Okay, so a lightning storm blew the holy living tar out of one of my mainline monitors - a 5-year-old KDS VS-7i CRT. So I bumped the 17" trinitron off my build desk into it's place. Mmmkay. That's cool.... Until I go to build a rig. I realize "WTF, I don't have a monitor anymore" and search my inventory. 3 mac monitors, 2 standard VGA monitors. The cable on one is chewed up, so I junk it. The other one... Is a circa long-time-ago no-namer that supports 800x600 max and flickers. So that's what's on my build bench right now, with an X800Pro PCI-E feeding it.
So, naturally, I'm in the market for a new monitor. But... If I buy anything, I want something that I can recognize the name on. I'll take another KDS if need be. But CRTs are expensive as hell still, with the LOWEST I'll go being another KDS, except this time the XF-7I. That's $103. Ideally, I'd like 2 or 3 of the damn things, since I prefer to keep a few spares on hand for high volume periods and new additions to the fleet. That makes it WAY more expensive. And don't get me started on LCDs. I've been halfway tempted a few times by the 2001FP, but the fact that Dell is the only company out there that offers a monitor like that at that price, undercutting even refurbs scares the bejesus out of me. In short, there's something wrong with them. Nobody's found it yet, but it's there... Somewhere.
So, naturally, I'm in the market for a new monitor. But... If I buy anything, I want something that I can recognize the name on. I'll take another KDS if need be. But CRTs are expensive as hell still, with the LOWEST I'll go being another KDS, except this time the XF-7I. That's $103. Ideally, I'd like 2 or 3 of the damn things, since I prefer to keep a few spares on hand for high volume periods and new additions to the fleet. That makes it WAY more expensive. And don't get me started on LCDs. I've been halfway tempted a few times by the 2001FP, but the fact that Dell is the only company out there that offers a monitor like that at that price, undercutting even refurbs scares the bejesus out of me. In short, there's something wrong with them. Nobody's found it yet, but it's there... Somewhere.
