Then Friday dawned, and after I took care of my overnight work emails, I turned on my PC to play some music and got up to go make coffee. When I came back, the screen was blank.
Again.
Okay, I've seen this one before. I unplugged the monitor, plugged in the old one, and sure enough there was a picture there. I then waited while I took care of some more work (including a few meetings), and tried plugging the power cord and HDMI back into the monitor and turning it back on.
Unlike last time, no dice.
Well, crap.
It was at that point I saw the coax budget for my outside antenna sprout wings and fly away. I took a short break from work, punched up the Microcenter website, and quickly scanned monitors that fit the size I needed. I found a couple of potential options but really struck out on monitor reviews online. When most of the so-called "reviews" looked like they were generated by a couple of prompts from an LLM, I kind of gave up and went to Microcenter over lunch to talk to the staff.
An hour later and a very nice chat with one of the staff later and I was home with a new Samsung monitor. Yes, it's a "gaming monitor", but it's not one of these $1000 4K gaming monitors.* I just wanted something that is an equivalent of what I had bought 5 years ago, and that was merely entry level gaming stuff, just a bit larger than the monitors I've used in the past.
So, here's hoping that this thing lasts at least 5 years. It's not like I'm pushing it to the limit or anything, since my hand-eye coordination isn't what it once was, so games with a high dexterity requirement (which also tend to be the ones with the most advanced graphics) are pretty much off the table for me. That makes my gaming requirements modest enough to keep my costs low. Thank goodness.
Now, I have to get used to more vibrant colors than what I've had before, because these newer monitors have better HDR than what I had on my old monitor.
*Far from it, to be honest. Oh, those $1000 monitors looked pretty, but I have neither the money nor the space for one of those.
#Blaugust2026
I have the same 22" flat monitor I've been using for about a decade. I have looked at newer ones. I could buy a significant upgrade for less than this one cost me ten years ago, the tech has moved on that far.
ReplyDeleteBut why? I'd doit if, like yours, mine had failed but I'd still only pay a couple of hundred dollars. Actually, allowing for currency conversion, more like $150. What is there to be gained by having a "gaming monitor"? How does it help you to game better? It's not like I can't see what I'm doing on the cheap one. I'd have thought of all the peripherals that might improve success in a game, the monitor would be the least significant. It's not like you can aim better or move faster or hit harder because you have a bigger screen, is it? Or am I missing some fundamental physical property of expensive displays?
To be honest, I'm not sure why it's considered "gaming monitor". It might be because it has a faster refresh than 60 Hz (it has 180 Hz), but given that it can be considered a "gaming monitor" at roughly the price you'd pay for a replacement I think it's just a marketing tool at this point. What I did was simply punch in my requirements in Microcenter's search --including a price range-- and this one spat out. The other one, an LG, was $30 more, but that the last LG device I owned died prematurely after 3 years held a huge amount of influence.
DeleteHonestly, given the prices of 4K televisions these days I'd expect 4K monitors to cost about what I paid for this 2K monitor, but that is most definitely NOT the case. I also knew that my PC struggles beyond 2K game graphics, so I'm perfectly happy staying in my lane.
About the only think I'd change on this monitor is that I could adjust it to sit about an inch lower in front of me, so I don't have to tilt my head to see better out of my bifocals. I bet Samsung wasn't expecting THAT feedback!
Yeah, my Dell monitor got a big black horizontal line a little off center at about 5 months old. I poked at the screen and it disappeared. I thought I was being stupid but what's to lose, I put a large paper clip on the edge of the screen where to line was and it is over five years old now lol. I was very proud of my repair job! TotA
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