rowdytown's profile

A very nice monitor.

One selling feature for this monitor, as opposed to a new one, was the fact that you can rotate the screen. I do like having that feature, but I really don't use it very much. The Monitor has a very good picture, and it can be adjusted automatically at the press of a button. I have only had one issue with it, otherwise I would have given it a rating of excellent. I have to give a bit of a story to explain the issue. When I received my new computer is loaded with Windows Vista. I connected the HP monitor with a VGA cable, it looked and worked great. I then ordered and received my upgrade to Windows 7, the monitor still looked and worked great. I don't know exactly what happened, but one morning shortly after installing Windows 7 the monitor did not look the same. I assume this was related to an update to Windows 7 that was installed automatically. I tried adjusting the monitor, I tried adjusting the settings within Windows 7, I just couldn't seem to get it to look like it should. Anyway, I found a DVI cable and connected it with that instead of the VGA cable, and now it looks great again. So, I do highly recommend this monitor, but only if you're able to connect it with a DVI cable. If your computer does not have a DVI connection, or you don't plan on getting a video card that does have a DVI connection, then you may want something else. That's my only complaint. The monitor has a great picture, the ability to rotate into portrait mode for long pages or spreadsheets, the monitor itself looks great, with a heavy-duty stand. I was definitely impressed by the weight of this monitor and stand. We have a 22 inch Acer widescreen LCD on my wife's computer and it weighs about half as much as this monitor. When I first removed this from the box I was so impressed by its weight I had to put our shipping scales. If I remember correctly, it was about 17 pounds. To me, to have your unit normally means that it is built better. I know that's not always true, but it is a fairly good general rule. If you find one at a good price and you're able to connect it with a DVI cable, I would say get it. I was able to purchase mine for $130, including shipping. I hope this review helps you with your decision for you to monitor.

We love this printer!

This is a great printer for the price, plenty fast enough for us, cheap to operate, good print quality for normal business papers, and it holds a full ream of paper in it's two trays. Our previous printer was an HP Officejet Pro K5400. It was ok, but we had too many problems with it. For our small home business, this 4050tn is much better. It is faster, more economical, and I expect it to last much longer. I did a lot of research in forums and reviews, before buying this printer. My findings were that this is one of the last laserjets that HP made to be very durable. The newer one's are apparently made cheaper (like most things these days). Ours is refurbished, and guaranteed, so I expect it to operate for the projected 200,000 pages before needing major service. I think we only print about 10,000 pages per year. Toner for this is very reasonable. I calculate the cost per page to be 0.8 cents, including toner and paper. I wanted a network printer, with a low cost to operate, for business purposes, that will just work, and keep on working without any fuss. I do believe I have found that, with this printer. When we need to get our work done, I don't want to have to mess with the printer, to try and figure out why it isn't working properly. I bet you know what I mean. You will still need another printer for your color prints and photos, but I don't see that as a negative thing. You can get each printer based on what it does best. I highly recommend this printer.