PLANAR PL1900 Black 19" 5ms LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 700:1

Pros: I don't know what other people are talking about but I have 3 PL 1900s, two on my desktop and one above on a mount I use to monitor 3 other machines and have been using them for all for almost 3 years without a single issue. I bought them from my brother who had them for at least 2 years and he didn't have any problems.

These monitors are wonderfully simple to set up and use. They take up very little space on the desk. Their menu set up is simple but in a good way. It doesn't give you anything you don't need and keeps it straight forward.

And no clue what people are talking about when they say you have look at it straight on or you can't see correctly. I look up at the third screen at an angle all the time and can read it just fine.

I play all sorts of games on these and watch movies and tv shows and everything is crisp and clean. No problems at all with refresh problems.

Just an all around great desktop space saving monitor.

Cons: If I had ANYTHING bad to say about this monitor it would be 2 things: 1) it's not widescreen. But if I wanted widescreen I'd have ordered a widescreen. 2) It's not HDMI. But again, that's something you'd pay extra for.

Other Thoughts: If you need a nice 19" monitor and you don't need widescreen this is the perfect screen to get. Works perfectly for games and tv/movies.

Pros: None

Cons: Planar monitors are terrible all around. They function as a monitor should, but not as well as they should for the money. Also, Planar's so called "Customer First" Warrenty does not include the cables, which go bad around 7 - 8 months of use. For you own sake, buy anything else, just not a Planar.

Pros: nada

Cons: almost forgot: VGA only. Which works fine with the onboard card, but not so hot with the 7900GT i get installed tomorrow. i did mention i do graphics all day right?

Pros: it is better than nothing. and we did buy not lease these. oh, and at least i dont have to auto-adjust the image location everytime i turn it on like the PL1700

they fit the brackets we had in the plant area that we used on our older IBM monitors.

Cons: where do i begin. i am a technical illustrator, so i stare at this thing all day every day and am already tired of it after only 6 weeks or so.

viewable angle/color: the color is acceptable, if you are looking directly straight on. if you are 5° above or below the image, the colors are way off, switching from blue (top) to everything (front) to reds (bottom) if you are as much as 20° above or below center, you can barely see the image at all.

max frequency: haha, i turned my display settings to 75mhz, to ease eye strain and make my redraws faster (i do art all day) and the screen went black. i had to plug another monitor (the old IBM) in and revert the settings and it worked fine again.

controls: the controls are limited, contrast and brightness do not do what you would normally expect. it is very difficult to manually adjust this image.

price: it is almost as expensive as the viewsonics. i have a VS at home that is 2 years old and MUCH nicer than this brand new Planar.

Other Thoughts: ran out of room...

neck pain: non-adjustable stand means on top of 2 phone books, i still have to look down, well below where i had to look with the IBM monitor i had before or the viewsonic i have at home.

other thoughts??? if i were in our IT department here i would have laughed at the person who decided to buy these.