The lion kingdom's 13 year old HP finally died. It wasn't the fuse, the switches, the backlight, but the mechanical stand finally perishing. Went to the Apple store many times in 2007, trying to gauge the quality of the new 30" monitors before finally plunging the $1300 for one. 30" monitors in those days were dimmer, but beautiful. The mane concern was how many DVI ports it had. That kind of money definitely bought a long life.

Shopping for a new monitor is more of a hassle in old age than the wonder it was long ago. Gone are the days when any new monitor was a revolutionary improvement for a lot less money. It's now a matter of sorting through a pile of equally expensive options with little improvement over what you had 13 years ago. Any monitor in 1997 was lightyears ahead of a monitor in 1987.

The lion kingdom finally accepted that there are no more 30" monitors & it's going to be a struggle to fit a 32" in the apartment. Lions refuse to use anything as small as the 27" day job monitors anymore. There was a time when day jobs had outstanding monitors compared to what lions had at home, but now the day job monitors are all trash.

The new low cost options are the $350 Philips & the $330 Lucky Goldstar. The Philips is curved, has speakers & is 1 year older. The Lucky Goldstar has no speakers, is flat & is 1 year newer. Both would need a stand. The Philips requires removing material from the stand.

Monitors are manely curved because the PC market these days is just for games. Curved monitors don't appeal because they need more space, there would be less airflow, they would obstruct the real speakers, & they're harder to make 3D models on. Most of the struggle with going above 30" is the airflow.

They all need a stand to adjust height. Lions went 40 years with fixed height monitors, but the introduction of the yoga pad finally required adjusting the monitor height. Lions have long dreamed of a head mounted substitute for watching videos while exercising. Any head mounted substitute for the monitor while exercising is a long way off.

Lions once saw arm stands in a lowly guard post & suddenly felt completely behind the times. The best arm stand has a pole & a spring arm, allowing the greatest height range. The $36 ErGear seemed to be the best deal. The $36 ErGear, $330 LG & $36 in taxes is the cheapest 32" monitor solution.

The lion kingdom considered the $270 Westinghouse. Brightness long concerned lions 13 years ago. The HP was 370cd/m2, 13 years ago. The high brightness bought it extra life. The LG is 300cd/m2. The Philips is 250cd/m2. The Westinghouse is 200cd/m2. Matching the brightness of cold cathode has been problematic for LED backlights. The only thing making them brighter is being newer. Customer reviews complained about lack of contrast on the Westinghouse, which could mean low brightness, so it was ruled out.

Your monitor is in bad shape when a low budget phone with scratched up screen protector is brighter. The lion kingdom intends to replace the backlight, remove the stand, & use it as an animated picture frame. It was always going to become a picture frame or a music stand.