What's the dealy w/ LCD dead pixels?

[imashination]

Because the retail ones are super super cheapy cheap? Retail machines are often sold with features such as "17 LCD screen. No mention is made of how good it actually is; Jow public generally wouldn't know a good LCD screen even if it was caught sleeping with his wife.

Just make sure you pick a decent brand and you are usually safe. I've been through 4 laptops in the past month and all have been flawless.

[ZrO-1]

Dead pixels can happen from rough handeling or poor storage conditions as much as manufacturing defects.
If you think about the general quality of the staff that work at a lot of the retail stores you can imagine how much rough-handeling the screens get. That's on top of the shipping to the retail store from the warehouse. And if it's a "floor model" then forget about it, that puppy has been beat up by every customer that has walked through the doors since the screen arrived.

Also all manufactured items are bin sorted as they are tested.
If a product is only marginal, the manufacturer is not going to sell it direct from their website, or sell it to a system builder (like dell) who spends a butt-load of money with them (and has a contract as thick as an almanac). They are going to sell it to a retailer who would then have to deal with any customer backlash about crappy, dead-pixel screens.

[Signal2Noise]

Also, in addition to the other good comments, be very wary of retailers trying to sell you refurbished or repackaged demo models. Some well-known major chains in my neck of the woods are notorious for this. LCD screens and laptops. I always demand to get a completey sealed box and examine the contents before leaving the store. Ordering stuff on-line will be a bit tougher to check but I always trust Dell for stuff like that and they do have good return policy if problems do exist, in my experience.

[Valkyrien]

it's not just retail models!

couple weeks ago the monitor on one of the express registers at work lost a whole line of pixels! annoys the crap out of me...

[Sieb]

I prefer to buy LCDs at the store like BestBuy since if there is anything wrong with it, you can usually get away with taking it back and getting another. Whereas if you order online like from 'egg, you get stuck with the "Unless there are 8 or more pixels dead, you just wasted your money" bit..

And if I am going to spend 1600 on a 21.3" LCD from BestBuy, it better damn well not have anything wrong with it. I got lucky..

[ZrO-1]

If you're buying a monitor online (CRT or LCD) definetly check out Monitors Direct (http://www.monitorsdirect.com/) . They have an awesome policy, and the way they have the monitors listed it's really easy to see the different spec's for comparison. I bought two 17" LCDs from them and the prices were good, and they arrived really quickly. I wouldn't go anywhere else for monitors now.

[singularity2006]

Originally posted by imashination
Just make sure you pick a decent brand and you are usually safe. I've been through 4 laptops in the past month and all have been flawless.

Nah, I went through three name brands before sticking with one. That day, I went out and my dad got me a Sylvania LCD for real cheap... it was a good LCD with no dead pixels but the color on it was the most grotesque thing to work on in photoshop... it was egregious. Sylvania should stick with making light bulbs, not LCD's. So I returned that one and hit up Fry's to get a Samsung which was cheap.... but I found a dead pixel in the most annoying phreaking spot, dead center. Returned it for a Sony... had a dead pixel near the center, returned it... got an NEC and found a dead pixel in a not so obvious area.... by that time, I was just pissed off and gave up. The dead pixel wasn't in a very obvious place so I gave up and just stuck w/ it... this is the same LCD I use now...

[paultheplumber]

I had a few dead sub-pixels on my LCD when I got it. But they were easily nursed back to life by gently rubbing my finger accross them. I've heard reports of full dead pixels coming back to life using the same method. It's worth a shot.


-- mark

[singularity2006]

hahaha, I've heard of that but have never gotten it to work... hahaha, good idea though. =D

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