A pretty good LCD for my Mini
I've been using a 15" LCD for my Mini for the past 3 months, and while it works perfectly, I was wanting something in a widescreen. The 20" cinema and the 20" Dell monitors looked appealing, but were too big for me. I don't have the desk space to accomodate such monsters, so I was in a bit of a bind on what to get. The other logical sizes were the 17" SXGA, or maybe a 19", but I didn't want a bigger desktop in the vertical sense, as DVDs won't see much improvement from those size gains. So I was searching the web, and came across a nice compromise, IMO, the Sony MFM-HT75W, which is a 17" widescreen ( 1280x768 ) with HD-ready TV tuner with PIP. I was skeptical at first, but went to Circuit City to check it out. I must say, I was quite impressed. The brightness level was even all the way across, and the picture was vivid to say the least. CC was selling it with a $60 instant rebate, so I took a chance and took it home.
Link
It has a plethora of connections in back, including Svideo, Dsub, and DVI. There are also RCA inputs, which means gaming consoles are welcome as well.
Naturally, I hooked it up to my Mini via DVI, and it was correctly identified from the start. After doing some quality-setting tweaks, I found a nice, vibrant setting for my needs. As far as width goes, I can successfully run the Dock down the left side and still have enough room for a 1024 width browser and the ichat window. Overall, the monitor itself is slightly wider than a standard Apple keyboard, and as tall as a 15" TFT. The cabinet is a good match for the aluminum Mac series, and even has a chrome power button that looks like it was stolen from a Powermac.
The only cons I might have: The shiny finish on the screen that Sony and others seem to be using invites glare. It's not terrible, but the flat finish screens are better, IMO. Also, the speakers are not good enough to replace my creative 4.1s, but I'm not terribly surprised, since there is no separate subwoofer. However, they are good enough for the TV-tuner function, which does support picture-in-picture. This means you can watch TV in the corner while surfing in the rest of the screen (The Simpsons are in the corner right now). While the pricetag might seem a bit steep, it's really a feature packed monitor/TV. Sony includes all the cables, including a sound patch cable. It also appears to support 2 different computer sources, if you don't mind hooking one up via the Dsub.
Anyway, I just thought I'd post my thoughts on it, since I know people are always looking for a good monitor. I recommend this one to anyone looking for a good, medium/small widescreen. More comments to come.
Link
It has a plethora of connections in back, including Svideo, Dsub, and DVI. There are also RCA inputs, which means gaming consoles are welcome as well.
Naturally, I hooked it up to my Mini via DVI, and it was correctly identified from the start. After doing some quality-setting tweaks, I found a nice, vibrant setting for my needs. As far as width goes, I can successfully run the Dock down the left side and still have enough room for a 1024 width browser and the ichat window. Overall, the monitor itself is slightly wider than a standard Apple keyboard, and as tall as a 15" TFT. The cabinet is a good match for the aluminum Mac series, and even has a chrome power button that looks like it was stolen from a Powermac. The only cons I might have: The shiny finish on the screen that Sony and others seem to be using invites glare. It's not terrible, but the flat finish screens are better, IMO. Also, the speakers are not good enough to replace my creative 4.1s, but I'm not terribly surprised, since there is no separate subwoofer. However, they are good enough for the TV-tuner function, which does support picture-in-picture. This means you can watch TV in the corner while surfing in the rest of the screen (The Simpsons are in the corner right now).
While the pricetag might seem a bit steep, it's really a feature packed monitor/TV. Sony includes all the cables, including a sound patch cable. It also appears to support 2 different computer sources, if you don't mind hooking one up via the Dsub.Anyway, I just thought I'd post my thoughts on it, since I know people are always looking for a good monitor. I recommend this one to anyone looking for a good, medium/small widescreen. More comments to come.