LG L1915S

LG are comparative newcomers to the electronics scene, having only gained sufficient brand proliferation to make much of an impact on the market in the past few years. Their product range is vast, ranging from music players to speakers, to monitors like this one. As part of their budget-ish monitor program, LG released this, the Flatron L1915S model. The title, boasting the models er...flatness makes the product seem pretty rad right from the get go. Thus, I decided to buy one.

Finding one of these babys is easy, LG's products are sold in most good online or offline retailer. I attempted to find it at my usual computer haunt, Ebuyer, but they don't stock them (a sensible plan of action, seeing what I was in store for) . So instead I decided to opt for a store called MicroDirect, a service I'd never used before but seemed pretty reliable nonetheless. It was about £234 pounds including VAT plus another fiver for delivery. £239 isn't really a bad price for a monitor of this type and specification, now all I had to do is wait for it to arrive in the post.

It took five days to reach my house, packaged in a rather bulky box, as I'd imagined it would be, being a monitor and all. I eagerly opened up the box, to be greeted by another, somewhat smaller box bearing the LG logo, a few rough specs and containing the monitor.

After all the unwrapping I set about installing the new device, which is fairly easy, as a monitor is basically just an input device which displays imagery rather than require much pressing. Upon plugging its blue lead in, I switched on the computer and was ready to go...

==So How Was It?==

I'd already noticed a problem with this monitor the second I got it out its box, the stand was a pathetic piece of flimsy plastic rubbish, which I'm sure could be snapped if the monitor should accidentally be dropped or fall off ones desk while changing things around. Aside from this however, the monitors appearance was quite nice, with its silver border and new, clean shiny screen, it looked your typical 21st century TFT monitor.

By the time I'd plugged it in I'd pushed my skepticism out of my mind, and had read the rather short, but decent LG booklet, which told me I was in for a high quality experience much ahead of rival brands, that the price to performance ratio was excellent, that the viewscreen was nothing short of great. This and a few token statistics thrown in did well to comfort my techie ass...until I turned it on.

The instant I viewed the display, I knew something was wrong...sorry...Things were wrong with this piece of kit. First off, the actual picture it put across was too bright, way too bright considering Its default setting was around 60% on both brightness and contrast. Within seconds the glare was hurting my eyes, it reminded me of my ancient CRT monitor, now resting somewhere within the attic.

Disgruntled, I turned down the brightness and contrast to 30, only to find that despite the glare reduction, the actual Windows icons, and webpages I was attempting to browse, were hard to see without a lot of concentration. Dark texts were invisible, and the screen had a grey dull appearance due to the lack of light.

Aswell as this it possessed a grand total of three dead pixels, two located on the top left of the screen near to one another, the other quite near the centre, and easily the most annoying. After about two hours of enduring this monitor, I knew it was time to send it back for a refund, no way could one endure such a poor quality piece of computing equipment.

On the very minute plus side, the refresh rate was acceptable, and there was some improvement on my games, particularily counter-strike. However, since I couldn't see very well at all thanks to the appalling glare problems I sucked most of the time anyhow.

The LG Flatron L1915S is a sad addition to a now saturated market of monitors and displays. Due to its flimsyness and frankly, cheap base it made no lasting impression, nor did it possess any redeeming factors aside from its stylish appearance.

Put simply, the Flatron is a shoddy piece of equipment. However, upon calling LG's pricy hotline, which must have cost a few quid more on the phone bill, and explaining my severe problems to the polite lady on the other end, she explained these faults were rare and that usually LG's quality control was of an exceptional standard.

Tired of her sales pitch, I politely asked for a pick up of the monitor and a refund. After some stalling and an offer of a replacement she gave in, and said that the screen would be picked up and I fully refunded the purchase price. A week on the screen was picked up, and a few days after that I received a short letter of apology plus a voucher for a discount on future LG purchases at selected retailers. Thanks LG, but I won't be using it.

==Conclusion==

The LG Flatron range no doubt has its merits, at least, the majority of them do according to the firm themselves. Either I got a stinker, or LG are just exaggurating, I'll let you guys and gals be the judge of that. If you want to buy a monitor, I'd suggest a different brand, as it appears that its more profitable for firms like LG to make errors with their products than to deliver 100% of the time. And if you decide to get an LG Flatron, be mindful theres a chance you'll end up with an awful one like I did.