- Joined
- Jun 25, 2005
Ok, I'm not a good reviewer, but I thought I would let all you guys here know what I thought of my new 19" Philips 190B6CB LCD monitor. I'm not sure how long this monitor has been available on market, but it seems everywhere I looked (forums I knew, search engines I use), nowhere could I find a review or thread. Anyway, I'm not even sure if this monitor is available in the US, Canada, or any other place for that matter (I live in Melbourne, Australia), so it may pay to do some snoopin around if you're interested in perhaps buying one these babies. So here I go....
First of all here are the specs:
Price: Around US$400, AU$560, CA$520
19" LCD
8ms Response
SXGA 1280X1024 (native)
Brightness (nits) 250
Contrast Ratio 600:1
Display Colours: 16.2M
Viewing Angle: H160, V160
VGA & DVI connections
Built-in Speaker
USB2 port
Headphone socket
However, one of the best aspects of this monitor is that it comes with a 3 year "0" bright pixel warranty (I think this only applies to Australia, but I'm not sure).
Ok, so I brought it home as an early Christmas gift for my son and couldn’t wait for him to open it so I could see inside. After checking the contents, I discovered that no DVI cable was supplied
I was looking forward to using the DVI connection more than anything and since I just purchased a new PCI express motherboard and graphics card, which also has a DVI connection, I was really looking forward to it. Oh well, I guess VGA will have to do for now...
Anyway, so I disconnect my old HP 17" CRT, removed it from the desk, and placed the new toy proudly where I thought it should go. My first impressions were...OMG!! This thing is huge! Black, beautiful and oh so big! I then started to plug all the cables in, carefully read the instruction leaflet just to make sure I didn't miss anything, and then sat back in the chair for a final look before switching her on. BTW, did I mention how beautiful she looked?
At this point I began to worry slightly. After reading all the raving reviews regarding the Hyundai L90D+ and having not read a single review on the Philips, I wondered if my choice was a good one or a very foolish one. I knew I would be safe on the dead pixel issue, but who cared about a dead pixel here and there when all of the sudden I was facing the possibility of having an all round crappy monitor and no-one else to blame but myself... So with only one way to find out, I pressed the button and started my computer.
First came the usual bios stuff (huge letters and numbers I thought), then the XP splash screen (not bad), and finally the logon screen. Wow! Did I mention how huge this thing is? Compared to my 17" HP CRT, this thing already looked unbelievable even without any adjustment.
After logging in, I was presented with the windows desktop (and this was an even bigger WOW moment). Knowing full well that I was looking at a resolution of 1024x768 and that this was not the native resolution of the monitor, I still couldn’t believe how good everything looked. The text was sharp and the colour and bright which was great, however, for some reason it seemed too bright (the monitor was set at 100 brightness). Additionally, no dead/stuck pixels to be found anywhere! Yeh!
Comparing this to the HP was like comparing newspaper images to magazine images – no contest. Even at the 1024X768 Resolution. So I thought ok, let's see this baby in 1280X1024 so I quickly proceeded to change the display properties and there she was... in all her glory... the greatest sight I had ever witnessed! Mesmerised, I just sat there glued, entranced, and almost weeping with joy! Everything was so clear, sharp, and full of colour, that even now, after some 10 hours of use, I still can’t believe what I'm seeing. And with all that extra desktop real estate, I really never knew what I was missing. I mean, I've seen 15", 17", and 19" LCD screens in action before (mainly in offices), but I had never seen one that was this bright, sharp, and colourful to look at! In the end, I had to turn both brightness and contrast down to 50 (the whole room light up when playing in the dark).
Three hours later, I went to my local computer store and purchased a DVI cable. I wasn't expecting a huge improvement as I've read some people saying how they hadn't noticed any difference. Well my friends don't believe everything you read because on top of the great results I found under VGA, DVI absolutely blew me away!!!! Crystal clear, super sharp text you could only dream of!! And I'm not kidding when I say that this monitor is the single best computer related purchase I have ever made. I can’t believe how happy AU$560 has made me. My son, who will use it most, will probably remember this day for a long time to come. My friends, life simply does not get better than this.
My son, who is 14, sat next to me as I did all of this. I recall his jaw dropping several times before loading his favourite game... World of Warcraft. Now, I'm not much of a game nut and I couldn't care less about most games, but I just couldn't wait to see what he had to say about the monitor while playing the greatest game there is (so he says) .
Once World of Warcraft was set to 1280X1024, it was magical. Colours and characters seemed to jump up at you, and the sharpness was really something to behold. There was no evidence of ghosting or tearing and the responsiveness was just fantastic. My son must have thought all his Christmases had rolled into one... the lucky son of a gun!
But was I so use to my old HP CRT that I was oblivious to everything around me? I'm not sure, but I realised one thing... the CRT is dead. If it's not dead, it's on its last legs. In fact, I think it's probably already buried! I mean, if your CRT blew up today, would you honestly go out and buy another one, or go for an LCD?
The Philips 190B6 is an excellent monitor and anyone who has got one will also tell you the same thing, I'm sure. Thank you Philips, thank you oh so very much. Now, I’m gonna buy one for me!
First of all here are the specs:
Price: Around US$400, AU$560, CA$520
19" LCD
8ms Response
SXGA 1280X1024 (native)
Brightness (nits) 250
Contrast Ratio 600:1
Display Colours: 16.2M
Viewing Angle: H160, V160
VGA & DVI connections
Built-in Speaker
USB2 port
Headphone socket
However, one of the best aspects of this monitor is that it comes with a 3 year "0" bright pixel warranty (I think this only applies to Australia, but I'm not sure).
Ok, so I brought it home as an early Christmas gift for my son and couldn’t wait for him to open it so I could see inside. After checking the contents, I discovered that no DVI cable was supplied
I was looking forward to using the DVI connection more than anything and since I just purchased a new PCI express motherboard and graphics card, which also has a DVI connection, I was really looking forward to it. Oh well, I guess VGA will have to do for now...Anyway, so I disconnect my old HP 17" CRT, removed it from the desk, and placed the new toy proudly where I thought it should go. My first impressions were...OMG!! This thing is huge! Black, beautiful and oh so big! I then started to plug all the cables in, carefully read the instruction leaflet just to make sure I didn't miss anything, and then sat back in the chair for a final look before switching her on. BTW, did I mention how beautiful she looked?
At this point I began to worry slightly. After reading all the raving reviews regarding the Hyundai L90D+ and having not read a single review on the Philips, I wondered if my choice was a good one or a very foolish one. I knew I would be safe on the dead pixel issue, but who cared about a dead pixel here and there when all of the sudden I was facing the possibility of having an all round crappy monitor and no-one else to blame but myself... So with only one way to find out, I pressed the button and started my computer.
First came the usual bios stuff (huge letters and numbers I thought), then the XP splash screen (not bad), and finally the logon screen. Wow! Did I mention how huge this thing is? Compared to my 17" HP CRT, this thing already looked unbelievable even without any adjustment.
After logging in, I was presented with the windows desktop (and this was an even bigger WOW moment). Knowing full well that I was looking at a resolution of 1024x768 and that this was not the native resolution of the monitor, I still couldn’t believe how good everything looked. The text was sharp and the colour and bright which was great, however, for some reason it seemed too bright (the monitor was set at 100 brightness). Additionally, no dead/stuck pixels to be found anywhere! Yeh!
Comparing this to the HP was like comparing newspaper images to magazine images – no contest. Even at the 1024X768 Resolution. So I thought ok, let's see this baby in 1280X1024 so I quickly proceeded to change the display properties and there she was... in all her glory... the greatest sight I had ever witnessed! Mesmerised, I just sat there glued, entranced, and almost weeping with joy! Everything was so clear, sharp, and full of colour, that even now, after some 10 hours of use, I still can’t believe what I'm seeing. And with all that extra desktop real estate, I really never knew what I was missing. I mean, I've seen 15", 17", and 19" LCD screens in action before (mainly in offices), but I had never seen one that was this bright, sharp, and colourful to look at! In the end, I had to turn both brightness and contrast down to 50 (the whole room light up when playing in the dark).
Three hours later, I went to my local computer store and purchased a DVI cable. I wasn't expecting a huge improvement as I've read some people saying how they hadn't noticed any difference. Well my friends don't believe everything you read because on top of the great results I found under VGA, DVI absolutely blew me away!!!! Crystal clear, super sharp text you could only dream of!! And I'm not kidding when I say that this monitor is the single best computer related purchase I have ever made. I can’t believe how happy AU$560 has made me. My son, who will use it most, will probably remember this day for a long time to come. My friends, life simply does not get better than this.
My son, who is 14, sat next to me as I did all of this. I recall his jaw dropping several times before loading his favourite game... World of Warcraft. Now, I'm not much of a game nut and I couldn't care less about most games, but I just couldn't wait to see what he had to say about the monitor while playing the greatest game there is (so he says)
.Once World of Warcraft was set to 1280X1024, it was magical. Colours and characters seemed to jump up at you, and the sharpness was really something to behold. There was no evidence of ghosting or tearing and the responsiveness was just fantastic. My son must have thought all his Christmases had rolled into one... the lucky son of a gun!
But was I so use to my old HP CRT that I was oblivious to everything around me? I'm not sure, but I realised one thing... the CRT is dead. If it's not dead, it's on its last legs. In fact, I think it's probably already buried! I mean, if your CRT blew up today, would you honestly go out and buy another one, or go for an LCD?
The Philips 190B6 is an excellent monitor and anyone who has got one will also tell you the same thing, I'm sure. Thank you Philips, thank you oh so very much. Now, I’m gonna buy one for me!
!!!
