Philips Brilliance 180P2B

...rather sexy, and ultimately satisfying Philips Brilliance 180 P2 LCD 18.1” flat screen monitor.

My pal Helmet had actually bought one a few weeks ago and after seeing it my desire to have one increased by the second. The screen looks enormous and the clarity is awesome and the whole thing takes up about a third of the space my old 17” monitor did.

It has many features that came as a surprise to me, not least the “Pivot” ...
...to read or write long documents you can pivot the whole screen through 90 degrees giving you lots more room to read or write without the need to scroll down constantly.
The monitor set-up is completely automatic, just throw in the driver CD rom and everything is done for you, which for me is just dandy because anything requiring any thought or knowledge of computery things usually means I have to call my pal and get him to talk me through ... more

From the set off I must warn you that this opinion will be of little use to the more technically minded reader, I am ciao’s most techno phobic member and the fact that I am attempting to write a review on a piece of computer hardware is a wonder in itself.

Like most computer illiterates I thought my 17” standard type monitor was the canines dangly bits, it was large enough to read web pages easily and large enough to make game playing enjoyable and easy on the eye but the down side was the bulkiness of the thing, it took up loads of room on my desk, was heavy and gathered dust quicker than a Bjork CD in the Jimblob household.

Enter the rather sexy, and ultimately satisfying Philips Brilliance 180 P2 LCD 18.1” flat screen monitor.

My pal Helmet had actually bought one a few weeks ago and after seeing it my desire to have one increased by the second. The screen looks enormous and the clarity is awesome and the whole thing takes up about a third of the space my old 17” monitor did.

It has many features that came as a surprise to me, not least the “Pivot” ability of the monitor.
If, for example, you wanted to read or write long documents you can pivot the whole screen through 90 degrees giving you lots more room to read or write without the need to scroll down constantly.
The monitor set-up is completely automatic, just throw in the driver CD rom and everything is done for you, which for me is just dandy because anything requiring any thought or knowledge of computery things usually means I have to call my pal and get him to talk me through things step by step.

Resolution.

Refresh rate is 75 Hz and maximum screen resolution is 1280x1024 pixels, which is also the recommended resolution for this screen.

Bandwidth.

The bandwidth varies depending on whether you are viewing the screen vertically or horizontally.

Vertically it is 56-76 Hz.

Horizontally it is 30-82 kHz.

The one thing you have to watch for, with any LCD screen, is finger prints on the screen, the screen is soft to the touch and finger prints can be difficult to clean, so keeping the kids sticky paws off it is a priority, I find that the threat of death by violent means is usually sufficient to ensure they keep their mitts off!

The model I bought has an option of either a standard foot to sit on or a multimedia one, I go the multimedia one but didn’t know there was an option until after I purchased it, not that it mattered because I recon I got the bargain of the year.
I paid a total of £283 for my monitor complete with multimedia stand but on researching it on the net I found that the lowest price I could buy online for was around £475 without the multi media stand, that came in at an extra £58 + VAT, and one site is selling it for a whopping £1200!

So how the feck did you get it for less than £300 ? I hear you ask.

Well, just down the road from my house is a “Global Computer” warehouse, they have a trade counter where Joe public can go in to purchase goods and just inside the door they have a bargain shelf where they sell end of line stuff. Along side CD R’s for £14 and Sandisk “Cruzers” for a tenner they had two of these LCD monitors sitting, Helmet and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

So there you have it, a new toy for me to play my golf games on (Tiger woods PGA looks great on it) and a stylish looking monitor that even my wife likes the look of.
 

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