By Chris Scott Barr

When you sit down at your desktop, how many wires do you see? Or more specifically, how many are running to your tower? Wireless networking, keyboards and mice have all helped us in our battle against the cord, but still there are a few things that remain. Two things that really stand in my way are my speakers and monitors. Fujitsu has a solution for the latter.

The company has revealed that they are working on a truly wireless monitor. Yes, that includes the power cable as well. The screen gets power using a magnetic induction transmitter, which you would have built into your desk. The video itself would be transmitted from a wireless USB connection from up to 32 feet away. No word when the company will have this ready for stores, or what sort of price we’ll be looking at.

[ Fujitsu ] VIA [ Dvice ]

When I first started working at an electronics store, we only had two choices when it came to monitor sizes. Most of them were 17-inches, though we did have a pair of the larger 19-inch screens that I would drool over. Now you can walk into a store and find half a dozen different sizes. It seems that right now anything from 21 to 24-inches seems to be in the sweet spot in terms of pricing. However, there are plenty of larger ones out there. Today we’ll take a look at one of the larger ones. Specifically, the 270W-1080P 27-inch monitor from Sceptre.

When you start looking at 27-inch monitors, you start to blur the line between large monitor and small TV. I suppose the only real defining feature is the presence or absence of a tuner. This particular one does not include a tuner, so by my definition it is a large monitor. Lets take a look at what it does have after the jump:

LCD Panel

• Active Screen Size 27″
• Aspect Ratio 16:9 Wide Screen
• Brightness 400 cd/m2
• Contrast ratio 1000:1 (Native) / 60,000:1 (DCR)
• Resolution 1920 x 1080
• Response Time 2 ms (OD)
• 16.7 million colors
• 50,000 hours lamp life

Viewing Angle

• 170º (horizontal)
• 160º (vertical)

Speakers

• Built-in. 3 watts per channel

Inputs

• VGA
• DVI
• HDMI
• Audio In

Looking over the features list, we can see that it’s a fairly well-rounded monitor. We’ve got the three major video inputs, as well as an audio jack. The low response time is always good to see, as we don’t want any ghosting when playing games or watching fast action sequences.

Features are nice, but what everything boils down to on a monitor is how well it looks. If it looks bad, no amount of features are going to make up for it. This particular one isn’t going to blow anyone away with it’s perfect colors, but it doesn’t look bad. Blacks are appropriately dark, though whites can seem a little more dull than I’d like. The colors are a tad washed out, but not enough that the average user is going to immediately spot.

When it comes to gaming, you won’t find any complaints here. The monitor kept up with every game that I played without the first hint of ghosting. The same can be said of watching movies as well.

As with most monitors featuring built-in speakers I was unimpressed. The sound was generally muffled and a bit tinny. When using it with a PC you could easily use an external set and be happy. However, if you want to hook up a game console via HDMI, you’re pretty much stuck going through the built-in ones on the monitor. (yes, there is an optical output on both the 360 and PS3, but that’s a different story entirely) The games were still playable, but when watching movies I did have issues from time to time hearing certain dialogue.

This brings me to one other point that I’d like to mention. In order to change the volume on the monitor, you must first press 5 buttons before you can do so. This is a rather large pet peeve of mine with monitor manufacturers. If your monitor has built-in speakers, don’t make me press a bunch of buttons before I can change the volume.

If you’re looking for a larger monitor to replace your existing one, or just looking to add a second one to your desktop, the Sceptre 270W wouldn’t be a bad choice. While it isn’t the most color-correct monitor on the market, it will serve you well in your daily computing. The included HDMI port also makes it easy to hook up your favorite console for a bit of gaming at your desk. The MSRP of $399 is a little high, but some quick checking around the internet will find you a considerably lower price. Costco has it listed for $319.99, and is taking off an additional $50 through April 25th. Even without the additional discount, $320 is a pretty good price for what you’re getting.

By Chris Scott Barr

When most people walk into my office, the first thing they notice is that I have a lot of monitors at my desk. Two of them are for my Mac, and two for my PC. However, I’ve always thought it would be cool to have more. I’m sure you’ve all seen movies where some hacker has six ore more monitors arranged in a nice rectangle. That’s exactly what I want, and it seems that with AMD’s new DirectX11 cards, I’ll be able to do this.

Now I’m sure you’ll point out that I can hook up plenty of monitors to my Windows machine just fine. That’s true, I’ve had up to four connected at once, but it does not provide the desired effect. When I launch a game, it still only plays on a single window. However, with AMD’s Eyefinity tool, Windows will think that all of the connected monitors (up to 6) are really just one large display.

That’s right, you can have six monitors arranged in a rectangle, and when you fire up your favorite game, it will show up on all six. Of course you’ll probably have some fun in getting the game to work at the proper resolution, depending on the title. The bezels will also be a little annoying, but AMD is working with Samsung to create monitors with extra-thin bezels for this sort of purpose.

I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these cards and try this out myself. Unfortunately it sounds like you’ll need to have at least one monitor hooked up using a DisplayPort, meaning you can’t just go grab a bunch of old 17-inch monitors and go to town. Still, count me in.

VIA [ HotHardware ]

By Shane McGlaun

I like using multiple monitors for my computer; they are cool for gaming if you extend the desktop. The big downside to multiple monitor setups is that the bezel around the monitor makes for a gap in the on screen image that can be annoying and get your fragged if you miss something right in front of you.

I have also seen big video walls where the gaps make the video pretty much unviewable. Samsung has announced a new line of large format monitors that are 46-inches in size and have very thin bezels. The monitor bezel is 2.4mm on the right and bottom and 4.3mm on the top and left sides making the space between screens only 7.3mm (we can assume that there has to be some space between each screen, accounting for the extra .5mm of space).

The screens have 700 nits of brightness, a resolution of 1366 x 768, and a contrast ratio of 3000:1. The screens have full PC and video connectivity options as well. The line includes the 460UTn with a built-in Pc running embedded Windows XP and the 460UTn-UD with software for creating a video wall with up to 250 displays from one PC.

[Samsung ]

By Luke Anderson

I’ve yet to find a digital picture frame that actually made me want to buy it. There have been a few interesting ones here and there, but at the end of the day you’re shelling out a good big of money for something that’s just going to display pictures. However, Samsung has piqued my interest with their new line of frames that can also act as an extra monitor for your PC.

These new frames use a technology called UbiSync PC (likely based off of DisplayLink technology) that allows you to plug it in via USB, and have yourself either an 800×600 or 1024×600 screen (depending on which one you buy). This screen would be very useful for storing toolbars, icons or whatever. Then when you’re not using it, it turns into a simple digital picture frame. The 8-inch version runs $142, while the 10-inch is $204. Honestly, for that price, I’d just buy another monitor and set my screensaver to display pictures. You’ll get the same result, just with a larger monitor.

[ Amazon ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Jonathan Kimak

Progressive Insurance has a gadget that can monitor your driving habits. It can tell how many times you slam on the brakes suddenly and how fast you accelerate along with other signs of a good or bad driver.

If you drive safely then you could save as much as 60% on your insurance premiums. The downside is that if you drive poorly your insurance rate can actually go up by 9%. Everyone who signs up will get an immediate 10% reduction on their premiums before Progressive learns the truth. The monitoring system is already being tested in Alabama, Oregon and Minnesota and will make it to the rest of the U.S. during 2009.

[ Detroit News ] VIA [ Kicking Tires ]