Randall Garrett
Senior Member
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2004
- Professional Status
- IT Professional-Appraisal Related
- State
- Texas
Chris,
In this context, Lisa is a professional reviewer. In addition to being a decent photographer, she happens to lean toward the artistic and gaming side of things vs. pure nuts & bolts business perspective. I can't remember if that is a "left brain" or a "right brain" thing... Maybe it's like Left Twix vs. Right Twix, ha ha. In any case, I appreciate that her reviews seem more objective to me than most typical reviewers who seem to emphasize an agenda that isn't in concert with our needs. I just point out her "leanings" toward the "art side" as it relates to her use of the pen, where pressure sensitivity, barrel rotation, etc. are specialty items which really address "art type" sketching/drawing vs. how we might do things (simple line drawings, annotating images & documents, note taking and the like. To use another illustration, she places more importance in how the various "Photoshop-type" programs work with the pen where we would be more interested in how OneNote interacts... Perhaps many here are not "gamers", but I find that some games do a better job of stressing computers in ways that are important to us - larger data set I/O and graphics optimizations. Anyway, I think it is a good test to throw into the mix and is sometimes a better indicator that some of the other synthetic benchmarks. Overall, Lisa is one of the folks whom I (and other professionals who do this) respect. I may disagree with her on an item here and there, but hey - don't we appraiser types do that with our peers, too? An honest difference of opinion when backed up by proper research and documentation, is enjoyable and enlightening - I just don't like the "Skippy-types" of the reviewer/journalist community.
I still think I need to augment reviews by responsible reviewers (like Lisa) with items which affect our users. One of the most important items is the "outdoor view-ability" as you mentioned. Unfortunately for us here, most manufacturers don't care too much about this as the big time users seem to be gravitating toward specialty devices with more outdoor-friendly screens, and those can run double (or more) because they also will typically include an amount of ruggedizing that is not strictly needed (vs. desired) by most users. I think there is an opportunity for some manufacturer to capitalize on this, but to date, I have not found that right mix, so for now the best solution seems to be a high contrast screen with a matte or semi-matte screen protector... Still, all that said, with respect to size, weight, price and overall performance, we are all much better off than we were years ago
Hope this helps!
-Randall Garrett-
+Apex Software+
[Edit] PS - Also, FWIW, I thought this was a pretty decent ad that highlights some of the improvements of the MS Surface Pro 4... Note toward the end (@ the ~23 second mark), it shows the SP4 hooked up to two monitors. I believe those monitors to be this one:
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...ved-LED-Monitor--S34E790C/productID.314775300. If so, you should realize that these are not 4K/UHD monitors - rather they are "only" 3,440 x 1,440. While that may seem like a good monitor for appraisal work, I would strongly recommend that folks actually go look at one to see what a 34" 21:9 aspect monitor actually looks like in person. I predict that you'll find it to be very awkward for appraisal use (and just in general.) I purchase an LG version of this monitor and did not like it at all and I felt fortunate to be able to offload it for only a mild loss to a game developer I know who found it to be great for his use. I then moved to an LG 32" Cinema 4K monitor which was MUCH better suited to what we routinely do. Both had really great panels - a beautiful semi-matte finish which blew away our Dell 30" monitors. Unfortunately for me, my aging eyes encouraged me to move to something a bit larger and resulted in a toss up between these two monitors:
For MY money, the $780 - $850 spent on either of the two monitors above was a better use of money than the ~$900 for the curved monitor shown in the video. You can find a 34" monitor with lower resolution, but the aspect ratio is still awkward IMHO. The 32" LG is beautiful and if you can handle things being a bit smaller or don't mind scaling things upward, it is a fine choice at ~$1,000. Anyway, I mainly just wanted to point out that the video shows 2 @ high resolution monitors being pushed by an SP4. I have done this (and more) with my own SP4s and SB devices...
/end/
In this context, Lisa is a professional reviewer. In addition to being a decent photographer, she happens to lean toward the artistic and gaming side of things vs. pure nuts & bolts business perspective. I can't remember if that is a "left brain" or a "right brain" thing... Maybe it's like Left Twix vs. Right Twix, ha ha. In any case, I appreciate that her reviews seem more objective to me than most typical reviewers who seem to emphasize an agenda that isn't in concert with our needs. I just point out her "leanings" toward the "art side" as it relates to her use of the pen, where pressure sensitivity, barrel rotation, etc. are specialty items which really address "art type" sketching/drawing vs. how we might do things (simple line drawings, annotating images & documents, note taking and the like. To use another illustration, she places more importance in how the various "Photoshop-type" programs work with the pen where we would be more interested in how OneNote interacts... Perhaps many here are not "gamers", but I find that some games do a better job of stressing computers in ways that are important to us - larger data set I/O and graphics optimizations. Anyway, I think it is a good test to throw into the mix and is sometimes a better indicator that some of the other synthetic benchmarks. Overall, Lisa is one of the folks whom I (and other professionals who do this) respect. I may disagree with her on an item here and there, but hey - don't we appraiser types do that with our peers, too? An honest difference of opinion when backed up by proper research and documentation, is enjoyable and enlightening - I just don't like the "Skippy-types" of the reviewer/journalist community.
I still think I need to augment reviews by responsible reviewers (like Lisa) with items which affect our users. One of the most important items is the "outdoor view-ability" as you mentioned. Unfortunately for us here, most manufacturers don't care too much about this as the big time users seem to be gravitating toward specialty devices with more outdoor-friendly screens, and those can run double (or more) because they also will typically include an amount of ruggedizing that is not strictly needed (vs. desired) by most users. I think there is an opportunity for some manufacturer to capitalize on this, but to date, I have not found that right mix, so for now the best solution seems to be a high contrast screen with a matte or semi-matte screen protector... Still, all that said, with respect to size, weight, price and overall performance, we are all much better off than we were years ago
Hope this helps!
-Randall Garrett-
+Apex Software+
[Edit] PS - Also, FWIW, I thought this was a pretty decent ad that highlights some of the improvements of the MS Surface Pro 4... Note toward the end (@ the ~23 second mark), it shows the SP4 hooked up to two monitors. I believe those monitors to be this one:
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...ved-LED-Monitor--S34E790C/productID.314775300. If so, you should realize that these are not 4K/UHD monitors - rather they are "only" 3,440 x 1,440. While that may seem like a good monitor for appraisal work, I would strongly recommend that folks actually go look at one to see what a 34" 21:9 aspect monitor actually looks like in person. I predict that you'll find it to be very awkward for appraisal use (and just in general.) I purchase an LG version of this monitor and did not like it at all and I felt fortunate to be able to offload it for only a mild loss to a game developer I know who found it to be great for his use. I then moved to an LG 32" Cinema 4K monitor which was MUCH better suited to what we routinely do. Both had really great panels - a beautiful semi-matte finish which blew away our Dell 30" monitors. Unfortunately for me, my aging eyes encouraged me to move to something a bit larger and resulted in a toss up between these two monitors:
- Seiki Pro SM40UNP (currently $852.24) - http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-SM40UNP...46767596&sr=8-1&keywords=seiki+pro+4k+monitor
- Philips BDM4065UC (currently $783.32) - http://www.amazon.com/Philips-BDM40...keywords=seiki+pro+sm40unp+40-inch+4k+monitor
For MY money, the $780 - $850 spent on either of the two monitors above was a better use of money than the ~$900 for the curved monitor shown in the video. You can find a 34" monitor with lower resolution, but the aspect ratio is still awkward IMHO. The 32" LG is beautiful and if you can handle things being a bit smaller or don't mind scaling things upward, it is a fine choice at ~$1,000. Anyway, I mainly just wanted to point out that the video shows 2 @ high resolution monitors being pushed by an SP4. I have done this (and more) with my own SP4s and SB devices...
/end/
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