Untitled

îmi pare rău că mi-au căzut pantalonii
când am început să fug
și ai văzut ce aveam
acolo jos
unde casele nu sunt construite
copacii sunt uscați
și oamenii sunt săraci
poate un mare monstru
vine și le fură seva
când se satură de singurătate
poate ei se roagă
să aibă ceva pe care să se bazeze
chiar dacă trebuie să
muncească pentru asta

ASUS VW225N review

I bought this from dc-shop.ro. I was real excited about getting my first LCD, and a big one at that.

Specifications
It’s a 22″ TN film monitor. Native resolution is 1680×1050@60Hz (16:10). The rest of the specifications don’t really matter (see below) but i’ll paste them here anyway: Pixel Pitch: 0.282mm Brightness(Max): 300 cd/㎡ Contrast Ratio (Max.): 8000 :1 (ASCR) Display Color: 16.7M Viewing Angle (CR≧10): 170°(H)/160°(V) Response Time: 5 ms
Initial motivation
Initially i found only good reviews on the net. No bad reviews. I think it’s a new product and hasn’t had enough time or popularity to get properly analyzed. The price was also low enough. 669 RON (158€, $200).
Trouble

It turned out to be a really crappy experience. Firstly, there was a green pixel. There still is a green pixel on it. And there probably always will be a fucking green pixel on it. Always on. Always green. I called them up and they said ‘No, we can’t replace it unless there are 3 bad pixels on it’. That’s their return policy. Well, fuck them.
Second problem was that due to the fact it’s a TN type panel, the contrast changes with the vertical viewing angle. So if you move your head up and down, the image changes.
Third problem was with aspect ratio – it’s 16:10 – the widescreen movies i viewed on it had a black border top and bottom, due to the probable fact that they’re 16:9.
Fourth problem and most important, can’t do too much reading on it (more than a few minutes), i get eye pain. Perhaps it takes getting used to, but point is – the LCD i have at work doesn’t give me eye pain and i gawk into it more than 8 hours a day.
I suppose it might be good for gamers, but for me it failed – i use it for movies, browsing, games and text applications.
Conclusions

I’m selling this one and getting a new one. This time i’ll go and see it in the store, without ordering online (big mistake when buying monitors). I’ll get an IPS type screen, 16:9 or 4:3, from anywhere other than dc-shop. Don’t buy from them. They suck. I’m pretty sure they knew about the dead pixel before they sent it to me. In fact, i suspect they bought a cheap one-pixel-borked batch from Asus so they can make more money based on their 3-pixels-or-more return policy. Fuck you dc-shop, i feel so hurt:

pic from http://www.flickr.com/photos/banjo_d/galleries/72157622860719322#photo_29541996