After seeing a deal posted on Slickdeals.net for the 24″ Soyo Pearl LCD monitor for $229, I immediately ran out to Office Max. They had this monitor in stock, so I picked up two.

At first, both monitors had one stuck pixel each. After about a week, some random pixels (hundreds of them) started to “spaz” out and only flash a teal color. I ended up exchanging those two monitors for another two monitors, hoping that I won’t have this same problem again.

I got home and immediately hooked them up via DVI cable. The Soyo’s ended up being perfect. No dead or stuck pixels anywhere, although one of them has a small amount of back light bleeding at the bottom of the screen, but it is not apparent unless the screen is completely black.

For the price I paid, I cannot complain at all. The colors are absolutely beautiful once you adjust the color settings. Both monitors were a little too bright out of the box, so I turned down the birghtness about 5-10 notches. Another thing I noticed was that both monitors (and the previous two I returned) had too much red in the picture, so I had to turn down the red about 10-15 notches. Once the adjustments were made, the quality blows my old Westinghouse 22″ LCD monitor out of the water. Not only is the response time noticeably quicker, but the colors are not as dull. Oranges are extremely vibrant while the greens have a much “deeper” look. The Soyo 24″ has an advertised 2ms response time, which I believe is true. When playing Call of Duty 4, the difference between 8ms (my old Westinghouse 22″) and 2ms (the new Soyo 24″) is so noticeable, it took me a few days of getting used to and it has improved my game play by a slight bit.

Having two 24″ LCD monitors helps out productivity immensely. Rather than having one monitor and trying to put two windows side by side, use two monitors which will allow you to view both windows in their full size. One caveat of trying to view multiple windows with one monitor is that the resolution is too low. You’ll find your screen getting cramped and even if you do have a large LCD, such as a 22″ which displays 1680 x 1050 resolution, you still won’t be able to view multiple items without cramping the windows and therefore, messing up the formatting (such as web pages).

Now, even though the Soyo sports a TN panel, I wouldn’t shy away from it just because of that. My Westinghouse 22″ LCD also used a TN panel and with the continuing development of technology, it’s blatantly apparent that the TN panel has improved. I’ve seen top quality Dell MVA and IPS panels and I have to say, the TN panel in the Soyo comes extremely close. With the fact that the Soyo is about 50% cheaper, the choice is clear.

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