Rather Large 26" KDS 1920X1200 $266.94 shipped

[EmMayEx]

Edit: as of 7/14/2009 the price is back to $249.95. I received mine in a reasonable amount of time and have been very happy with it. Granted it isn't a top of the line when it comes to color accuracy but it is bright and big and pretty nice especially for the price.

Edit: as of 6/17/2009 the price is $259.95 up $10 from the original posted price

Here is a rather large monitor for a very nice price. The reviews on NewEgg are pretty good as long as you don't expect color calibration good enough for a graphics artist.

K-2626MDHWB 26inch Wide Format LCD display w/ VGA / DVI or HDMI Connectivity
$259.95 plus $16.99 shipping = $276.94

I just purchased one a few minutes ago to replace an old 21" Viewsonic P815 CRT (circa 1996). The KDS should easily best my old CRT but I may need to upgrade my graphics card to get the full benefit

Max L.

 

[VirtualLarry]

How is BuyDig as a store? I've never ordered from them before.

Also, is this a TN screen? Guessing it is for the price.

 

[Greg04]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
How is BuyDig as a store? I've never ordered from them before.

Also, is this a TN screen? Guessing it is for the price.

Fine. I have delat with them extensively over the past few years and not a single bad experience.

 

[msi1337]

KDS still makes monitors?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I ordered three of them. It remains to be seen if they will cancel my orders. I checked out as a guest, with three different CC numbers.

(Since the product page says one per customer.)

 

[dodger2020]

I've bought several camera related items from buydig. Good reputable store (IMO).

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Well, I ordered three of them. It remains to be seen if they will cancel my orders. I checked out as a guest, with three different CC numbers.

(Since the product page says one per customer.)

lol

 

[esquared]

Originally posted by: dodger2020
I've bought several camera related items from buydig. Good reputable store (IMO).

Beach camera is a sister store of Buydig. I have bought from before with no problems. Prices are always decentat both stores.

Looks like it's 9.05 more at Beach camera

 

[VirtualLarry]

Anyone get shipping confirmation yet? I ordered on 6/12, got order confirmations for all three, and then they called monday and wondered if I ment to order three monitors, all on seperate orders. I said yes, and they said that they would ship them out. But it's tuesday (6/16), and still no shipping confirmation. Is this normal for BuyDig?

 

[EmMayEx]

Hmmm, I also orderd on 6/12 and my order still says processing. Wonder if they ran out?

Max L.

 

[VirtualLarry]

6/17, and I recieved three shipping confirmation e-mails. Clicking on the tracking link leads to a Fedex page that says no information recieved yet, but it's a start.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Greg04

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
How is BuyDig as a store? I've never ordered from them before.

Also, is this a TN screen? Guessing it is for the price.

Fine. I have delat with them extensively over the past few years and not a single bad experience.

Ditto, I buy from them occassionally, no problems. BuyDig is fine.

 

[smackababy]

How does this monitor stack up against other 26" monitors?

 

[SuperSix]

KDS is "back", the name is - it's a different company. Parent company is Proview, they own the MAG name now too, I believe.

BuyDig/Beach should have inventory. They received a shipment in the past few days.

I have a KDS 24" inch - it's been a good monitor. I prefer my Asus 24" much more though.

 

[EmMayEx]

My 6/12 order now shows shipped and since I ordered on Friday afternoon that's really only 2 business days which is within the period Buydig says they "usually" ship. So no problems with Buydig's responsiveness at this point. Guess I've been spoiled by Newegg and the like

As far as how this monitor compares it is significantly cheaper and generally has more input options than most 25.5" to 26" monitors that showed up when I punched in "26" LCD Monitor 1920 x 1200" into Google's shopping search. The only monitor that was even close in price was a old Soyo that only had a single VGA input for $280 shipped from Buy.com.

For those who demand better than an TN panel the cheapest I found was an open box deal from Newegg for a Planar PX2611 S-IPS panel at $820 or nearly 3X's the cost :shocked: Personally I'm not a graphic artist nor to I put so much stock in my color acuity that I'm willing to pay an additional $500 for what presumably would be a more color accurate monitor. My color accuracy test involves checking that red looks red, blue looks blue, green looks green and skin tone on DVD movies looks reasonable. I won't be attempting to color calibrate this monitor except possibly out of curiosity.

I did find one thread that describes a satisfied customer who bought about a year ago and was still quite happy as of last November.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1304046

According to that thread the scaling works pretty well, backlight bleed is not excessive nor distracting in low light situations, colors are bright and text is clear.

Newegg reviewers also seem favorably disposed with almost 80% of 95 reviewers rating better than "average" and the handful of below average reviews involve dead units, failed units, or back light malfunction issues that should be covered under warranty.

My take is that if your expectations are reasonable you'll be satisfied if not overwhelmingly pleased. Clearly this is not a top end monitor but it appears to be larger than average monitor with average or slightly better than average performance and features at a well below average price.

Max L.

 

[VirtualLarry]

6/18 and 5pm EST, recieved all three monitors. Not going to hook them up just yet, no room.

Edit: They came double-boxed, with packing peanuts. Very nice.

Edit: The one I got for my friend got hooked up. Looks very nice from a distance, watching Planet Earth in 1080P. Up close, browsing forums, not so great. Because it's a TN panel, and because of the size, there's an area that looks bright, right in front of me, and then towards the outer edges looks dimmer and more grey. So the top and bottom of the screen, at close range visibility, look different. Oh well, it's a TN. It was cheap so I shouldn't complain too much, I knew what I was getting into.

Horizontal viewing angle is good.

It does have glorious resolution, and decent brightness/contrast. Overall, a good buy.

Edit: I got mine set up. I LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUV this monitor. The vertical "greyness" issue doesn't seem to happen to my setup, I have my monitors on a computer desk in which my eye level is around the middle of the screen, unlike my friend's setup in which eye level is at the bottom of the screen or lower.
Pretty bright, I turned the brightness down from 80 to 50. Contrast is good, better than my 22" Westinghouse. Haven't gamed on mine yet, but on my friend's, it looked pretty good.
Oh, there doesn't appear to be any volume control present in the OSD menus. Strange, considering that these monitors are supposed to have speakers. I haven't tried the speakers, usually in-built monitor speakers suck.