Customer Reviews

NEC 1830 18" LCD Monitor

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just bought one of these for $... and it totally reinvents the quality of your interaction with the computer. Why ? Because the individual pixels are extremely crisp in their presentation, which gives your eyes a more relaxed in-focus feeling. Next, the display is flat, and that opens up your desktop in a way that is most pleasant, and gets the screen AWAY from your eyes which reduces eye strain. NEXT, the unit has no TV-set flicker as regular monitors do, thereby reducing headaches. The elimination of electromagnetic and gamma radiation is also beneficial as there is no electron gun. As to me, I hucked out my CRT monitor and will never go back.. The reduction in headaches & eye strain is immediate & obvious. Passers-by also greatly admire the image.

However, an NEC LCD 1830 is only for the technologically knowledgeable, and here is why: If you don't set it up and use it properly, it will deliver an image worse than a regular CRT. Think of the flat-panel field of LCD pixels as better, yet less forgiving of technical errors.

Firstly, you have to understand that the native resolution is 1280 x 1024 (1.3 million pixels) and you must drive it as such from the computer. If you don't properly match to the 1830's native resolution, instead of razor-sharp individual pixel crispness, the image will be interpolated and look poor. Many a fool has presumed these displays to be inferior to the CRT's, only because they didn't operate them at native resolution.

Nextly, you have to understand that the NEC 1830 is a value-oriented product and therefore has a good ole' fashioned RGB ANALOG (standard 15-pin) monitor interface. When the analog signal clocks in, it behaves much different from the CRT, in that there can be a mismatch between the changes in the clock and the changes of the analog value. THEREFORE the LCD 1830 includes an on-screen menu adjustment to adjust the dot-clock delay timing relation between the RGB data and clock. This is the 4th menu option and it is just below "H. Size". This adjustment is NOT adequately described by NEC and if you fail to carefully make this adjustment you will NOT get sharpness down to the single pixel. Admittedly the full-digital interfaces coming out will solve this but that topic is not in widespread manufacture here in Summer 2001. Except for the lack of emphasis on the dot-clock delay adjustment, the built-in menu is notably pleasant and easy to use... unlike various competitors. Also you are vulnerable to whether your analog cable was wired well, or poorly, and I have seen variations in pixel sharpness with different cables. Again the digitally driven versions to be seen in future years avoid those worries. Meanwhile the 15-pin analog cable is a universal and entirely safe thing to invest into so I bought into the 1830 without hesitation. The value and sharpness is incredible and was the best of the LCD flat-panels around $.... If you want the best then this is it.

You must also make a point of turning it off when not in use as all of this incredible good fortune comes at the expense of flourescent backlighting. If you leave it on 24 hrs/day the factory says you will get about 5 years and then the bulb must be replaced in Georgia.

If you are the least bit demanding about visual sharpness, and if you are tired of headaches and eye-strain from traditional monitors, then this LCD 1830 is the best bang for the buck here in Summer 2001. You will be wise to select a black-frame unit rather than the white-frame as it better offsets the crisp, photographically high-quality image.

I hope you enjoy this new technology as much as I do. I shouldn't tell you this because I will be buying a 2nd for another machine, and I actually don't need your competition on the limited supply.

-----------> REBUTTAL: [...] I own 2 of these from different production runs and if there is a sound I have been hard pressed to hear it...... and I am very fussy. Your computer fan would be 100 times louder than any supposed sound, the scan rate of an ordinary TV set is louder (around 15 kHz, etc) I'm typing this in a bedroom, with a dimmer switch on the overhead 60 watt light bulbs, light bulbs buzz when you use dimmer switches, that sound overhead is 100 times louder than any supposed "sound" from this monitor, any sound from the monitor is very very faint.

About 18 mths ago I [bought] an NEC 1500M - a 15" LCD monitor with 4 port USB hub and built in speakers. Then I noticed ... this newly released 18.1" NEC .... Its all the good things my old monitor was:

+ no bad pixels (maybe I just got lucky) + beautifully clear display (its hard to go back to a CRT after using LCD) + very small desk footprint + easy to follow on screen setup

This doesn't have the USB hub or the speakers (I guess that will come in a later model), but the screen is dazzling. I'm not a monitor techo, so I can't tell you the nits and nats, but the extra screen space (1280 x 1024) and crystal clear display what I needed. And the price is amazing given that displays this size were [more expensive] just six months ago (I know, I've been anxious to upgrade!)

Any gripes? (Why is this 4 stars and not 5?) Just one... After a few minutes of operation the monitor emits a high-pitched whine. I called NEC support, got straight through, and they confirmed that, no, it shouldn't do that and I'm getting a replacement. Fingers crossed for that.

This LCD monitor is perfect in every aspect(display, resolution, etc.) except one thing -- NOISE...
To everyone who own this monitor no matter in black or white:
turn off your music and shut any sound that's around u, then try to adjust the "brightness" of this monitor from full bar to a lower level. As soon as you adjust it lower, you'll here a "Gi..." noise.. At first, I though I was too "lucky" to get a bad one, but after exchanging 3 times I relize it's the problem with this model(1830)... Don't believe me? give it a shot~:)

Pros
1) This monitor is very well designed. Its stand is flat and doesn't need to much room, the case is stable.
2) The workmanship is excellent. The whole monitor module is wrapped within a metal cage. It also hosts the switching power supply (which is the cause of the 'noise' the monitor produces). It seems (and NEC's product summary implies it) that the monitor's application includes also production facilites - that might be the reason for the extraordinary robustness of this model.
3) The picture quality is very good. It achieves sRGB color. You will recognize it when you watch a DVD and compare the picture's quality with your notebooks monitor (Notebooks usually don't support sRGB, except high priced models). It also allows wide viewing angles of 160 degrees. The brighntess and contrast ratio spec is bove average for such a large LCD panel.

Cons
1) The unit excepts analog signals only. Therefore a D/A conversion of the video signal in your VGA adapter must be reversed by a A/D conversion within your monitor. Each conversion adds noise to the signale and the A/D process underlies digitization errors. In the contrary a digital input like DVI obviates this process. However, not every VGA adapter supports DVI and for backward compatibility it makes sense to provide a anlaog VGA input only. The bottomline is - you wont recognize the D/A - A/D conversion at all. But be sure to run the unit with a refresh rate no higher than 60 Hertz.

Note
For all those of you who hear grass growing: The monitors 'noise' is caused by the switching power supply which is included in the monitor's unit. But be reasonable with the comments made - you will only recognize a tone of constant frequency when every device (including your computer's main unit) is switched off. If it is boring you, simply switch the monitor off. It's like audio stream bandwidth reduction: when listing to a song of a certain sound level (POP will do it), your ear wont be able to recognize a falling needle on a glassplate. That is exactly what audio compressors do - with algorithms like MP3, WMA or Sonys minidisc compression. And that is also the case when you have at least one device with a fan running...

Summary
Great product, I enjoy it since October 2001.

I have two machines at home, one running windows xp and the other one running Linux/Windows 98. They are both plugged into
this LCD display! There is a switch on the display that allows you to switch from Input 1 to Input 2 and vice versa. Of course, you could you use a switch box instead if you decided to get a different monitor/lcd display. However, the switch box kind of degrade the resolution; so I have experienced.

The quality of picture on this unit is amazing. I cannot be happier. I set its angle down a bit to reduce the glare. By doing so I noticed the picture display is better (based on my preference).

It's so easy to setup as well. There is a compartment on the back that allows you to hide the two input cables + 1 power cord. This display is a space saver as well.

This is one of my best buys!

I purchased an 18" model LCD-1830-R in 2001. It burned out after 2 years. NEC replaced it with a remanufactured model which burned out after 2 years. NEC won't replace this unit.

NEC never disclosed a two-year useful life.

I would never purchase another product made by NEC.

You get vibrant color, excellent color saturation. I use it a lot to make adjustment to scanned pictures and photography. Extremely detailled, very fast as well. My son once tried it with a Star War game and I was astonished by the 3D and the rapidity of that screen... NEC support service is excellent: I had a defective unit (basically the colors were not right) and without any question, they send me a new unit!

I bought this monitor a couple months ago and what i can say about the LCD monitors is that they produce a good picture quality, I don't have any problems with watching DVD's or playing computer games. Unfortunetelly I had problem: half of the light inside the monitor turned off with no reason that caused a text to be not sharp, I had to reset the setting of the monitor to fix this problem. And as someone mentioned before this monitor produces strange noise. After all i give it 4 stars.

I just bought one of these for $... and it totally reinvents the quality of your interaction with the computer. Why ? Because the individual pixels are extremely crisp in their presentation, which gives your eyes a more relaxed in-focus feeling. Next, the display is flat, and that opens up your desktop in a way that is most pleasant, and gets the screen AWAY from your eyes which reduces eye strain. NEXT, the unit has no TV-set flicker as regular monitors do, thereby reducing headaches. The elimination of electromagnetic and gamma radiation is also beneficial as there is no electron gun. As to me, I hucked out my CRT monitor and will never go back.. The reduction in headaches & eye strain is immediate & obvious. Passers-by also greatly admire the image.

However, an NEC LCD 1830 is only for the technologically knowledgeable, and here is why: If you don't set it up and use it properly, it will deliver an image worse than a regular CRT. Think of the flat-panel field of LCD pixels as better, yet less forgiving of technical errors.

Firstly, you have to understand that the native resolution is 1280 x 1024 (1.3 million pixels) and you must drive it as such from the computer. If you don't properly match to the 1830's native resolution, instead of razor-sharp individual pixel crispness, the image will be interpolated and look poor. Many a fool has presumed these displays to be inferior to the CRT's, only because they didn't operate them at native resolution.

Nextly, you have to understand that the NEC 1830 is a value-oriented product and therefore has a good ole' fashioned RGB ANALOG (standard 15-pin) monitor interface. When the analog signal clocks in, it behaves much different from the CRT, in that there can be a mismatch between the changes in the clock and the changes of the analog value. THEREFORE the LCD 1830 includes an on-screen menu adjustment to adjust the dot-clock delay timing relation between the RGB data and clock. This is the 4th menu option and it is just below "H. Size". This adjustment is NOT adequately described by NEC and if you fail to carefully make this adjustment you will NOT get sharpness down to the single pixel. Admittedly the full-digital interfaces coming out will solve this but that topic is not in widespread manufacture here in Summer 2001. Except for the lack of emphasis on the dot-clock delay adjustment, the built-in menu is notably pleasant and easy to use... unlike various competitors. Also you are vulnerable to whether your analog cable was wired well, or poorly, and I have seen variations in pixel sharpness with different cables. Again the digitally driven versions to be seen in future years avoid those worries. Meanwhile the 15-pin analog cable is a universal and entirely safe thing to invest into so I bought into the 1830 without hesitation. The value and sharpness is incredible and was the best of the LCD flat-panels around $... If you want the best then this is it.

You must also make a point of turning it off when not in use as all of this incredible good fortune comes at the expense of flourescent backlighting. If you leave it on 24 hrs/day the factory says you will get about 5 years and then the bulb must be replaced in Georgia.

If you are the least bit demanding about visual sharpness, and if you are tired of headaches and eye-strain from traditional monitors, then this LCD 1830 is the best bang for the buck here in Summer 2001. You will be wise to select a black-frame unit rather than the white-frame as it better offsets the crisp, photographically high-quality image.

I hope you enjoy this new technology as much as I do. I shouldn't tell you this because I will be buying a 2nd for another machine, and I actually don't need your competition on the limited supply.

I was very happy to find an 18' LCD from NEC. After all I thought NEC is a good name.
I was a little bit disappointed during the setup. I only got a decent picture adjusting it manually. I never had to do that with other brands.
But in summary the picture was good for the price.
But the problems started after around 6 months. The backlight went out. Called tech support. They sent me out a replacement (refurbished unit). TO my surprise it was a defective unit. I had to repeat this 2 more times and still don't have a working unit. I'm waiting for the 4th.