LG 17" CRT Flatron F700P Review
Introduction
For the past 3 or so years, I've been working on the same old 15" CRT screen. It's maximum resolution was 1024x768 @ 60Hz, forcing me down to 800x600 @ 75Hz. What a fortunate coincidence, then, that it blew two weeks ago. :devilish:
Looking around for most of those two weeks, I wanted a screen that could deliver a high resolution at a high refresh rate, and preferably have a perfectly flat surface. At first, the LG T910BH, listed as a 19" Flatron Ez, caught my attention. This, however, turned out not to be a true flatron, in that the tube was a standard tube, with flat glass put on top of it, giving a parallax effect toward the edges. I next looked at the F900B and F900P (Both discontinued in South Africa), and finally settled on the F700P, which has the same recommended resolution as the F900P, that is, 1280x1024 @ 85Hz. The rest of the technical details can be found on LG's website.
The Outside
The screen comes in a standard box, packed with styrofoam blocks, and weighs in at just over 20 kilograms. Nothing overly special in that area, if a bit heavy compared to my previous screen.
http://eldren.freeshell.org/f700p/tlefttop.jpg http://eldren.freeshell.org/f700p/tleftbot.jpg
Unpacked, the screen looks rather good with a modern beige and grey styling. Of course, this may not be everybody's cup of tea. Or cup of coffee, in my case.
http://eldren.freeshell.org/f700p/tpanel.jpg
The button panel, for some reason, reminded me of that of a TV the first time I saw it. Aesthetically pleasing and neat.
http://eldren.freeshell.org/f700p/tcontents.jpg
Included in the box is a Quick Install guide, a Quick User's Guide (A shortened version of that found on the CD), a driver CD with installation guide, a USB cable for the built-in USB hub, a male-female kettle plug for plugging into the screen output on your PSU, and a colour card for the Colorific software included on the CD.
http://eldren.freeshell.org/f700p/usbhub.jpg
Positioned as it is (Facing the front screen, on the back left bottom corner), the USB hub is a little cumbersome to get to. For some reason, I was expecting four USB ports, though I might have been thinking of the F900P. Still, given the space they have there, LG could just as well have included two more ports.
From the documentation, I learned that my screen is actually adheres to the TCO-99 standard, instead of TCO-03 as stated on the website. Both are sets of standards that a product must adhere to in terms of quality and environment friendliness, with [20]03 being more stringent than, and thus preferable to, [19]99. For more info on that, see http://www.tcodevelopment.com/
The Inside
Having plugged the screen in and turned it, one is greeted by the sound of the screen degaussing. Surprised me, given that my previous screen didn't even have a degauss button. :heckle:
Obviously, the first step was to kick up the resolution and see how it performs. And apart from having to the increase the size of the image using the button panel, it did rather well. The advertised "max. flicker free" resolution of 1600x1200 is relatively flicker free at its 75Hz, though at that size, it was rather difficult to read my IRC conversations, given how tiny they became. So I backed it down to the recommended 1280x1024.
http://eldren.freeshell.org/f700p/ttinyhex.jpg
Even Hexus looks a little small at 1600x1200.
After that, I examined the edges of the screen for any warping of the image. And unfortunately, it was present, albeit slightly. After playing around with the image adjustment controls, I managed to get it to the point that even I no longer notice it, though, if one compares it to the edge of the screen, you can still see the very slight wobble near the top right-hand corner. Though to ease your mind, I'm extremely picky with things like this, so if I no longer notice it, I highly doubt anyone else would.
http://eldren.freeshell.org/f700p/tdpanel.jpg
The image adjustment controls proved sufficient for making the image almost perfectly rectangular. Scary, though, how many ways you can combine these to get the same result.
The only qualm I had with the button panel was the up and down buttons - or, in this case, the down and up buttons, as the left-hand one is down and the right-hand one, up. I've already lost count of the number of times I've pressed the up button, expecting that, because it's on the right, it'll be the down button. Then again, that could just be me.
The image quality is impressive, I must say. Very sharp, and at the same time, the colours are, in my opinion, very good. So far, I haven't even touched the colour adjustment controls. In this regard, I'm completely happy.
http://eldren.freeshell.org/f700p/tfbdemo.jpg
Looks rather good, displaying a scene from a Farb-rausch demo (fr-019). The photo doesn't do it justice.
The thing that struck me when I started using the screen was that the image appeared to be concave. After carefully examining the edges, I realized that this is probably an illusion, caused by being so used to rounded screens. Fortunately, having used the screen two or so days now, the illusion is now gone.
The only other hiccup would be in using the USB hub. After playing around for a while, I found out that you have to plug the hub uplink cable into your computer before plugging any devices into it. No wonder my mouse wasn't working.
Conclusion
Pros
Perfectly flat tube
High resolution & refresh rate
Adept image adjustment controls
3-year warranty
Twice the quality of a low-end 17" CRT
Cons
Apparently not TCO-03 compliant
Only 2 USB ports on the hub
Seemingly reversed up & down buttons
Twice the cost of a low-end 17" CRT
Overall, I really like this screen, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a new high-resolution screen.
8.5 out of 10
