My Computer Monitor Saga

Yesterday, the 15" monitor of my nearly five year old HP computer died. I had noticed that it had been acting funny for several days before its demise, so I wasn't surprised, but it did happen at a bad time, since I'm taking an online drivers' safety course to get an insurance discount, having probably about $800 work done on my car Wednesday, and, of course, there are all the things that I do on the internet these days, like banking, paying bills, shopping and just chewing the fat with a bunch of guys I've never met.

I really didn't have much time to do any shopping around, so after calling Walmart and Sam's Club to get some basic information, I just jumped into the car and drove over to Sam's Club to see what I could find. One thing I didn't find was some service.

When I called Sam's from home, the computer guy was on break, so I figured if I got cleaned up and drove over to Sam's and looked around a bit that the computer guy would get off break and he could answer some questions regarding compatibility and such.

After browsing for a few minutes and talking with some other customers, I pulled out the old cell phone (well, really a brand new LG VX9100 Env^2) and called Sam's number and told the person on the line that whereas I had called previously from my home, I was now standing in the computer aisle and I would really like to talk with someone ASAP. I was informed that the computer guy was still on break.

So, since Walmart is in the same shopping center, I decided to call Walmart again and whereas they had told me that they had a Dell 19" monitor for about $200, I was now informed that they had a 15" Acer monitor for $128.

Well, 15" is what I had and $128 was a lot cheaper than I had bargained on and since the Sam's computer guy had obviously used his break to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes or something, I told the Walmart guy I'd be there in about seven minutes.

About seven minutes later, I arrived at the electronics department at Walmart and learned that Conrad, the resident computer wizard and the guy I'd talked to on the phone seven minutes earlier, was now on break, so a nice saleslady accompanied me back to the monitor section where she gained my consumer confidence by telling me that her laptop was down because she had a virus and she didn't think her virus software was up-to-date and she didn't know what to do since she didn't know where her boot disk was.

I looked at the $128 15" monitor and from the picture on the box and the general shape and size of the box, I determined that it must be the same size and shape as my dead one. They didn't have this model on display.

So, I paid for it and when I got home and I got everything prepared to install it, I pulled it out of the box and imagine my surprise when I saw that the monitor was roughly the size and shape of one of those Publisher's Clearinghouse envelopes you get in the mail every year.

I tried to convince myself that I could live with this for a few months until I could just buy a new computer, but really, it would never do, even for a few months, because I needed a pair of opera glasses to read the menus and such. So, I packed it all back up, took it back to Walmart, and exchanged it for an Acer P201W 20" wide-screen for about $200.

I'm really happy with this one. I've used other people's computers with wide-screen monitors and I've always gotten a blazing headache, because everything on the screen is too small and wildly distorted.

Apparently, these folks haven't learned where the settings tab is because everything on my screen is the same size as it was on my old monitor, except that I now have a much wider view of everything.

Now, when people post those enormous pictures on some boards, I won't have to pan and scan every post in the thread.

The monitor also has different settings for different tasks. If I'm working with images, I push a button and things really brighten up. If I'm reading text documents or watching videos, I just push a button and the settings change to suit those tasks. Of course there is also a general setting and the user can set his own preferences.

Now, if the computer will just last another three months, I can get rid of it, before it bites the dust at some inopportune moment. I hate to say good-bye to XP, though.


[edit on 2008/12/21 by GradyPhilpott]

That sounds like fun.


Good to see you got a good one at the end though.

Originally posted by enjoies05

That sounds like fun.

It was a great time. It took me some five hours to get it all straightened out, which included a lengthy lunch at my favorite restaurant, where I told everyone how lucky I was to have gotten a 15" computer monitor for a mere $128.

Nice goin G.

I paid a bunch more than that at Best Buy.

I think I was little vague in the OP.

I actually paid about $200 for the 20" monitor.

Still a good deal, though.