Richard Campbell Blogs Too

I've said this before, and its still true - Christmas isn't a good time for me in terms of me getting toys. Its good for everyone else because they all come to me for advice about toys. Spouses are especially interesting around Christmas, there are some that say "don't buy anything until you talk to Richard" and others say "don't you dare talk to him, he's a bad influence on you!" Either way, I'm happy to help folks out selecting gadgets. I just don't expect them for myself. After all, considering how difficult it is to buy for me when I'm doing it, I wouldn't even try to put that sort of pressure on my loved ones.

My happy time comes after Christmas for a variety of reasons. Since Christmas is over, I'm not stepping on anyone's presents if I buy myself something. Also, since January is a slow time for gear sales, my regular suppliers really appreciate my buying spree.

So, with that preamble, let me give you a few photos of what showed up over here in ToyLand...

Yes indeed, I finally pulled the trigger on ordering DigitalTigers' ZenView PowerTrio HD. The combined resolution of the three monitors involved is 4960x1600 - just over 7.9 million pixels. Woohoo! The package arrived remarkably fast, around a week or so. There are two boxes, one containing the Apple 30" Cinema Display, and the other has everything else in it: the two Samsung 204T panels, the stand, cables and instructions.

The "everything else" box was nicely packed. Each of the sets of components sat in its own foam layer. The picture above is the top layer containing the stand. Beneath that were the layers of the Samsung displays, each separate by foam and/or styrofoam. Its a great package.

Here's a look inside the Apple box. Note the large monitor. That's 30" diagonal, baby.

I didn't realize that the LG.Phillips display was actually the Apple 30" Cinema display. The big whammy there is that there's only a one year warranty on this display, unlike the Samsung panels (and virtually every other LCD out there) that have three year warranties. Also, the cables on the Apple display are hard-wired, which meant using an extension cable. My displays sit about 12 feet from the computer when you account for going through the desk, in the cable channel at the back of the desk and into the slide-out workstation bay. For the Samsung displays, I bought 12 foot DVI cables, but I had to get a dual-link DVI extension cable.

Although the stand is branded DigitalTigers, I'm pretty sure its an Ergotron stand, if for no other reason than I already had the same style stand for my old triple screen display. Although admittedly, to handle these enormous monitors, the stand is a bit bigger.

Next step - serious testing.