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Thursday 20 March 2008

Have TFT panels got worse? [Beej]


The price of 20" panels is good right now, you can pickup the Samsung 2032 monitor for about £170, or the 22 for not much more. A friend has been trying to buy a 100% working monitor and three times in a row he has ended up with dead pixels.

The first monitor came from Amazon. It had a single stuck-blue pixel in the middle of the screen. He returned it and in parallel bought a second.

The second monitor came from eBuyer. It had a single fairly prominent stuck-red pixel, and as it didn't have the usual sticker you get on the screen itself it appeared to have already been returned to eBuyer before and they were recirculating it. He still wasn't happy with his double luck so he returned this one for a refund.

The third monitor came from Amazon again. This one had two dead pixels. Now he just wants to give up.


So is this a panel quality issue, or are the sellers to blame for recirculating panels that they know have less than 5 dead pixels on? Or, are his expectations too high, and he should put up and shut up? To be fair he's a fairly serious gamer so he's just trying to get the right gear like any of us would.

Are panels getting cheaper but worse? Would you return a monitor with a single colour-frozen pixel?

5 comments:


  1. God forbid he would use an actual store where they care just a tiny bit more about customers coming back complaining!

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  2. Could always buy a proper brand rather than the cheapest thing he could find?

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  3. I had a stuck red one on my first NEC 20WGX. DSR'd it. It's the only way to buy panels really. Shops won't open the box and let you see it before hand.

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  4. Sammy screens are just fine. I got a 20" right here, and a 37" in the other room. We're not talking Hannspree or Goodmans okay!

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  5. He probably just missed the detail that it was a Sammy - Samsung screens are good screens and of course have been a stalwart of the clan for many a year. I wouldn't actually be surprised if we've owned more Samsung TFT's than any other make. The fact that some of us moved on to the Dell Widescreen (who makes that by the way - do Dell fab their own??) is by the by.

    So either you mate has been statistically extremely unlucky (possible, just very unlikely - I have *never* had a dead pixel on a monitor delivered to date let alone three in a row) or perhaps Samsung went through a production problem with a batch which is now with the e-retailers (unlikely but possible). Either way, if the deal is so compelling that he can't find a better alternative, I would locate one in a physical store and get them to price match as much as is possible. If he pays 10% above net price it's still 17 quid only and that's got to be worth avoiding the hassle of another trudge through returning fucked kit surely?

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