SONY SDM-P234B. Another 16ms 23" LCD.

blix9 said:
I would go out and rob a bank this afternoon just to buy this Sony if, ONLY IF, it pivots. I need that portrait mode so bad. I know the HP pivots but somehow I don't like it too much.
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Judging from the pictures of the stand posted above, it doesn't appear that the Sony can pivot. If Sony followed the VESA specification (which, again, juding from the pictures, it doesn't appear they did) you may be able to purchase a 3rd party arm/stand.
 
ShePearl said:
Yes, it is widescreen. But the aspect ratio is not 16x9. It's 1920x1200 which is 16x10 standard.
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but isn't the HP L2335 also 16x10, 1920 x 1200?
 
For those who own the Sony, does it has component and composite Video input, as well as S video?
 
Pastry Chef said:
Judging from the pictures of the stand posted above, it doesn't appear that the Sony can pivot. If Sony followed the VESA specification (which, again, juding from the pictures, it doesn't appear they did) you may be able to purchase a 3rd party arm/stand.
Click to expand...

i empirically concur. fortunately, i don't use portrait mode.
 
We really need in depth comparisions with pictures of the HP L2335, SONY SDM-P234B and Apple 23" Cinema Display.
 
utsava said:
We really need in depth comparisions with pictures of the HP L2335, SONY SDM-P234B and Apple 23" Cinema Display.
Click to expand...

apples and oranges

i think it's safe to say you can't really go _that_ wrong with any of those models

choosing is easy: read the specs carefully to see the differences in features.. pick the one that looks the best to you and does what you want

the part that you should worry about is getting one with zero defects (ie. no dead pixels, or other anomalies)
 
Woodchuck: I saw that you mentioned that you ordered this monitor from Techonweb. Well, I contacted them while they still had the monitor in stock and about a week later they replied and by then they no longer had it in stock (actually removed the monitor completely from their website) but explained they're waiting for Sony to send them more items.

Well, I don't have any questions regarding the monitor, everyone seem very impressed, but I do wonder how much you paid for shipping (do you live in Europe?), and if your Techonweb order went flawlessly. I'm asking this because Techonweb asked me to place an order for the monitor so they could check how much shipping is, but it's a bit difficult when it's not on their website. ;)

I have looked at the HP and Apple 23" monitors as well, but the Sony is my favorite by far, even though it's roughly $300 more than the HP.

Beautiful pics btw, thanks for sharing. :D

EDIT: Ack, I just noticed you live in Canada. :p
 
Martin64 said:
Woodchuck: I saw that you mentioned that you ordered this monitor from Techonweb. Well, I contacted them while they still had the monitor in stock and about a week later they replied and by then they no longer had it in stock (actually removed the monitor completely from their website) but explained they're waiting for Sony to send them more items.

Well, I don't have any questions regarding the monitor, everyone seem very impressed, but I do wonder how much you paid for shipping (do you live in Europe?), and if your Techonweb order went flawlessly. I'm asking this because Techonweb asked me to place an order for the monitor so they could check how much shipping is, but it's a bit difficult when it's not on their website. ;)

I have looked at the HP and Apple 23" monitors as well, but the Sony is my favorite by far, even though it's roughly $300 more than the HP.

Beautiful pics btw, thanks for sharing. :D

EDIT: Ack, I just noticed you live in Canada. :p
Click to expand...

well i actually called them to place my order. you should call them too. they can give you the shipping quote over the phone once you give them your address. i wanted it right away so i got the fastest shipping possible and splurged a little over $200 for overnight next day shipping. (you could say i wanted it real bad real quick)

and yea the order was flawless. they shipped it in one day from texas to here as promised. my monitor is absolutely 100% perfect (no dead pixels or any other defect). this was my first time ordering from techonweb, i couldn't be happier with my order.

good luck with your purchase...
 
To anyone who owns this monitor, if you are a gamer could you please post your gaming experience with this lcd? Ghosting, blurring, etc.... In comparison with other lcd's out there with the same, and perhaps a lower response time. Of the four 23in lcd's using this panel, I really like what I hear about the Sony, but I am still worried about a combination of widescreen plus high response time equalling a ="not worth 2grand" gaming experience.
 
I posted about my experiences with the Apple 23 inch LCD in another thread, and am now looking at purchasing a Sony 23 inch to replace it. Can someone recommend me a good place? Monitorsdirect.com seems to be out of stock, and I would like to get one in asap so I can return the Apple to Amazon. Looking for somewhere with a good price and good return policy, as the manual for the Sony states that dead pixels or stuck pixels "are not a malfunction" so I'll have to depend on the seller to take it back for returns/exchanges.
 
Jerry said:
never mind, it's in stock at monitorsdirect.com now :D
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Damnn you jerry .. did you order the last one.... i saw that in stock.... then couple of hours later i decided to order it from there, it says out of stock
 
Trancify said:
Damnn you jerry .. did you order the last one.... i saw that in stock.... then couple of hours later i decided to order it from there, it says out of stock
Click to expand...

I just received mine from provantage.com

I've purchased from provantage several times before, haven't had to return anything so I can't comment on their return policy. They don't charge tax to residents of California, BTW. Their price on this unit is pretty dynamic; I tracked it for two weeks until it dipped one night and I caved. Seems to fluctuate on a daily basis.

Anyway, I got the SDM-P234 in a ~really~ large box (they packed the Sony carton inside a huge box and threw in some inflatable packing). The outer box was pretty banged up, but the inner box only had a slight bent corner edge. The monitor is well packed, as seen in pictures in previous posts in this thread.

Monitor was/is intact, ZERO stuck pixels. I'm not much of a gamer these days, about the only thing I've got on the box is Unreal Tournament 2004. To my eyes, there's no ghosting or blur. What I notice is how bogged down my pokey AIW 9600 Pro is now...

The huge desktop is definitely sweet (it's all about productivity, right? ), as I can run a loaded photoshop window and still a decent tv window, browser, etc. running.

Haven't got it fully tweaked for bright/contrast yet. Not the best I've ever seen for watching DVD (doesn't have the pure blacks), but maybe will improve with tweaking.

There's probably going to be the 1% of the time I wished this thing would pivot, maybe for a photoshop session of a tower or something, but otherwise, this monitor will display a Word document 3 full legible pages at a time, side-by-side. Also, megapixel images are just incredible. I've never really appreciated my digital pics (only 3-megapixel at that) until I've seen 'em on this Sony.

I'm only running analog right now. My other PC has a AIW8500 card with DVI-I, but that card is getting repaired right now. Can't wait to see how much difference the DVI will make.
 
Trancify said:
Damnn you jerry .. did you order the last one.... i saw that in stock.... then couple of hours later i decided to order it from there, it says out of stock
Click to expand...

Actually I changed my mind and decided to order from costcentral.com. 1709 + 17.99 handling fee, shipped, for a brand new factory sealed unit. Cheapest I've seen anywhere.
 
Jerry said:
Actually I changed my mind and decided to order from costcentral.com. 1709 + 17.99 handling fee, shipped, for a brand new factory sealed unit. Cheapest I've seen anywhere.
Click to expand...

why didnt you order it from Monitorsdirect.com.. They ship their products brand new factory seal box, and plus they have a good return policy. The place you ordered from, you cant return it..
 
I'm still wondering if anyone has a lot of gaming experience with this monitor and can comment on it, thanks.
 
Jerry said:
Actually I changed my mind and decided to order from costcentral.com. 1709 + 17.99 handling fee, shipped, for a brand new factory sealed unit. Cheapest I've seen anywhere.
Click to expand...

Did you receive it yet? I was wondering how the service was.... thinking of using them.
 
I ordered it late Friday afternoon, so to be fair, I don't expect them to ship it out till Monday. It's not exactly a big name like buy.com or amazon.com. But yeah, I'll let you all know how things go. What I've read though is they're pretty good about shipping and orders, it's their customer service that sucks and gives you attitudes? Hopefully this won't be the case. Especially seeing as how Sony doesn't view dead pixels as an anomaly or manufacturing defect (check their manual for this LCD). I dunno, part of me says I shoulda paid the extra $130 and gotten it from MonitorsDirect to be safe, but the other part is saying $130 is $130....

And if nothing else, Bank Of America is pretty good about letting you return stuff even if the people you bought it from won't take it back or are complete jerks about it.... =)
 
It is Monday, still no sign of my order on their order status page. Their site does says 4 to 24 *business* hours, so I'm not worried just yet... though I think it's a poorly designed ordering system if the ordering information isn't automatically updated as soon as the order is accepted... maybe they are busy handling orders for all their big customers :p
 
Hmm, so today I was rerouting some cables through my case, and when I turned the computer back on nothing ever came up. This is cause the Apple LCD doesn't show anything during BIOS, so I only ever see anything when it successfully boots into Windows XP. I reread this thread again, but no one's mentioned anything like that for the Sony 23 inch LCD. So am I correct in assuming that there's no issue with displaying the signal during bootup? I sure hope so. I'd have thought that I would be fine with the Apple not showing the BIOS but when that 1% chance event happens and you have to ask a neighbor to borrow their monitor just to tweak settings in your BIOS (the CMOS battery had apparently died and my motherboard thought I had installed a new CPU, and so was waiting on input from me during bootup), it sure registers as a reality...
 
Jerry said:
So am I correct in assuming that there's no issue with displaying the signal during bootup? I sure hope so.
Click to expand...

You're correct. BIOS screen shows up just fine on a PC, athough it's in HUGE text (hah!). :p
 
Ugh, so I called costcentral yesterday and was notified that it was back ordered and the monitor had an ETA of today. Well, I'll call them in a bit and see if I can get an update on this... At least the customer service rep I talked to was nice, I'd read complaints about not so nice customer service reps, heh...

Btw, where is the switch input button on the LCD? Has anyone tried hooking up two cables from one video card (or one computer I guess) to the LCD and switched inputs to simulate having dual screens? I was gonna try that out when I got my LCD in, so I was just curious if anyone else has played with that...
 
Yay, apparently they got in yesterday and my order was shipped out as well. Will let you know how it goes... I'll also have the opportunity to compare the Apple to the Sony using a dual DVI video card so we can get more of a direct comparison... anything you'd like me to test, let me know...
 
I just ordered mine from techoneweb.com and they shipped it here in two days using ground. I just got the monitor and its unbelievable. Not one sinlge dead pixel or any fault at all. This monitor is just too badass. Im really glad I dedcided to go with the sony over the hp 2335.
 
I'd really like your opinion on ghosting, compared to one of the newer 12ms response time panels out. If you can't really compare it to a 12ms, then your general opinion on gaming with this lcd. Thanks for an info.
 
Anyone had some experience with digiline-electronics.com? They claim to sell the p234 for less than a third of the usual retail price :eek: and ship worldwide. I cannot believe this store is for real...
 
You do realize they're based in Lithuania, right? I'm not knocking Lithuania but sometimes when something seems too good to be true.... It's just that there's a high degree of probability that it's a scam.
 
guy_dias said:
Anyone had some experience with digiline-electronics.com? They claim to sell the p234 for less than a third of the usual retail price :eek: and ship worldwide. I cannot believe this store is for real...
Click to expand...

If it seems too good to be true it probably always is. In this case the scam is so obvious it's not even funny. If they were smart they'd have prices about 20% lower than anyone else - then maybe they would be able to scam some people.

How typical. Right after I ordered the 23" Apple, Techonweb has this monitor in stock, but not when I was going to order it. :(
 
Do you guys still think this is scam? I am not used to buy things from Internet so I appreciate any advice.

Hello,

According your hesitation in our purchasing system, i understand you it's really pertinent question, why is the merchandise so "cheap?" What are its origins? We are cooperating with the customs so we sell confiscated goods.
In Lithuania there are many advantages in the area of electronics, you can enjoy a wide range of options such as zones where you can acquire products below the original price table of neighboring countries.

Our company trading already almost 2 years, we're legal association with the fixed address, open bank account of the Commercial type and also state license, earlier we worked only with neighbouring countries Germany, Poland, Latvia and France, but now we provide worldwide deals, we have many constant buyers all over the world. All our production is brand new and box packed, carry all trade marks and international warranty, includes all original additional factory accessories and also complete license package of the software.
Actually we are engaged with wholesale trade as our margin on the goods not so large, but we conduct retail trade also, because the initial bargains pass in some mistrust to ours purchasing system. Further we have the basic profit only at the expense of the large orders.

Also we have convenient return policy, if the product will be damaged, actually we can give you refund or just send another product of the ordered model under condition of you'll send the damaged product back to us ( the expenses for departure of the injured product will be returned as the discount on the subsequent orders), but i can assure, that we had no problems of this character, because the products will be packed in special packaging to prevent possible damages during travel.

What about payment option, actually our european customers usually use Bank Wire Transfer or Western Union services, also we can accept payments via Neteller and E-Gold services, so you may choose the most convenient way for you.

If you have any further questions email me back.

Sincerely,
Thomas Senfield
Digiline Electronics, Inc.

"Guilherme Dias" <[email protected]>:

> What are my payment option regarding I'm not a US costumer? I can only
> see money transfer as payment don't you accept credit cards? Excuse me
> but, how can I be so sure I can trust your store as you sell your
> products way low the regular retail price?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Senfield [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 3:21 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Order

> Hello,
>
> shipping costs to your location for 1x Sony SDM-P234B Black 23'' LCD
> Monitor
>
> will be about 70-115 US$ (including shipping/handling rate, insurance
> rate) depending on carrier choice. By the way our packages are marked
> as "Gift" , so you won't pay any addition taxes.
>
> Carrier choice information:
> http://www.digiline-electronics.com/sales.php@c=shipping&SID=
>
> Please choose the payment option, in order to verify and proceed your order:
> http://www.digiline-electronics.com/sales.php@c=payment&SID=
>
> If there is anything else I can help you with please let me know.
>
> Regards,
> Thomas Senfield
> Digiline Electronics, Inc.
 
guy_dias said:
Do you guys still think this is scam? I am not used to buy things from Internet so I appreciate any advice.

Hello,

According your hesitation in our purchasing system, i understand you it's really pertinent question, why is the merchandise so "cheap?" What are its origins? We are cooperating with the customs so we sell confiscated goods.
In Lithuania there are many advantages in the area of electronics, you can enjoy a wide range of options such as zones where you can acquire products below the original price table of neighboring countries.

Our company trading already almost 2 years, we're legal association with the fixed address, open bank account of the Commercial type and also state license, earlier we worked only with neighbouring countries Germany, Poland, Latvia and France, but now we provide worldwide deals, we have many constant buyers all over the world. All our production is brand new and box packed, carry all trade marks and international warranty, includes all original additional factory accessories and also complete license package of the software.
Actually we are engaged with wholesale trade as our margin on the goods not so large, but we conduct retail trade also, because the initial bargains pass in some mistrust to ours purchasing system. Further we have the basic profit only at the expense of the large orders.

Also we have convenient return policy, if the product will be damaged, actually we can give you refund or just send another product of the ordered model under condition of you'll send the damaged product back to us ( the expenses for departure of the injured product will be returned as the discount on the subsequent orders), but i can assure, that we had no problems of this character, because the products will be packed in special packaging to prevent possible damages during travel.

What about payment option, actually our european customers usually use Bank Wire Transfer or Western Union services, also we can accept payments via Neteller and E-Gold services, so you may choose the most convenient way for you.

If you have any further questions email me back.

Sincerely,
Thomas Senfield
Digiline Electronics, Inc.

"Guilherme Dias" <[email protected]>:

> What are my payment option regarding I'm not a US costumer? I can only
> see money transfer as payment don't you accept credit cards? Excuse me
> but, how can I be so sure I can trust your store as you sell your
> products way low the regular retail price?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Senfield [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 3:21 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Order

> Hello,
>
> shipping costs to your location for 1x Sony SDM-P234B Black 23'' LCD
> Monitor
>
> will be about 70-115 US$ (including shipping/handling rate, insurance
> rate) depending on carrier choice. By the way our packages are marked
> as "Gift" , so you won't pay any addition taxes.
>
> Carrier choice information:
> http://www.digiline-electronics.com/sales.php@c=shipping&SID=
>
> Please choose the payment option, in order to verify and proceed your order:
> http://www.digiline-electronics.com/sales.php@c=payment&SID=
>
> If there is anything else I can help you with please let me know.
>
> Regards,
> Thomas Senfield
> Digiline Electronics, Inc.
Click to expand...

Don't trust anything they say and never visit their website again. It is a SCAM. It's worse than Nigerias who want to send millions to your bank account, but first they need a few thousand from you so they can get the money our of the country. :p
 
Somebody please post some settings because out of the box the colors on the Sony are awful. I can see some serious blue push on white/gray. I've got it set up side by side with the Apple, and I have to say that out of the box the Apple has it beat with color purity. But then the Apple only lets you adjust brightnes, whereas Sony has quite a few options to tweak in its menus. I have to say I'm pretty impressed that Apple got all the colors RIGHT out of the box especially as PC users don't have access to the same software caliration tools as Mac users.

I used the Nokia test and set the contrast to 100 and the brightness to 50. But, colors are washed out... The default gray for the windows in WinXP aren't gray. I have my AIM buddy list on the right side of the Apple and it's the left monitor, so when I mouse over a user it displays the idle time/information for that user and extends it over to the Sony. The color just seems way washed out on the Sony. I have installed the INF files from Sony's website, but that didn't seem to help any...

Hmm, I will swap the DVI connections to see if that's it.... *crosses fingers*

Please don't tell me I got a faulty unit, that's the last thing I want to hear =P Especially when this unit has no dead or stuck pixels. I checked using Nokia's color test which cycles through White, Red, Green, Blue, Black, and this time around, no stuck pixels like the green one on my Apple LCD.
 
A place that offers to mark shipments as gifts to evade taxes should be a dead give away for a scam you know...
 
It wasn't the DVI ports. But for some odd reason the gains and bias settings weren't all the same, which was causing the blue push. I set all gain and bias to 128 for R, G, and B, which I think is supposed to be the default setting?

Backlight: 100
Contrast: 100
Brightness: 60

User::Gain::R: 128
User::Gain::G: 128
User::Gain::B: 128
User::Bias::R: 128
User::Bias::G: 128
User::Bias::B: 128

is what I have so far, seems to be the best compromise between monitor brightness and color fidelity. But when you've spent over a grand on a monitor, you shouldn't have to settle for "compromise"... grr... will play with it some more, gotta get back to work...

Please post your settings if you have this monitor... thanks...
 
Since my monitor hadn't been shipped yet (I ordered a 23" Apple Cinema Display on monday) I asked for a refund, and I'll order the Sony instead. Anyone know if the Sony has the famous reddish tint? I mean, they're using the same panel so shouldn't it have that tint as well?
 
Martin64, as far as I can tell, there isn't the same reddish tint. But even if there was, the difference between the Apple and the Sony is that you can adjust the bias on the monitor itself without depending on changing settings in your video card driver. Imagine every time you formatted and reinstalled the OS, having to adjust the monitor again. Luckily, it's a minor fix on the Apple (at least for me, your mileage may vary), as its color fidelity is otherwise very good out of the box.

I've spent more time adjusting and calibrating the Sony, and it looks pretty good now. I'll post settings a little later. For the moment, it's hard to say which one is better. I can run the Apple at full brightness setting without the colors appearing to be washed out - rather the opposite occurs, the image is very vibrant and lifelike. However, turning up the brightness does result in lighter blacks, as expected, so that's not how I have the Apple set up for daily use. Besides, turning the brightness all the way up on the Apple results in the disconcerting sensation of heat coming from the LCD =P Regarding the heat issue, LG appears to have put some thought into heat dissipation and thus heat leaves the Sony monitor via the holes in the top of the unit behind the actual panel itself.

Mikloyd and Bango, I'm spending some time playing UT2K4 on both, but I have a feeling my video card will be the bottleneck, as I'm using an ATI X2-256. I've noticed rendering artifacts when panning too fast on the Apple in UT2K4, and they are also present on the Sony, but again I can't tell if it's my video card or the monitor. The camera has a choppy feel to it. I cannot see any ghosting on either, and motion blur is comparable to what I had on my CRTs. I guess I can try playing at a lower resolution to see if it still shows up, but it'd definitely be nice to have a rig capable of gaming at 1920x1200 to get the most out of this monitor...
 
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