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Complete listing of June 1996 reviews
By Rich Castagna
Bigger isn't always better-especially when PC equipment is getting bigger and your office is shrinking. Sceptre Technologies CD-1112T LCD monitor can help you regain some of your valuable desktop space, but the space-saving display doesn't come cheap.
If you can peer past the price-and it's much less expensive than comparable models from NEC-this display looks pretty good. With its 12.1-inch screen, it weighs about 2.5 pounds. You can slide the display onto the included base-a high-tech, tubular affair that's weighted for stability and tilt adjustable. Rubber treads around the ends of the base keep it from slipping on slick surfaces.
The CD-1112T comes with a proprietary PCI video card. I placed the card in a 133MHz system, attached the included cable to the card and the LCD, and turned on the system. The Plug-and-Play PC recognized the card immediately and configured itself appropriately. The monitor sips the juice it needs from its cable connection to the system.
At an 800x600dpi resolution, the active-matrix monitor displays vivid colors and crisp characters and lines. The screen image falls just a fraction of an inch shy of stretching from corner to corner, to yield an actual viewing area that rivals that of a conventional 14-inch monitor. You don't have some of the control that you would with a regular monitor, however. For example, setting the resolution at 640x480dpi produces a shrunken image area that floats in the middle of the screen; with higher resolutions, you have to shift the image around to see its extremities. But at 800x600dpi, the display is very good.
With a thickness of 2 inches, the CD-1112T isn't fettered by the constraints of notebook displays. Although the technology is essentially the same, the extra weight and size-and the power available from the host system-help contribute to the CD-1112T's superior image.
And while its domain is the desktop, it can't quite keep up with some desktop video systems. I tested the CD-1112T and its proprietary card on a 133MHz Pentium system using WINDOWS Magazine's Wintune benchmarks. The combination yielded an average score of 9.6Mpixels per second-slower than what you'd expect from the video subsystem of a typical desktop PC with a PCI graphics adapter, but not that much slower.
The CD-1112T's tiny footprint and excellent picture make your heart skip a beat-right before the two-grand price tag stops it cold. This monitor is likely to find its way onto executive desktops and, even more likely, onto store shelves where its size, picture quality and snazzy looks make it ideal for kiosk applications.
Info File
Sceptre CD-1112T
Price: $1,999
Pros: Image quality; size and weight
Cons: Price; performance
Platforms: Windows 95, 3.1x
Sceptre Technologies
818-369-3698, fax 818-369-3488
WinMag Box Score: 3.0
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