Philips SoHo 105S

I bought this monitor in December 2002 - it's the monitor I am currently working on.

It's not the first Philips 105S monitor I ever bought. In fact I own a second one that was bought in November 1999 and I ensure you it's still in perfect working condition. The reason for buying a second monitor is that I needed one for a second PC I bought for home use - not because I am a Philips fan (well, I might be a little, but I have reasons).

Now, about the monitor.

• Installation
The monitor is Windows plug-and-play, so you will not need any installation software or stuff like that. The CD-ROM provided with the monitor has several drivers for the device, but I didn't experience any working differences between the original drivers packed with Windows (Win 98 and later) and the CD-ROM drivers.

• Image size
Very near to the nominal diagonal (14.7" to 15")

• Resolution
While this monitor is introduced to reach a 1280 x 960 pixels resolution the refresh rate under that resolution is so low that flickering is visible to the human eye. Best recommended is the normal 800 x 600 pixels resolution with a refresh rate of 100 Hz. I believe this resolution is fine working with most business applications and web browsers (most websites recommend this screen resolution).

• Graphics card compactibility
Works great with older graphics cards (it is connected with a Voodoo 3000 graphics card with no problem.

• Manufacturer customer care support
Simply excellent. It's enough to say that I bought this monitor 5 days before Christmass. Because of high voltage public power line that is located only 5 meters away of where the monitor was initially located (electricity line is just out of my window), there was a red fading line in the middle of the screen. I called Philips customer care deparment and they replaced the monitor, no questions asked. The second monitor had the same "problem" (it was my problem not the monitor's). So I called again the customer care department (only 2 days before Christmass) and asked them to replace it again. They did deliver the second monitor the next day (Christmass eve) and they said that if the new monitor had the same problem, I should change the monitor place (they informed me that the original monitor I bought had no problem at all). After all that you might have guessed what my next monitor manufacturer is going to be!

• The bottom line
Great monitor for business or home use. Since I am not a gamer, I guess action/adventure games are going to be well experienced on it. However, a good graphics card is critical for any kind of use.

I certainly recommend it!