Dell IN1910N Flat Panel Monitor Review

For someone like me, next to a serious injury to someone in my family, this was the worst thing to happen. I am literally on this computer every day, all day, save for eating, working out, and socializing. Notice how I didn't say sleeping? That's because many times I fall asleep right here. About 3-1/2 years ago I switched to laptops, as it's easier as an entertainment writer to have something I can use while I'm watching TV and movies. For me, it was the perfect setup. Notice how I said was? Yeah, I broke my LCD screen.

It was my own stupid fault. I was in a bad mood and dropped my remote on my MacBook laptop. It hit the corner of my screen and caused it to shatter a little. But that wasn't the bad part. The bad part was the liquid crystal inside ran. It never leaked out, but covered up the display so that I couldn't see most of the bottom half. I was horrified. I did the rest of my work that night by peering through only half of the screen, which was a total pain, and took it into the Genius Bar at the Apple store the next day. He advised me they could send it out to get fixed for $830 (and I could buy a refurbished laptop better than the one I had for $850, or a brand new one better than what I had for $1000, so not worth it), or they could fix it inhouse for around $400, or I could take it to a non-Apple place for between $200-$300. Yuck.

I was thinking of buying a new laptop anyway, but I wanted to wait until after Christmas. I was given one more option. I could keep the laptop closed and used it as a desktop computer by attaching a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The best part of this scenario was that after I do get a new laptop, I still have a working desktop setup with the old one. This was good news to me, as my kids have used up/nullified my older laptop and desktop.

Off to Best Buy I was. I just wanted the cheapest, smallest monitor I could find. I was used to a 13" screen on a laptop. I didn't need much bigger than that. The cheapest, smaller I could find was the Dell IN1910N Flat Panel Monitor. Small? It's 18.5" and widescreen, but it's the smallest they had. It seems like a movie screen theater in comparison to what I was used to. Yet it fit the bill for the price, too, at only $100. Along with this, I also had to purchase a special adapter to fit to the MacBook, but I knew it was most likely cheaper than buying an Apple monitor.

I have grown to love this screen. It has a gorgeous display. It has brilliant colors, and it's so nice having this bigger display space. It does have mounting brackets that are kept hidden when not in use to mount it on the wall, but not being a permament solution, I'm not going there. It's great for watching movies, either on DVD or YouTube. The only thing I'm really missing is the portability of the laptop. I can do mostly everything on my iPhone, but not everything. For right now, it's doable.

In fact, I love this screen so much, I'm thinking of making that an option once I get a new laptop, so that I can either stay put and use the larger screen, or detach and go with the laptop. Am I glad I broke the old one? No, but I'm not nearly as upset as I was , and I'm finding I can wait a little bit before being forced into a new laptop, a good thing, as a few weeks after I broke the other, Apple released a new version of the MacBook for the same price.