HannsG 28" WUXGA 1080p LCD @ CostCo.com $525 shipped

[kenji4life]

Afaik, the memberships aren't any different from one another, aside from the fact that the business and executive ones will get you in the door earlier than a regular one.

 

[uli2000]

Originally posted by: onza
I think to be even more accurate, its 525 + tax, for MN residence at least.

So.. tack on another 34.xx or so bucks, I could never figure out how costco taxes

If they have a B&M store (or other presence that requires a buisness license) in the state, they have to collect sales tax.

 

[jasonja]

My local BestBuy had about 5 of these monitors on OpenBox and the display was dead. Once I saw that I backed away slowly from the tempting pricetag. YMMV.

 

[jasonja]

Originally posted by: kenji4life
Afaik, the memberships aren't any different from one another, aside from the fact that the business and executive ones will get you in the door earlier than a regular one.

You get like 1% cashback with the executive membership so if you spend a lot it will pay for the difference.

 

[cboath]

Originally posted by: kenji4life
I just went to Bestbuy, and the sales guy who is probably as clueless as anyone said that the HDMI will accept anything, from DVD players to XBox 360/ PS3 / etc...

I'm still skeptical.

The monitor was very bright and colorful, though uncalibrated and the image that they send through it is a 800x600 or smaller image slideshow through a repeater box. That would explain why the text looks horrible in the above post. When you stretch a 800x600 image to 1920x1200, it's gonna look like crap. Also, it's hooked up via regular D-sub, which is supposedly inferior to dvi/hdmi anyhow.

He wouldn't say if they could match Costco, and sent me to customer service, which I didn't feel like standing in line for. I'd rather utilize Costco's superior return policy anyways.

If this accepts HDMI from say a HD DVR, HD-DVD player, Xbox 360 etc, you could utilize the sound output (to a receiver) in order to make a pretty nice bedroom TV/Computer monitor combo.

This is certainly the best price anywhere on a monitor this size and resolution (when you compare to most TV's which are at ~720p in this price range).

I might see if Costco has this in stock locally.

I agree about low resolution doing just that when stretched. It's a simple fact. However:

-I couldn't see the pixelization on any of 24" or 22" monitors I looked at.

-If it was a stretched 800x600, the photos would be stretched - and they weren't - I could see it being a 1280x800 slideshow....all the monitors were widescreen.


As far as TV it'd be great as a bedroom tv or something. The picture looked great just 5' away. My issues are as a computer monitor since i'll be 2-3' away from it in that regard. For pure gaming, it'd probably be great, too. I just don't do exclusive gaming and in the stuff I do, the pixelization would be a killer is all. If you're not doing 3D or CAD work, or probably even desktop publishing, i'd guess they'd be non-issues. I did see ghosting though. But I can't tell you if that's just on this one or an issue with the model in general.

 

[kenji4life]

The image was at size on the 15" 4:3 monitors they had on display, the standard resolution for which is 800x600 or 1024x768, not widescreen.

You would be hard pressed to notice the stretch from 4:3 to 16:10, when you are looking at nature,beach,text etc. It's much easier to tell the image is stretched when looking at a human being, whom you know shouldn't look as wide as they do. Trees, sand, water, sky, all objectively look fine when stretched a small amount.

By the way, can anyone confirm using this monitor with a HD-DVD player, Blue-Ray player, HDMI equipped DVD player, or HD tuner?

 

[Jules]

this monitor is $499 at newegg + $21 shipping

 

[Fayd]

Originally posted by: kenji4life
Afaik, the memberships aren't any different from one another, aside from the fact that the business and executive ones will get you in the door earlier than a regular one.

no, executive gets you a 5% discount on anything you buy there.... to my knowledge. that's what i remember reading last time i was on their site..

 

[KPACOTKA]

Costco gives 2 years no questions exchange warranty. Since somebody reported about dead monitors, it is risky to buy anywhere else.

 

[kenji4life]

no, executive gets you a 5% discount on anything you buy there.... to my knowledge. that's what i remember reading last time i was on their site..

Speculation is really fun. You could have just gone to their website to check instead of throwing a number out there. I don't remember it being 5% ever.

Per Costco.com:

Executive Membership is our highest level of membership. Executive Members enjoy an annual 2% Reward on most Costco purchases, as well as additional values on member services, such as lower prices on check printing, auto financing, overnight delivery and long-distance phone service; larger Costco Cash card amounts for mortgage, real estate and home equity transactions; one-year free roadside assistance for vehicles covered through the Auto Insurance program; and extra travel benefits.

To this stuff, I say poo poo. If you spend enough at Costco to make this worthwhile, great. Otherwise, the 100 dollar a year premium is too much for most people. To make up your 100 dollar investment, you must spend 5000 dollars a year at Costco. Be careful to know that Costco only has 'excellent' prices on some items. Most are proportionately priced to smaller sizes at other stores, if not higher.

I think this is a good deal on this monitor. If you have it in stock in a local Costco, I'd jump on it, as it can probably be used well as a bedroom HDTV/Monitor/Gaming set or whatever.

 

[cboath]

Whatvever, as i said, images and text looked fine on 24" and 22" screens. If it was a a stretched image, you'd think you'd notice the pixelization on at least 24" screens at 18" away - i didn't. The smallest screen this store had on display was a 20" widescreen. The only 4:3 in the store were hooked up to actual systems. I'll stick by my assessment, that if it's just for gaming, you'll be fine. Photo or design work, probably not.

 

[YukonCornelius]

Originally posted by: KPACOTKA
Costco gives 2 years no questions exchange warranty. Since somebody reported about dead monitors, it is risky to buy anywhere else.

Having purchased both the Hanns-G HG281 and the Viewsonic VX2835vm from Costco at the start of January (excercising the 3mo return policy to its extent), and running both on 8800gt's (currently as 2 monitors, with the intention of going SLI w/ a single montor), I feel "qualified" to give some feedback on both:

The Viewsonic is "yellow" out of the box, and though 6500k should be good enough for the color warmness, I had to boost it to 7500k to get truer whites, and get much closer to the Hanns-G's white level at 6500k.

The Hanns-G has a much more noticable color-shift when not viewed dead-center, and if you're closer than 3-feet.

The Hanns-G has a TERRIBLE gamma to it. Go here (http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/) and scroll down to "gamma test". See that 48% bar on the left? The Viewsonic correctly displays colors at a rating of 2.2, while the Hanns-G appears washed out most of the time, and has a gamma around 1.7 to 1.8. The color bleeding is also noticable in pictures of wide contrast, like the far-away shot of Mars (against the blackness of space) on my desktop right now. The dark regions just aren't that dark compared to the Viewsonic, and worse, the black is noticably lighter between the 2.

On the plus-side for the Hanns-G, the center-based tilt is very easy to change, and feels smooth, rather than a lot of tension on the Viewsonic, which is based at the bottom. The Hanns-G's side-to-side swivel is nice as well.

The reason I wanted to post is because the Viewsonic is currently down @ Costco by $50 to $549.99 thru February w/ free shipping, while the Hanns is $499.99 + $20 shipping. For a paltry difference of $30 plus tax, you should really check both of them out. I'm personally going with the Viewsonic, mostly because of that gamma issue, and the monitor just feels a little cheaper compared to the Viewsonic.

 

[Mucker]

Now that is a review I appreciate reading Yukon. thanks for taking the time......

 

[Zap]

Yeah, thanks YukonCornelius, and welcome to the forums.

I currently have a Soyo 24" and a HannsG 22". A larger monitor would be great, but... dunno, been going up in size about once a year and the madness must stop! Had a 19" two years ago, then 22" a year ago, then 24" last Fall. Everytime I see a 32/37/42" 1080p monitor... nooooo!

 

[Mucker]

Originally posted by: Zap
......been going up in size about once a year and the madness must stop! Had a 19" two years ago, then 22" a year ago, then 24" last Fall. :Q

monitor Viagra?

 

[kmmatney]

I use the Hanns-G at work everyday. I took it home once to compare with my Soyo, and the "contrast" was definately better on my Soyo, as well as the colors. The Soyo is $280 this weekend, and IMO is a better bang for the buck. But the Hanns-G is nice, and if you need a larger display it is not bad. For a 28" TN display, the Hanns-G has decent viewing angles, and color shift isn't much of a problem for normal use of the monitor. I find the large pixel size great for getting real work done. For the $30 price difference, I'd go for the Viewsonic, though.

 

[alrocky]

Price drop to $399.99 + $19.99 shipping

September 12, 2008 extended September 30, 2008
While supplies last.

I may get it this time. Anyone who already owns one care to comment on this monitor? Basically are you glad you got it or wish you hadn't?

 

[Kwint Sommer]

The contrast is not amazing though it does get bright enough to blind, not that that's a reason to buy a monitor. The colors are fine if you don't mind them not being true to life.

All in all it was better than I expected for a sub-$500 28" LCD monitor and I'm glad I got it. It has a lot of deficiencies but no true failings and for casual use or even hardcore gaming it's an excellent choice.

If you're looking for a big monitor that will flawlessly display your 1280P movies or pictures then you're barking up the wrong tree entirely. What you want is a good old CRT projector....otherwise, this monitor will at least leave you satisfied, if not quite in love.

 

[Deleted member 4644]

So can anyone confirm that this works as a TV with a cable box or DVD?

 

[Kwint Sommer]

Actually, I'd like to give a note of caution on that. While it's happy to receive digital content over its HDMI port and does HDCP correctly when I gave it an analog 1080i signal from my xbox 360 it absolutely refused to render it correctly. Apparently it can't handle sync on green.

This monitor is also a 16:10 display and digital TV is in either 4:3 or for the 720p and 1080i/p 16:9 which means your image may be stretched to fit on the screen. If given a straight 1080p signal over HDMI it will simply stretch it to fit the screen and that this does not look quite right, at least to me but then I like to play with CRT projectors so I'm not the average user.

So to sum up, I've never plugged in a cable box but I've given it a 360 which should be close enough and it failed miserably at 1080i and analog 1080p while stretching digital 1080p to fit the screen but otherwise displaying it fine. So figure out which of those your cable box is and you have your answer.