From: brad@aero.org (Bradley A. West)
Subject: Re: Sony 1304 Monitor Not All That Great
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 20:03:55 GMT

In article <1992Apr7.024557.29959@u.washington.edu> dali@milton.u.washington.edu (David A. Lee) writes:
>In article <1992Apr6.193541.381@ncsu.edu> smisra@eos.ncsu.edu (SAURABH MISRA) writes:
>>
>>The Sony 1304 Monitor that was recently picked by MacWorld as the
>>best color monitor buy, even better than Apple's 13 RGB, is really
>>not all that great.  Infact, Apple 13 RGB if FAR better, and even
>>the Seiko, which MacWorld seemed to dislike, is better.  I found
>>this out first hand, and thought I would save people some shipping
>>costs...not all that MacWorld says is true.  Maybe they thought
>>Sony was the best because they advertise in their magazine a lot or
>>something like that.  But IMHO, this is how the list should read:
>>
>>Apple 13 RGB 
>>Seiko 1445
>>Sony 1304.
>>
>>Saurabh
>
>Ok, that's great.  Thanks for telling us.
>
>Now, how about telling us *why* you don't think it's good.  ;)
>
>David Lee
>
Well, here's a little story of my own...
I bought a Sony 1304 monitor, thinking I'd save about 75 bucks and get
"the same" monitor as the Apple RGB I enjoy at work.  Wrong.
First, I didn't like that Sony placed an anti-glare coating on their
version, it makes the image much less sharp.  This I can live with.
After about a month of using the thing, I noticed that one side of the
screen was "lighter" than the other.  At the time, I had about an 18%
grey (for the photography buffs out there) background, and there was a
definite line just to the left of center which ran vertically and
separated the darker right side from the brighter left side.  This
annoyed me greatly, and I took it to the nearest Sony Service Center.
(luckily living in southern CA, I _only_ had to drive the 25 miles to
Burbank for this service and saved shipping)  They returned it to me a
week later but hadn't solved the problem.  I returned it again and got
to talk with one of their techs.  Seemed all they did was adjust the
focus by connecting it up to a PC and running some test patterns.  We
found a solid image so he could more easily see the problem.  A week
later I picked it up again.  This time, I brought my computer and
checked it out there.  Nope!  So, I sent it back again for repair.
Finally the third time, they gave me a new monitor.  Same problem
developed
roughly a month later.
To this day, I have one bright and one dark side to my monitor and
I've given up on having it fixed.  I should have bought the RGB and
paid the extra money.
Now I'm worried, because at work they've agreed to buy me a 20"
monitor for development & demo'ing, they found a good deal on some
Sony's and are buying one of those!  I certainly hope this "flaw" is
limited to the 1304 and not their 20" model!

-brad



-- 
Brad West      "They say the secret of success is being at the right
brad@aero.org   place at the right time.  But since you never know
                when the right TIME is going to be, I figure the trick
                is to find the right PLACE and just hang around!" - Calvin
Xref: sparky comp.sys.mac.hardware:9202 comp.sys.mac.wanted:4457