During the last Friday after Thanksgiving I saw an ad for a 20" flat-panel monitor for $190.  I was super-proud of myself for having found the perfect display for the new computer I was going to buy with my tax return money for under $200 and it looks sharp.  One problem…it totally sucks when compared to anything else I’ve ever seen AND it seems to be really temperamental less than a year after I bought it.

I have one piece of advice for anyone considering spending a significant amount of time in front of their computer…buy a nice monitor.  Now I’m not talking size being the important factor.  I’m talking quality. 

The Problems

Quality.  I’m used to working on ultra-sharp flat-panel Dell displays at work.  Three of them side-by-side actually with the middle one being 20".  (yeah, you probably think I’m spoiled, but trust me when I say I’m far more productive at work than I am at home on this "measly" little 20" all by its lonesome)  Looking at an ultra-sharp, then looking at this no-name can’t display clearly at high resolutions that has faded lines floating up the screen when you stare at it monitor…it just hurts to even compare them.

Reliability.  So, fine.  The quality isn’t that great.  But now it’s flickering off at random forcing me to push the power button twice to get it to display anything again…only to randomly turn off again.  It was so bad a couple days ago that I couldn’t even hit save on everything I had open before closing windows.

Solution

Use another monitor.  I borrowed a buddy’s monitor to at least get my computer back on so I could at least get caught up with email.  Worst case scenario, I can sit on this spare monitor until I inherit another one.  (Which I happen to have lined up this January from my parents before any of this even happened…)  Super thanks to Emma who offered to send me one.  I’m simply amazed at the thoughtfulness of this offer and am just so grateful that I’m almost speechless.

Try to "fix" it.  Then thought I’d try a few things to get this thing working.  First attempt to turn it on and I got about 3-4 minutes out of it.  *poof*  There it went.  Flicked the power button a couple times and got about 10 seconds out of it.  *poof*  Again.  Ok, smack it around?  No.  That’s the last resort before we trash it.  :)  How about the vacuum cleaner?  I can get bonus points for using the vacuum in here anyway.  (We’ll just let the wife think we’re in the mood to clean…)  That’s a win-win, may as well.  ;) 

So I put do the floor real quick, couple spider-webs on the ceiling…then just suck the heck out of the back of this monitor.  I must have spent a good 2-3 minutes cramming the tube up to the vents on this thing to get the best suction I could on it.  Time to try it out…aaaaaand looks like we may be back in business.  Believe it or not, the monitor is actually working ok right now.

[Update: I’ve had it flick off a couple times since I cleaned it out, but blowing in the back of it a few times before turning it back on seems to work.  Talk about lame.]

The Lesson

Now, when I first plugged this thing in I realized just what I’d done.  I’d traded a measly $150 for the next three years of my life sitting in front of this low-quality knock-off.  Was it worth it?  Am I happy that I went with the super-cheap version of my window into the Internet?  I’ll just answer with a nice fat "NO" and go cheap on something else next time I’m in the market for a computer.  Something I stare at needs to be a little better than this.