Monitor the Situation

I like monitors – VDUs, screens, the ‘telly bit – call them what you will, they are useful things, they let you work with a computer and you can accomplish all sorts of things – edit your favourite photos, watch the latest blockbuster movie, or even play games… you can do that other stuff too, that other thing that pays the bills – ah yes, work!

Except, I keep getting distracted now, by my monitor :-(

I don’t buy monitors very often, even less so nowadays as all my computers tend to be laptops, but when I do, I am very careful about the price which I am prepared to pay and the quality/features that come with that device.

Generally, the monitors I have bought (going back to my original 286) have been AOC. I like them, they have generally lasted well – except my newest one – an AOC i2353Fh – and it’s not so much that I had a problem with my first of these monitors, my issue is really with the warranty replacement I have been sent.

My original monitor was great – lovely picture, super thin screen. etc. etc. but it had one issue – of the two HDMI ports included, only one worked, HDMI2 would accept the cable, detect something was plugged in, try and switch to it and then declare that there was “no input” and thus revert back to HDMI1.

So I initiated a warranty repair online, everything fine with that and I was informed that it would be an exchange unit. Delivery was extremely quick – especially as the replacement came from Germany, was routed via Brussels, then Tamworth, to reach me at home within 2 days.

Dirty Windows

Here is where the real pain begins… the monitor swap was fine, the nice man from UPS waited whilst my wife took the replacement monitor out of the box, re-packed my extremely clean and shiney broken monitor back into the same box and taped up for return to Germany.

I cannot put it any other way…. the exchange monitor is an absolute shoddy mess! (although both HDMI ports do actually work).

For an exchange monitor, this is absolutely disgustingly dirty, there are all sorts of sticky looking splodges over the screen front and rear, the front bezel is not fixed in place correctly in the top-left area, there is ingrained dirt on both right and left sides of the bezel, as well as scratches and scrapes (I really do not know what this was being used as) and to top it off, I now have either dead pixels, sub-pixels or dirt behind the LED display that is highly visible in both the lower left and lower right quadrants!!!! I am shocked! I want my original monitor back!, I’ll even forgo the second HDMI port….

Displayed (Dismayed)

Dismayed (or even very disappointed) is somewhat of an understatement.

A warranty replacement should at least be a standard that is comparable to that which I have returned, especially for a monitor just over a year old that has sat on my desk in my home office, not mistreated in any way, and other than the failed HDMI port was in perfect condition.

And yet I am sent something that looks like it was sent in by someone else (probably the pixel issue), left on the workbench for about six months, got in the way of everything (including the repair man’s dinner), then eventually jammed into a pile of similar faulty monitors for a period of time waiting for an unsuspecting mug to come along and be fobbed of with this monstrosity.

This was the situation I returned home to this evening after being away “up north” the past couple of days for work. oh joy! All I want to do is sit an relax this evening, but now all I keep doing is looking at those numerous (there are between 30-40) black blobs towards the bottom of the screen.

Tomorrow morning I will be making my feelings known to the AOC warranty repair center (in a very nice way of course).

Further updates (and perhaps pictures) to follow…

Now just need to find a peaceful vista to look at… and relax…