My IBM Aptiva 595 computer is on its third monitor since I bought the system five years ago. The original monitor quit three months or so after I got the system home; was able to get it replaced under warranty. Four years later, the replacement started acting strangely and eventually quit, so I went to the local Best Buy and purchased a Hewlett-Packard mx70 17" monitor. That did it. The HP has been working like a champ ever since (about a year now). I use my computer a lot (every day, sometimes several hours a day all told), but I would think most monitors would stand up to this kind of use or worse. (The flat-panel monitor in the control room at the radio station where Chad works is another example; if it can go 18 hours a day for a year without problems, it must be a very good make.) Why I've gone through two CRT monitors in five years puzzles me. Did I get two bad monitors (the original and its replacement) before finding a good one in the HP? BTW: The two monitors that went West were probably cheap generic units. It wouldn't surprise me if they were, as there was no recognizable brand name that I could see anywhere on either of them.
BTW (2): I remember reading somewhere, here or elsewhere, that Hewlett-Packard's computer monitors are not now and have not been made by HP itself for years. If they are no longer manufactured by HP, who does make them these days? My mx70 does have the "
hp" badge above the CRT, and the legend "hp pavilion mx70" above the control panel; however, I doubt very much that it was actually made by HP. Probably, like everything else, this monitor (and my HP DeskJet 832C printer as well) were made by some offshore company. NEC, perhaps?
