Trevin Chow

For a long time, I’ve been running a multi-monitor setup at home consisting of 2 LCDs, a 19″ Dell 1901FP and a 20″ widescreen 2007WFP. This setup was great for work I do at home, and also my general day-to-day usage. However, now that I’m doing so much photo processing at home, I really need more screen real estate since Photoshop and Lightroom really do a good job eating desktop space since they have so many toolbars.

I originally thought I was going to go with a slightly larger LCD and still run in a multi-mon configuration, but after researching LCDs and re-assessing my exact needs, I’ve decided that I’m going to be much better served by a single much larger 30″ LCD. Seeing as I can probably sell my current setup for at least $250, it makes the price-tag of a 30-incher a little easier to digest

Previously, I would just read some online reviews on LCDs and picked up the one that had the best price to performance ratio. Usually these ended up to be Dell LCDs since they seem to always find the right balance. However, this time around, I am ultra-discerning (read: picky) since i have to get an LCD that will color calibrate properly and also have unofrmity in the colors across the entire LCD. Preciseness in color reproduction is so important to me since I’m doing so much printing of my photographs these days.

In my quest to find reviews of 30″ LCDs, I was surprised to find a shortage of “good” reviews. The majority of reviews I’ve read, give very surface level information, often contradict each other, and end up not being very credible since the reviews approach from the perspective of video game playing, DVD watching or general desktop usage. They don’t measure color gamut or color accuracy which is what is important photographer (along with price ). The best review site I’ve found is Prad.de which give unbelievably comprehensive reviews and touches on all the information that I was looking for. The only downside is that not all the monitors I’m looking at have been reviewed.

My 2 weeks worth of research has spit out this current short list:

1. Dell 3007WFP-HC (30″)
2. Hewlett-Packard (HP) LP3065 (30″)
3. NEC LCD3090WQXi (30″)
4. NEC LCD2690WQXi (26″)

(Note: I already ruled out the Dell 3008WFP since it’s nearly the same price as the NEC 30″ but has mixed reviews, so there is no reason to even consider it)

Of the LCDs on my short-list , the hands down winner is the NEC 30″. They definitely have graphics artists and photographers in mind when they created this LCD. Every review I’ve read confirms it and their tech specs are nothing short of unbelievably impressive. The only problem is the thing run about $1900! Ouch.

All the other LCDs run about $1100. The NEC 26″ is just as good as the NEC 30″ in terms of color reproduction but costs the same as the other 30″. Therein lies the problem. Should I go for:

a) the NEC 30″ and try to rationalize the extra $800 price difference?

b) the NEC 26″ LCD, sacrifice on size but know that the colors are going to be spot on?

c) settle for a more sub-par 30″ LCD (Dell or HP), get the size I want at a better price point but struggle with the colors?

If anyone has any input, I’m all ears.

No, “Zephyr” is not just that lame car that Lincoln produced. Did you know that Zephyr means “a gentle breeze“? I didn’t until I listened to Comic Vocab.

2 good friends of mine, Suraj and Chaitanya, came up with a killer idea on helping people improve their vocabulary through comedy. When I first heard the idea I was skeptical. However, after drilling into the idea with them a bit more, I believe the product definitely has great potential. The question I asked myself was how I would go about improving my vocabulary? Read an SAT book? Read a dictionary? Subscribe to “word of the day” emails?

The premise behind Comic Vocab is that it helps you build your vocabulary better than any other method since it keeps you interested through the use of “clean comedy”, which in turn helps maximize word retention. I’m definitely biased since this product was made by my 2 friends, but I’m never shy to rip on any product someone asks me to review. It’s truly a great product — if you’re at all interested in beefing up your vocabulary in a really easy way, this is the product to buy.

The cool part of their project is that they produced in on the side while working full-time at Microsoft, sourcing all their creative talent from Craig’s list. Talk about a web 2.0 success story!

The easiest way for me to listen to it was in my car on my drives to work since that’s where I feel I waste most of my time during the day. What better way to use 30-40 mins a day? I was able to listen to it in chunks over several days on my back-and-forth commute. Many of their jokes on the CD made me laugh out loud making it for a really easy listen. You can check out some of their work on their samples page.

Imagine being able to bust out the word “prolix” at your next family dinner or at the bar next to your future wife? The product is available directly through their website at http://www.comicvocab.com as well as on Amazon.

Gerard sent me a review of alarm clocks that Slate.com did. His exact IM to me was “I thought of your obsession with alarm clocks when I saw this”.

Their rating methodology is on 4 factors:

“Ease of Use (10 possible points): Our days are stressful enough already—setting one’s alarm clock should not be as difficult as programming a computer. Was the instruction manual required reading? Did the clock wake me up in the middle of the night because I set it wrong? Could my Luddite father use this thing?

Wakeupability (10 possible points): The clock may not roll under the bed or have a mind of its own, but is the alarm volume adjustable for light and heavy sleepers? How well will it get me out of bed without making me want to smash it against a wall?

Features (10 possible points): More features don’t necessarily make a better clock, but this was an important metric in determining its overall quality.

Looks (10 possible points): Not only do you have to hear this thing every day, but you have to look at it, too. It needs some redeeming aesthetic qualities.”

The most important category for an alarm clock is certainly “Wakeupability” (sounds like a word I’d come up with) and the least important one is “Looks”. I don’t know about you, but if I found the best alarm clock in the world, but it didn’t match the decor of my bedroom, I’d still buy it

After reading the review, I’m disappointed in it. They have given a stronger weighting to alarm clocks that feature gimmicks than beneficial features. For example, they scored the Hammacher Schlemmer Peaceful Progression Wake Up Clock (trying saying that 5 times) higher because it sports an aromatherapy feature to release a scent to help you wakeup. Who are these reviewers!? Are they running a spa or trying to get up for work?

Second gripe is that they scored the Brookstone iHome Clock Radio for iPod ($99.95) very high simply because of the iPod connectivity. I’m an iPod fanboy just like the next guy, but there is no way this would be practical. I might plug in my ipod for the first few days, but then I’d forget to do it, leaving me with a really expensive clock radio each night with a sub-par feature set.

The ultimate winner was the RCA RP3765 ($56.99), which I completely disagree with. They give is kudos for being able to get local weather reports and play CDs. Based solely on the units and the description in the review, I would either have chosen the Timex AM/FM Clock Radio ($33) or the RCA RP3720 ($22) because of the convenient “napping” features, “graduwake” and dual alarm settings. I especially like the seven/five/two-day alarm schedule the timex has — what a great idea! Everything else in every other alarm clock in this review is complete fluff just to justify a heftier price.

One of these days, I have to convince someone to sponsor my own alarm clock review. Based on my experiences, the ultimate alarm clock would have these are must-haves:

1. Snooze button – you’re laughing but some alarm clocks don’t even have this feature, like the Biobrite EZ Wake Sunrise Clock. I guess the engineers forgot that normal humans like to hit the snooze buttone every once and awhile. Oh yeah, the snooze button should be nice and big so it’s easy to hit. No sense in having a snooze button that you have to hunt and peck for.
2. Dual alarms, with independant volume control — You could then set one alarm to start softer and the second alarm to be extremely loud. This would coincide with my current strategy for waking up as described by Vincent Cheung (look for his “simple system”).
3. Loud alarm – needs to be really, really loud. Or at least give me the option of setting it really loud. No sense in having an alarm clock you can tune out. Light sleepers can be satisfied by a “light sleeper” setting with a softer tone.
4. Schedule flexibility — like the Timex AM/FM Clock Radio, I love the idea of having the option of either the same alarm schedule every day, or a different schedule for mon-fri vs. sat-sun. How many of you constantly adjust your alarm right before you sleep and sometimes you forget and get woken up at the wrong time on a sunday morning?
5. Quick nap – in 2 button presses or less, allow me to take a quick nap assuming I’ve already preset the nap time. Revising the nap length should take me no more than 5 seconds.
6. Battery backup – absolutely essential in case of power failure or you need to unplug it. Backup runtime shoudl be reasonable to outlast a short power outage, at least 10 mins.

Nice to have features. These are no ship stoppers for my dream alarm clock, but I would value if it had.

1. Graduwake – must get louder progressively over time.
2. Ability to play a particular track on a CD – I’m not that keen on this feature, but I guess it woudl be nice. I know what will happen is that I”ll just leave the same CD in there all the time and never change it. It could be cool if this thing was Wifi enabled and I coudl stream an MP3 from my music server.. but let’s get real. This is an alarm clock.
3. Look good – I slagged the “Looks” review criteria earlier, but I do admit I like nice looking things that match my furniture. But it’s definitely not a “must have” and I’m definitely not paying through the nose for it.
4. Digital radio tuner – Please raise your hand if you hate using an analog tuner with a scroll wheel to find your radio stations. Yes, I hate em too. Give me a digital tuner please.

Maybe some company out there wants to hire me to review their alarm clocks before coming to market? My services are for sale