It's a great day!

I know its been a little while since I've posted, but I've been really busy. It's a great day. It's sunny outside and a new President is being sworn in today (not everyone is probably happy about this, but I'm pretty excited, everyone is entitled to their own opinion). So, as I'm sitting here at my desk, waiting for the Inauguration to start, with a cup of joe, I thought it would be a good time to review one of my newest toys. 

One of the newest things I picked up last week was a new HD monitor. It's not exactly a gadget, but it is a new piece of tech. I picked it up from New Egg (newegg.com) for about $209. It's an Asus 21.5'' LCD Widescreen Monitor. 

I had been wanting to get a new monitor for a while. One thing I learned is never buy electronics in a store like Best Buy. Always check online, you can always get a better deal. When I first found this monitor I was reading the customer reviews and a bunch said they had one dead pixel when they received their monitor. Luckily, when I opened the box and hooked it up, I had no dead pixels.

After using it for a week, I've been able to get a good handle on this product. The colors are great, they are much more vibrant than the screen on my Macbook. Because of this, I'm using my 'Book as a desktop right now with the monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. Also, I am using my JBL Creature Speakers, if I wanted to, another feature that I like that I could use is the monitor's built-in speakers. It came with an audio cord that you can easily connect from the monitor to your computer. 

Another feature that I love about the Asus monitor is that since it is an HD monitor it has an HDMI port in addition to VGA and DVI. This is great if you computer has an HDMI out or as I like to use it, for gaming. My Playstation 3 looks great hooked up to this monitor with 1080p resolution. It also doesn't sound too bad as well, although I will admit the speakers are not the greatest, but again I can easily connect my JBL speakers. 

So far, I have seen no problems with the monitor. The only thing that I could find to point out is that the monitor is really bright. This can be easily fixed by turning the brightness down. Not a big deal. Also I noticed other people said that they thought the controls on the side were a bit confusing. I've had no problems. It's fairly easy to switch between HDMI, VGA and DVI. I could see how adjusting the monitor could be a little confusing at first though. 

Overall, I think this is a great product and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a big LCD widescreen monitor at a great price with HDMI and built-in speakers. One thing that I was disappointed in is that New Egg's prices seem to drop randomly. The day after I purchased it, they dropped the price to $199, which isn't a bad thing for you. I guess $10 isn't that big of a deal, plus you do get free shipping. The shipping was also surprisingly fast. I ordered it last Monday, it shipped out on Tuesday and I received it around 10 a.m. Wednesday morning. Also the day after it went down, I noticed it went back up to $209, but as of right now, it's back at $199. Just to let you all know, I was checking the monitors on there today, and until 1/31, you can get the next model up, 22" widescreen monitor, for $169 with free shipping after a $20 mail-in rebate. The only thing this doesn't have is HDMI but does have the built-in speakers. Not a bad deal at all, but I would still prefer to have the HDMI. For some reason when I looked earlier it was $199. They are always changing their prices. 

Check it out my monitor on New Egg here.

I found this one as well, which is $10 cheaper, and is nearly the same except for it has SPDIF out, which is also for audio. Also has HDMI out. Check that out here.

Also one final thought. If you all were just watching, President Obama gave a great speech, extremely heartfelt and inspiring. Well, that's all for now.

+Tom+