sometimes 3) projects side by side if need be...I love that! And typing an email in outlook looks like it's in about a 60 font! And programs like Illustrator where you need a lot of workspace it's invaluable. I never have to scroll around to grab or view something. My last monitor was a 19" Sony flat panel (that cost more than TWICE what this one did 4 years ago) and I thought it was just fine but once I plugged this lil beauty in I quickly passed it on to my son for his computer. I haven't needed to use the portrait position of the screen so I haven't even tried it. But it came that way when it arrived and was very easy to swivel back around.
One bad thing...don't count on ditching your speakers for the ones that come with this one -- man do they stink! I swear my laptop has better speakers. But it's sort of like people griping that their cell phone camera doesn't take good enough pictures. If you want a good camera buy a camera! If you want a good monitor buy this one and just pretend the speakers aren't even there. The price is way worth it even without the speakers.

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Toshiba Dynadock Wireless U Universal USB Docking Station Review

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(More customer reviews)Superb product. I have been able to clear all wires from my desk and my desktop is now clutter free. My printer, back-up drive, network connection, and other usb accessories are not tied to my laptop and sit on a credenza behind the desk. It has worked as advertised with video and audio seemlessly connecting and no loss in quality.
Its a little pricey, but is a universal dock for the multiple laptops we have at home, which makes it cheaper than buying three different docks for our three different laptops.

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Evga GeForce GT 430 1 GB DDR3 PCI-Express 2.0 Graphics Card 01G-P3-1430-LR Review

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(More customer reviews)When Nvidia released the GT 430 reference design in the last quarter of 2010, hardware pundits everywhere were amazed by the card's potential. Here was a bitstreaming video card, bulging with electronic muscle, with a respectably low power footprint. In short, it was the perfect HTPC video card. The only problem was that Nvidia's offering was a little slow to market, and after a barrage of price drops on comparable ATI products, the initial price point of the GT 430 was a little high for what you were getting.
Flash forward to the present, and the price on the GT 430 cards is dropping...dropping...dropping. As they move farther away from the $100 mark and closer to the $50 mark, the cards have shaped up into one heck of a nice deal. I love mine. In fact, I would marry mine if the state I lived in somehow allowed it. We would live in a log cabin together and sell crafts to tourists. Just me and the GT 430 against the world. No worries, no regrets. I...I love you, GT 430. Let's never fight.
PROS:
- It laughs at your 1080p HD videos. Laughs at them, pushes them down, and takes their lunch money. The card has enough horsepower to play back some kind of crazy, as-yet-undiscovered 5000p video stream, let alone whatever weak 1080p kung fu you'd like to throw at it. Your media center is going to be future-proofed for quite some time. I put this card in a 780G-based motherboard with onboard ATI HD 3200 graphics--considered some of the best onboard graphics available just a few years back--and the GT 430 just destroys it. Sure, discrete graphics solutions are generally going to be faster than onboard video, this is well-known, but the difference was night and day. You want to play a 1080p movie in Windows 7 Media Center while you page through some other film offerings in MediaBrowser? The menus are smooth as butter. You want to watch HD television with the program guide overlayed on the TV stream without graphics slowdowns? Yeah, not a problem. The card delivers.
- Quieter than you would think. The active cooling on the card initially had me concerned about the decibels it might put out, but now that the card is installed, the fan on this EVGA part is whisper quiet. I can't hear it over the sound of my hard drives.
- Good enough for modest gaming, if that's your thing. People who compare this budget Fermi model to graphics cards meant for gamers pretty much miss the point of a card like this. It's meant to be sandwiched into a tiny HTPC case, where it can push out some decent graphical horsepower through a digital output without using a lot of electricity and without generating a lot of heat. If you need a giant, full-sized PCI-E card that will take up a square foot of space in your computer case so you can get 200 FPS and pwn noobs in Call of Duty 11: Duty Harder, or something, then look elsewhere. This card is not for you. Also, that's your mom calling you. Dinner is ready. But if you have light gaming needs and tend to play older games, like World of Warcraft, then the GT 430 has you covered. I'm at 1920 x 1080 resolution at the highest detail settings with no slowdown. Life is good.
- Made by EVGA. For the uninitiated, the thinking is usually that one company's implementation of an Nvidia reference design is similar if not exactly the same as another company's, so it doesn't really matter what name is on the card, just buy whatever's cheapest. But believe me, the company does matter. EVGA is one of the more established video card companies out there at this point, and my own experience with them in the past is that they have stood by their products in case of trouble and are fast to honor their rebates. In fact, I got a rebate offer with this very card, and after filling out the information on their website, the company offers to expedite the rebate process for a nominal ($2) fee, so you get your money back in week or so instead of half a year. How great is that?
- Nvidia driver support. You download one driver file from nvidia.com and that's it. The installation is automated and painless, and the drivers support a wide range of Nvidia products. There's no drama. Compare and contrast with ATI's infamously poor driver support, where the company will often sneakily disable features on older cards that were working fine with the older drivers, or will inadvertently introduce or even reintroduce bugs serious enough to crash your computer. My subjective opinion is that their driver support has matured and gotten a little better, but it's still just plain bad. Every time ATI releases a new set of Catalyst drivers, it's like a war crime. As somebody with a junk drawer filled with a decade's worth of poorly-supported ATI TV tuners and graphics cards, it was definitely a headache I wanted to avoid this time around. If you're getting tired of all the nonsense and are taking 5xxx-series ATI cards off the table as a viable option for an HTPC build, that leaves you with just one good, affordable alternative, and it's this card.
CONS:
- The card is meant to have a small footprint, and occupy one PCI-E slot without hogging all the other slots on the motherboard. But in my setup, the heatsink fan on the video card is perilously close (1/4") to a neighboring PCI slot, which itself has a TV tuner card in it. Yeah, everything physically fits in the case, but there could be some concerns with heat when you have two cards that close to each other. I installed a small intake fan to push more air into the PCI bay as a little insurance.
- A minor gripe, but the box was a little light. No adapters, no driver CD, no nothing. It was just the card. I realize most customers are not going to use all that stuff, but throw us a bone here. Throw in an HDMI cable to sweeten the deal. Something. Anything.I hate to end with the "CONS" because it gives the impression that there's something wrong with the card that should somehow factor into a buying decision. But the fact of the matter is there really is nothing wrong with this card at all. It's pretty much as good as it gets for new media PC builds. If you're assembling an HTPC, it should most certainly be on your list of components to buy.

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Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 - 1 GB DDR3 DP/DVI-I/VGA PCI-Express Graphics Card 100293DP Review

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(More customer reviews)I have a desktop PC in a small cube form factor. It's a decent desktop that I didn't want to upgrade wholesale at this time. The built-in graphics chip (embedded NVidia GPU) was quite capable for its time (3 years old), but it's showing its age and the embedded nature of the GPU.
I use the computer to drive two 24 inch monitors, both running at 1920 x 1200. The embedded GPU does that job quite admirably, and it even plays older 2D games such as Starcraft Brood War just fine. However, the embedded GPU basically falls over when any of the more modern games is run. So I've been searching for a capable PCIe graphics card for this PC.
The constraint in my setup is that the SFF (small form factor) PC has a very small power supply (250W), and it's not designed to support the big beefy GPU's that suck an inordinate amount of power and require a separate power connector to the graphics card. So I've been searching for a while for a card that has good performance, low power consumption and low cost.
I ordered the card after careful examination of the specifications to see that they met my needs. After 1 month of use, I am ready to report that I am very happy with this card, which has met my expectations in terms of its quietness, stability, and performance.
I've played a few games of Starcraft II beta on it, and it seems quite capable of delivering a high quality gaming experience.
Granted, this card won't compete with the latest and greatest 100+ Watt graphics cards, but it's not designed for that. For the stated market that want low power, low cost and good performance, I would suggest that this card delivers it.
Highly recommended.


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Plugable UGA-125 USB 2.0 to VGA/DVI/HDMI Adapter for Multiple Monitors up to 1280x1024 / 1440x900 Each (DisplayLink DL-125 Chipset) Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this adapter to connect a third monitor (1280x1080) to my iMac with 2.66GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and OS X 10.6.4. I downloaded the OS X driver from the manufacturer website, installed it, restarted and connected the monitor. Works just great and delivers a great picture. On more reason to like this adapter is that it comes super complete with adapters for VGA and HDMI and a USB cable. Given the fact that Apple takes 30 Dollars just for a Mini Displayport to DVI adapter (which, of course, you can also buy here at Amazon for $10) I find the $50 that I paid for this USB adapter a reasonable solution to connect another monitor to an iMac.


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Plugable UGA-2K-A USB 2.0 to VGA/DVI/HDMI Adapter for Multiple Monitors up to 2048x1152 / 1920x1200 Each (DisplayLink DL-195 Chipset) Review

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(More customer reviews)I work at an office where each computer has 4 screens. We had no difficulty getting desktop cards to run 4 screens, but laptops were a different story. We used to get these large Dell docking stations with a pci card slot. They no longer make these and the new ones will do two external screens with the laptop closed. We keep the laptops closed on the docks, so I needed 2 more screens.
We purchased another brand of USB adapters and while they worked, we had problems with them. If you open anything video intense (quicktime for instance) or that heavily used the microsoft .net framework, the screens would flicker and go crazy. You would lose control of the mouse and keyboard making the computer unusable. Quickbooks 2010 was one of these products.
The screens with the other brand of USB adapters were also somewhat fuzzy and much less clear than the 2 screens on the integrated video.
I had just about given up hope when I read about Display link. I mean all usb adapters are equal right? (Answer: No way!) I visited their website and saw the videos of one of their employees running 720p video and thought I would give it a shot. Plugable was one of their featured products.
What a difference! These Plugable adapters are almost identical to the integrated video. They have clean and crisp video and each one shows up as a separate monitor in the Windows display preferences. I was able to play video and open Quickbooks without error. PDFs and other documents also scrolled faster, identical to the speed of the integrated video. They used to lag before when on the usb adapter screens.
This product is highly recommended for those needing extra screens. Very highly recommended for laptop users because your video card options are limited.
I even had the company contact me to let me know that there had been a price drop shortly after I ordered, and they wanted to refund me the difference. Very few companies would do that, and it speaks volumes to the folks over at Plugable. Thanks again for making such a wonderful product.

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Sapphire Radeon HD5450 512 MB DDR2 VGA/DVI/HDMI PCI-Express Video Card 100291L Review

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(More customer reviews)Finally, a low profile, FANLESS, bitstreaming card. Ideal in a low end HTPC. Delivers beautiful Blu-Ray video and enables Blu-Ray audio bitstreaming. Blu-Ray bitstreaming, a holy grail of the HTPC crowd, used to cost $200+ (installation headaches included for free). This card will do it for under $50 although you still need a software player such as Arcsoft TMT 3 (bitstreaming feature currently in public beta). Includes two low profile brackets.
Caveat, this card is not for gamers. It's fast enough for HTPC use but slow for gaming.

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Eforcity HDMI-F to DVI-M Video Adaptor with Gold Contacts Review

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(More customer reviews)Great DVI Converter...excellent quality. It worked perfectly via my HDMI cord when I used my PS3 on my Dell E228WFP 22" Monitor. Visuals on the LCD were amazing. There weren't any apparent loss of visuals. I would recommend this item...
1 thing though, the seller "Eforcity" has a thing for rapidly changing the price on this cable. I bought it for $1.92 a week ago, and as I write this review, the price is $11.48....that is not cool. So, keep that in mind as you buy it.
Overall, wonderful and effective item.

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