Sony HMD-A200/L 17" CRT Monitor

by Sony

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 40.8 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004YNSG
• Item model number: HMD-A200/L
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,734 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1999

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars HMD-A200 Best Avoided!, February 14, 2001

By 

Brian Zurbach (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony HMD-A200/L 17" CRT Monitor (Electronics)

I recently purchased a HMD-A200 from my local superstore to use with a G3 PowerMac and Duron 700 PC. It is a pretty monitor and has an integral USB hub. Barring the Apple Trinitrons, it was also the most expensive 17" monitor in the store at .... I have had good luck with some SGI GDM-20D11 20" Trinitrons in the past, but this monitor I can't recommend. The tube is muddy with a clear vertical deliniation, the right 1/3 of the screen looks great but the left 2/3 varies from mediocre to terrible. There are also vertical bars in the tube that the moire adjustment won't get rid of, these were present in every display monitor at the superstore that used an FD Trinitron tube. Using my G3 Mac the horizontal geometry was abysmal and I was unable to adjust it to even remotely straight. Color convergence was also off, and handily there is no external adjustment for it on the newer monitors (H Stat and V Stat anyone?). Color is one of the few positives, but the whites are just terrible, ranging across the tube from a pale pink to a light blue. There was also a 'splotch' of distortion in the upper left corner of the tube as if the monitor had been magnetized, no amount of degaussing would get rid of it. The monitor geometry looks better on the Duron than on the G3, even borderline acceptable, but the terrible whites stick around no matter what. I was very disappointed in this monitor and reasoned that maybe I got a lemon, so I returned it for another, which was WORSE. I took that back and bought a Viewsonic A70, it also has horizontal geometric distortion but has much purer whites and no convergence problems. The bottom line here is that the Sony costs twice the price and has 1/3 the warranty of the ViewSonic, and there is nothing about it worth paying for. The ViewSonic is not perfect but it is a cheap monitor, in error I assumed the Trinitron would be of higher quality.

Unless the whole shipment of HMD-A200 monitors at the superstore was sitting beside someone's highly magnetic science project on the delivering tractor-trailer, Sony has cut too many corners with this unit. It is not high-quality or worth anything near the ... retail price. In fact, the secondhand 15" Princeton EO50 I have been using looks much better than the HMD-A200, and I bought it at an auction for ....

If the sexy HMD-A200 cosmetics tempt you, proceed with caution, particularly if you are running Apple hardware. The flattest tube in the world is irrelevant if the horizontal borders of objects on-screen look more like the top of the Windows logo.

I assumed that progressing monitor technology would have resulted in higher quality for consumer units, boy was I wrong.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My education, March 21, 2001

By 

Pete (Chicago IL.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sony HMD-A200/L 17" CRT Monitor (Electronics)

Today I purchased this great Sony monitor at a well known store. After I installed and began using it I went to My Simon.com where I discovered that your store online beat the so called discount price that I paid for this item. Next time before buying anything else computer related, I'll comparison shop at My Simon.com Thanks for the education. Regards, Pete M.

1.0 out of 5 stars Dog for Sony, June 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Sony HMD-A200/L 17" CRT Monitor (Electronics)

I purchased this monitor from Comp-USA. It failed after 10 months. I took a month to straighten out the paperwork, Comp-USA had the wrong serial number on my invoice. The Refurbished unit arrived and died after 4 months. Not a very good track record for Sony! They would not replace this unit. They said my experiance was atypical. Probably not, based on other reviews I've seen.