So I finally got my Achieva Shimian QH270-IPSB tempered glass monitor. My experience so far:
I bought it from red-cap and for some reason my order was shipped to Germany without any address. As soon as I pointed out the error to the seller he shipped a new monitor the next day. So all in all including customs it took 4 weeks from ordering the monitor to receiving it. A bit frustrating but to say the least, but now I’ve got the monitor so no need to focus on the negative. The seller had labeled the value @ $50, but Danish customs was very throughout and I had to send the invoice to get my parcel. No problem, as I I’m not particular fond of tax evasion and I had calculated the sales tax into the budget from the beginning.
The monitor arrived nicely packed and without any noticeably damages, wrapped in bubble wrap.
Setting up the monitor was very easy, just mount stand and plug in power and the DVI dual link cable and fire it up. (Remember not to panic if there’s no picture, you may just has put the DVI cable in the wrong output on your video card.) I can access the BIOS no problem and windows worked just fine.
The finish of the screen is really gorgeous and the glass front is really nice. The stand is a little wobbly, but the black plastic is very discrete, and I don’t really move the monitor around a lot so it doesn’t really matter. I would have lied the stand to be a little higher, but just tilting the screen slightly makes it ok. The screen is very glossy, but as soon as you turn it on you don’t really notice it.
I’ve found three dead pixels, but they’re at the edges of the screen and they’re so small, I only notice them if I fire up a white screen and look for them. As soon as I actually use the monitor I don’t notice it at all. There’s no dust trapped behind the glass, so that’s nice. As far as I can see there’s just a little backlight bleeding and no color distortion.
What I really like is the extra desk space. Going from 1680x1050 I get nearly the double amount of pixels, and that is really nice. I also prefer the 16:9 ratio as I use the screen for a lot of TV and movie watching as I don’t have a TV. Pictures look really good with the added resolution and the colors seems more detailed, especially in the grey tones. All in all I’m very satisfied with the monitor; it looks really good in my living room.