The Soyo 24″ Widescreen LCD monitor is the cheapest 24″ LCD in the market. Standard retail value is $399 but OfficeMax’s discounted price is $299 and then you have the optional $29 insurance plan. I already had one crap out on me in 3 days of owning it but got a free exchange at OfficeMax. So how is this monitor compared to the competition?
Soyo 24″ TFT Widescreen LCD
Resolution: 1920 x 1200
Contrast Ratio: 1000:1
Viewing Angle: 170 horizontal, 160 vertical
Light Source: 40K hrs
Response Time: 6ms
Pixel Pitch: 0.285 mm
Brightness: 500cd/m2 (or nits)
Screen Aspect: 16:10
Connectors: 15-pin mini D-sub (Analog VGA), DVI-I (Digital)
Power: 100W
Speakers: 2W x 2
The specs look impressive. A seemingly high contrast ratio, 6ms response, and 500 nits brightness. Everything else is sorta at par with the Samsungs and Acers that are priced more by around 150 bucks. Is it any good in person? Oh yea oh yea. There was NOT a SINGLE dead pixel on the screen. Colors were bright and vivid (you need to calibrate the settings to Contrast 40, Brightness 49, R 36 G 38 B 33) and the gigantic display just overwhelms you at first. But then you get used to it. So what’s wrong with it? Why am I returning this monitor? Is “trouble” it’s middle name?
1. Original Soyo 24″ LCD suddenly developed a horizontal 1 pixel tall deadpixel line extending from one end to the other in 3 days. I googled it up and sure enough, 2 other people had the same issues.
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?catid=18&threadid=757885&start=140
2. If you let the “Power Save” mode take over, the screen turns off and goes into standby. Cool. No not really. Put your ears close to the rear vents and you can hear a low-pitched whirring sound of motors or something running inside the monitor. Alright. Maybe you really have to push the power button to turn it all off. Hit the power button and you can still hear that sound from the monitor. WTF? The sound stops only if you unplug the power cable to the LCD.
3. The rear vents get hot in like 30 secs of use and you can smell burnt plastic.
4. The screen gets really hot after a few mins of use. Reach your hand about 2 inches close to the screen and you can feel the heat. Not cool!
5. The DVI-I port in the rear is bullshit. It only accepts digital signals which means it’s basically a DVI-D port with the extra 4 holes to accommodate a DVI-I cable. If it works or not is up to you but it sure as heck didn’t do anything with my DVD player.
6. The VGA port in the rear can’t accept analog signals as mentioned in #5.
7. No built-in tuner but that would bump up the price.
8. Speakers are non-existent.
9. Forgot to mention this but it didn’t work with any of the laptops using Intel’s integrated graphics cards. There seems to be an issue with the resolution and needing to pan the screen at 1600×1200 through my ATI card but the issue could lie with my card as it is over 3 years old.
10. A few commentators have mentioned a problem with the screen shutting down at 1920×1200 resolution. This symptom arises only when using a DVI-D cable on that resolution for roughly 10 minutes. If you read my #5, there might be a correlation between the FAKE DVI-I port. It’s NOT a DVI-I. Looks like one but sure ain’t one. Just a standard DVI-D instead.
To sum it up, the Soyo 24″ LCD is like a Dodge or some other domestic muscle car manufacturer. It’s got all the right stuff in it or appears to look that way. Looks menacing in black and most of my friends even thought it was an HDTV. Performance is awesome also. Colors are deep and bright. Reliability? Shit is what I can say from my experience. You don’t know how long it’s gonna last before you take it in for repairs. There’s a BUT though. It’s still one of the best performing 24″ LCD monitors in the market. It’s the best for value and ranked #1 in terms of market share.
In the end, immagonnatake thiz Chevy back to the shop and get back my monay! I do feel sorry for OfficeMax. This is a high performance product but reliability is an issue.
EDIT (September 7th): Please fill me in with your thoughts and opinions on my review. I know many of you read this article by looking at the stats on the website but tell me what you think of the monitor yourself or your experiences and questions. Don’t be shy.
EDIT (December 4th): The DVI port update to “cons” #10.
EDIT (April 1st): I noticed some haters on a particular forum. If you want to bash this “basic review”, let me know it instead of cowering somewhere else. If the reliability aint good, it’s got nothing to do with the screen quality. You can choose to RE-READ my final paragraph where I liken it to a Dodge or Chevy. Looks good on the outside, probably crappy on the inside. But you get what you paid for.
NinjaTales Blog 
I got one, it’s been 3+ days, and still works great, but yes, it does get warm.
I am having the same panning issues, but only when the resolutions is set to over 1600×1200. EXTREMELY frustrating! The box says it supports 1920×1200. It could be the graphics card, but I’ve tried at least two different cards. I have a feeling the product doesn’t really support 1920×1200. Let me know if you resolved this problem or if I am correct in my conclusion.
Unfortunately, I returned this monitor. Wasn’t sure how long it was going to last esp with that hissing sound I could hear from the back of the LCD panel even when it was completely turned off.
Anybody else have issues with resolution and having to pan across the screen at higher res? I couldn’t verify with mine since the card I have is 3 years old and only carries 64MB VRAM.
I have had mine now for almost 2 years and had 0 problems out of it, as for the issue with the resolution at higher resolutions, those issues usually are the graphic cards, some do say they support those resolutions but sadly they really don’t, I use an nVidia 9600GT card with 512 Meg ram, DDR3 and a custom made tower with 4 Gig ram, amd anthlon II 3.1 gig processor, and the afore mentioned monitor, and to this day the monitor is running smoothly in both DVI and VGA modes, with no issues at all, to me it has been the best buy I ever made for computer use, and will stand by it.
Sometimes you can get a bum product, it happens, even with the best of them, I know, I got a bad Mitsubishi monitor similar to this one, and when returning it got this one, and been happy with that choice ever since,
Remember this, just because you get one or two bad products, that the whole line is going to be bad, is a falseness, you have to try again. I could have done that with my Mitsubishi, but when I saw the specs for this monitor, and it had the better specs for the price, that sold me on it. And like I said, I haven’t regretted that decision, I am not here to bash the user who had the bad experience, but to let them know I do understand, and that sometimes you may have to try two or more to get a good one, sometimes that happens, most times it doesn’t, but it does happen from time to time. I am sorry they had a bad time with their purchace, as from where I got my monitor, I got it from Microcenter, they have stores in most states and big online, and deal strictly in electronics and computers. And never got anything from them that they didn’t stand behind.
Vulcan
Bought mine 9-6-07. Worked great on dual overclocked 8800 ultras till 9-30-07. It now has a horizontal black line in the middle of it.
Hey Ape. That appears to be a widely known issue with that monitor. Take it back and get it exchanged.
I found the solution to my problem. It has nothing to do with the monitor. It has to do with my ASUS card using the NVIDIA FX 5500 chipset. Get this, it will not drive a monitor any higher than 1600×1200 if you are using the DVI output, but will if you use the VGA output! Twilight zone anyone? You can’t immediately tell the difference between the two except for the severe eyestrain and floaters after a only a few minutes using the VGA connection. If you pull out your magnifying glass you’ll find out why. There’s some distortion at the pixel level just enough to make viewing quite umpleasant.
I have to get another card. Any recommendations?
Have you tried using PowerStrip? It’s a shareware/trial by some Taiwanese company but even after the trial date’s over, you still get to use the software apart from a small pop-up “tips” notice when it’s first launched (which can be closed).
PS lets you overclock your gfx card and this allows for attain higher res than the official limitations of your card. Any questions, throw me a bone.
I was able to get Intel 945GM on Dell XPS M1210 to work on the SOYO after almost 8 hours of research! Not for the faint of heart, but it is rewarding! http://isnwiki.jot.com/WikiHome/Articles/111111431 . You’ll need to pull EDID and create a new DTD entry in Intel provided video driver. Hope that will help someone.
I developed the black line issue after a month. I can’t return to OMax so I have to go through Soyo support, which I’m finding is impossible. My advice is to spend a little extra and get something more reliable.
I’ve had one for 2 weeks, so far still working great. It is a bit warm, but no hissing sound, and no black line yet. I had that panning problem with a couple of video cards, but one (nVidia based) resolved itself after a Windows update. 1920 x 1200 fine now. It’s a no frills monitor and you have to accept using it just as a monitor at that price, though even I worry as this will be my first time not buying a name-brand.
My sympathies to you Charlie. Soyo isn’t known for their CSS and there’s quite a few former customers who have yet to receive their rebate checks for other products.
Just got one 10/10/07 and it looks great so far! I have seen a few comments after doing some research stating problems didn’t crop up for up to several weeks. I hope this one decides to play nice for at least 2 yrs!
Anyway, the only 2 issues that I have come across so far are:
1) XP sees it as a ‘Default Monitor’. Vista on my laptop sees it as ‘Plug n Play Monitor’ so unsupported resolutions aren’t displayed. Be nice if this could be fixed. Also, when using my laptop it shows terrible screen noise if the laptop is plugged into the 120v wall adapter. Not cool but if I unplug it the noise completely clears up.
2) A bit more important to me is the fact that the primary box this LCD is plugged into has onboard intel 82915g/GV/910GL Express Chipset for graphics. It will not display 1920×1200 correctly. It shows up as a 4:3 box offset to the right of center. There is a 4-5″ black bar on the left side of the screen and a 1″ black bar on the right side… New drivers might address this. For now I am stuck using 1920×1080. This res leaves grayed out text hard to read due to the font…maybe a diff font would fix this but I’d rather just figure out why 1920×1200 isn’t working correctly!
So far I am pleased with the picture quality and brightness. At 1920×1080 standard dvd’s look very nice at a viewing distance of ~3′. 1080i trailers looked great when I viewed them using my laptop, also.
Purchased mine 10/7/07 (online) , Production date of 7/2007 .
I had my Soyo running almost constant for the last 4 days . So far things have been great with out a single problem . Out of the box things looked very very good , with only putting the brightness down to 35 . No dead pixels , lines or buzzing and colors look xint in XP x64 and Vista x64 (generic monitor driver) with a 8800GTS/640mb . I will be doing the extra warranty to be safe , just not sure if it will be from OM or SquareTrade .
As long as the hardware holds up , I’ll be a happy camper with my purchase. Funny thing is , right AFTER my purchase (and the sale being over ) , I recieved two $30 off coupons from OM …. dang it .
I purchased my monitor from Office max 11/4/07. It was on sale for $299. Brought 5 empty ink cartridges with my so got another $15 off. First monitor had the black horizontal line. Took it back. Second monitor would come on for half a second and then shut off. Took it back. Third monitor is working fine for now. I am very pleased with the picture quality. I’m running at 1920 x 1200 without any problems.Noticed it runs hot. Haven’t heard any hissing yet. I’ll just keep my fingers crossed.
The hissing sound is probably just my sensitive ears. For example, I can tell if standard CRT tvs are on even if it’s on mute cuz of some weird high pitched sound they emit that can pass through walls. This only works for CRT SDTV and not plasma displays.
And as evidence, when I was pointing out the whirring/hissing sound to my friend, he couldn’t hear it. No other monitors or TVs I’ve owned does that and thas why I listed it as a problem with the 24″ Soyo LCD monitor.
I bought my first Soyo on 11/29/07 and had to return it the next day because of a long horizontal black line across the screen. Now the new one tried to work but after 15 minutes it started to flicker and making a vibrating sound that could be stopped if I held the bottom of the monitor. I am going to take this one back and just get my money. With everyone’s problems on this monitor I don’t want to take the chance and it break on the 15th day. (Office Max has a 14 day return policy on electronics). I do like the viewable space so I will just go with a better named monitor and just spend the money.
i was doing my research, and now i wonder if i should bother getting it. its going to be on sale for $250 from office max on black friday, so thats a good deal. i figure i buy the additional warranty through office max for $30…. that should be good right?
hopefully its only the people experiencing problems posting bad reviews, while all the people with good soyo’s are happily enjoying their monitors.
I hope so too for Soyo’s sake @ Dave.
It’s a beautiful large LCD and as in the case of all products, the initial quality is always not as good as in the later stages.
Thanks for the price update. And yes. You SHOULD get the $30 warranty. Covers quite a bit like accidental fire or lightning damage etc.
Had to take my 3rd monitor back. This time I paid the $50 for a 2 year warranty. Hope it is worth it. I should have just got my money back and bought a different brand, but that 24″ has me hooked. I have a tuner card in my pc and it’s just so nice watching tv in the corner of the screen while surfing the web.
What was wrong with it Duffer?
I just bought one from Office Max for $249 plus tax. It was the last one in the store. I am reading your comments and wondering if I should open it or not. I think I got a great deal but I don’t want any problems. I did not purchase the extended warranty either. Hmmmm…
My take on the Soyo 24″ LCD is that it has proven to be unreliable. But it could also be true that people who own this without any issues aren’t leaving any comments. So far I’ve had problems with 2 of them within 1 week so I didn’t want to risk losing 300+ bucks and returned it. For 250, it’s a very good deal and I hope it works out for you okay. Happy Thanksgiving btw!
I bought two of them yesterday (BF) at Office Max for $249 ea.. One for my son, one for myself. Mine looks beautiful, and I was replacing a nearly new Samsung 206BW that was itself just gorgeous using Vista. I did not buy the warranty New monitors are now so inexpensive that I did not mind the risk. I will use the Samsung on a different computer. I must say that the 24″ makes the 20″ look puny by comparison. Now I will have two perfectly good Dell 19″ P990 crt’s to give to someone. They cost me $400 each and were built in Sep 1999. My how time flies.
I got two of these in two days. Returned both of them. The reason was that if you run it at 1920×1200 on DVI-D input for a few hours, the screen will shut off. The power light will remain on, but the screen will be blank. You can go to any other resolution, and it’ll still work. But I didn’t buy this monitor to run any other resolution. Got the replacement and it did the exact same thing. I turned everything off, unplugged everything for several hours, and it appears that the damage is permanent. It will not run at 1920×1200 on DVI-D. It will run at 1920×1200 on analog RGB input though. Still, that’s not what I wanted. I’m using an ATI Radeon X1300 video card at 60 Hz on a Pentium 4, Windows Vista Business Edition. Nothing unusual.
Yea. Jon Barnaby had a similar issue to yours Jex (not the screen shutting down part). There’s some issues running stuff through DVI since it’s a DVI-D but looks like a DVI-I or is it a DVI-I that is running as DVI-D?
There could also be the thing that maybe our gfx card drivers need an update.
Regardless, there’s a major problem with that part (DVI port) right there. I’m glad you were able to return your monitors. Hopefully Soyo notices these comments and decides to take further action on improving their products.
Same Auto shutdown after about 10 min on 2 different PCs running 1920×1200 happy to see someone else has the same problem.
I have another 2 dell 24″ that have been contineously on for the past year without problems.
I will definatley take it back to OM, Its better to spend another $100 and get a Dell 24″ or samsung that will really works.
I am kinda surprise to see all the cons here. I purchased this monitor in September from Office Max. I bought this monitor for $125 because I had a gift card….
Anyway, I have always been using 1920×1200 on DVI-D since day one and have never encountered the shutdown as mentioned above. I never turn the monitor off. So it’s been running for about 2164 hours continously without shuting down. So far so good….
There are 2 minor complaints….
1. The monitor is too bright
2. The stand doesn’t swivel or tilt
Other than these, I am pretty happy with this monitor.
I’m glad to hear from someone who liked this monitor. Soyo can’t be all that bad. Just their defects per unit appears to be higher than the industry average.
To get the best picture, follow my settings as mentioned above. Take down the brightness level a bit if it’s still too bright.
One more thing, what kind of computer are you running with that monitor?
I just bought this monitor and am reading reviews. Love the size and pic quality. colors are good and was considering a sceptre but read the colors looked washed out. no dead or hot pixels and no black lines. could the monitor be shutting down because of heat? I have an 8800 gts w/640mb and running 1920×1200 – e6600 core duo w/ 4g ram. ran it for 2hrs so far and no prob playing bf 2142. the monitor does tilt back. doesn’t have the features of more expensive monitors such as usb ports, hdmi connections and hdcp. plan to use it strictly as monitor.
Palmtree. Are you connecting your PC to the LCD via VGA or DVI? There’s an issue with the DVI mentioned above. If that doesn’t resolve the matter, return it and get a newer replacement. Something tells me the newer ones are better in quality.
It tilts? Are you sure?
I’m using DVI…it was manufactured 10/07….it pivots about 15 degrees …only used it 1 night so far….will post more if any probs
Didn’t think of it before but maybe the heat from running through the poorly designed DVI port connectors is causing the shut down.
Can you try replicating the shutting down problem with a VGA cable instead?
Day 2 and ran the monitor hard for over 2 hrs straight. No probs
I’ve had this monitor since Sept. without any issues. My manufacture date is 07/07. I’m using DVI-D @ 1920×1200. It’s been on nearly 24/7 the whole time. No buzzing, lines, or any problems.
The colors are fantastic and I’ve never seen any blurring in games or movies. It puts my old 22″ acer to shame.
The other great thing about this monitor is that it’s NOT a TN panel. I’m not sure you can find a 24″ lcd under $500 except for this one that’s not TN.
Sounds like I’m a lucky one. Well, if I have any problems my AMEX card will back me up.
My only concern is a lack of supposed HDCP capability. But AnyDVDHD would take care of that. And by the time that would be a concern, 24 inchers will be cheaper and I’ll simply dump this on craigslist and upgrade for a small fee.
I’ve had my Topaz since late-October 2007. To this day, it still works beautifully. (But I did get the extended warranty; a prerequisite for LCD monitors it seems…)
And the quality is much higher than TN. M-PVA; the panels are also sold in higher priced BenQ monitors.
Solid for image editing too; once calibrated…
Looks like the quality problems have been solved?
I have a September 07 build model and everything works fine. Needed adjustment out of the box but looks fantastic now. They may have remedied some of the problems of the July/August builds. I have one stuck pixel that i’m trying to get rid of, but it’s not too bad. Officemax has them on sale from Jan 13-19 at the $299 price again.
Way too much whining in the original blog post. It’s a $300 24″ M-PVA panel. Obviously they skimped on everything except the panel. What monitor DOESNT have tin-can speakers?
For those having problems, the provided DVI cable is horrible. I recommend getting a gold plated one with heavier gauge wire from monoprice.com.
I will personally be leaving this monitor on for 10 days straight to see if there are any problems within the return period.
first monitor developed the dreaded horizontal black line about 2 months after purchase. rma’s that one. note you must pay soyo $5-$15 plus you pay shipping charges to ship the monitor to soyo. ok, so i’m out another $40…
…the replacement just came in today and looks brand new…i hooked it up and turned it on, and there’s a horizontal black line again, but in a different place. i really hope soyo replaces this monitor for free.
i DO NOT recommend buying this monitor. nice picture, but crap reliability.
just got of the phone with the rma department. they will replace the 2nd rma for free and pay all shipping charges both ways. still, imho, not worth all the trouble.
I hope it works out fine for you “mix”. The newer LCDs according to some might be more reliable. I’m just glad I got rid of mine while I had the chance.
I just got this monitor from OfficeMax and I don’t want to return it, but I might have to. I’m having a problem where, while running at 1920×1200 over DVI, the screen often goes black for a second or two before coming back in.
I’m not sure if this is a monitor problem though, because I have 2 laptops (one with Windows XP and a Mobility Radeon 9800, the other a Macbook Pro with Geforce 8600M) and the problem only appears with one of them (the Windows/Radeon one). Funny thing is, that Mobility Radeon laptop already has a built-in 1920×1200 lcd, so it doesn’t seem to be a graphics card issue.
Perhaps its the DVI connection on the laptop side? I can’t see why though, it’s plugged in as securely as possible. Anyone else experience this?
Hmm… nevermind, looks like it was the DVI-D cable that came with the monitor that was causing problems. I borrowed one from a friend and the screen works fine now on both Mac and Windows laptops… no blacking out every so often. I guess the Mac laptop just had a better tolerance for crappy DVI connections than the Windows one.
Okay, I’m really confused now… the monitor worked fine for a good 30mins with my friend’s dual-link DVI-D cable. So I went out and bought my own dual-link DVI-D cable… and the screen started blacking out every so often again. I’m just going to return this and save myself the trouble.
Alright, my final post here hopefully, and maybe it will be useful to someone with an ATI video card… go to your ATI Control Panel, go to Options, and make sure “Reduce DVI frequency for high resolution displays” is UNCHECKED. That’s the culprit that was causing me problems in the last 3 posts 😦
Looks like I’ll hold on to this monitor a bit longer after all.
Has anyone gotten one recently, some reviews have been great, and the performance is supposedly phenomenal. Reliability seems to be pretty bad.
Has anyone gotten one recently? How’s the reliability. Seems as if the later models have better reliability.
Mine got the black line of death after a few weeks, but it was gone the next day. I lived in denial for a couple months, because this monitor is Beautiful, but the line has reappeared in a new place.
It is a Beautiful steaming POS evidently. I’m gonna throw a fit in OM ’till I get a new 1900×1200 display 😉
Looks like I’m in for similar issues. After approximately 2 weeks I’ve deleveloped 3 dead pixels. I purchased this through my business for personal use and since I bought it from a distributor I may be stuck going the manufacturers warranty route and RMA it rather than simply returning it to my supplier.
This is a bad sign as I’ve recently sold 3 to customers (good thing I noted it was manufacturers warranty). Still I’d back them up and RMA it myself rather than leave them to deal with it themselves should they have issues and contact me.
I’m calling my distributor tomorrow and if that fails then I’m going to have to RMA it. I’ll See what my distributor says and post it tomorrow.
By the way this really is a budget product I’ve been purchasing the 22″ models for $230.00 Canadian dollars at cost the profit margins on these monitors are tight I’m not sure anyone selling them at a low price is making much money when you account for the cost of returns (shipping, man hours, drop in customer confidence ect…).
It seems like a hit or a miss. Very cheap LCD but you get what you pay.
Ok, I got an official response from Soyo. Basically they consider dead pixels normal. Even just 3 after 10 days they don’t care and won’t cover it. That’s what they’re telling me as a reseller of Soyo products. I’m dropping them from my product lineup.
Fortunately my distributor will back me up and is going to replace the LCD or give me a credit. I have a feeling I’ll be taking the credit then buying a couple LG monitors for myself.
Actually 3 dead pixels is considered to be “acceptable” for a low grade 24″ LCD. I believe Dell’s old policy was a replacement for 6 or more dead pixels on a 14″ LCD.
Some of LCD manufacturers have slightly different standards ranging from replacement for even a single dead pixel (usually a guarantee from bigger brands) while others require a measurement of distance between the dead pixels. If both the number of dead pixels and the distance between them exceed their own standards will they deem it necessary for a replacement.
Personally, I’m not too keen on a Soyo 24″ because of my own experience with their products, the reviews of how Soyo treats their customers on other online forums, and the comments laid out here by visitors in this post.
Jan 30 2008 – update: Still have both Soyos in my dual monitor configuration.
The right monitor (almost a month old) is working perfectly.
The left monitor (~Oct 2007) is a tad warmer on the back, but I’m not worried yet.
Both still look pristine. 0 dead pixels. 0 stuck ones.
A suggestion to avoid issues in general. After talking to several companies about their policies since I have to replace the Soyo monitors i had in my product lineup I’ve switched to LG. they have a 3 year ZERO dead pixel policy for their warranty. Of course a LG is costing me about 60$ more on average for going from a Soyo 22″ to a LG 22″ but I think it’s worth it.
Spend the extra and get one of the few remaining ZERO Dead Pixel Warranties left while it lasts.
[…] on this. I know it gets hot when used but is that really that bad? How does the heat effect it? This review seems to say it wasn’t great but Ive read a pretty good amount of others that praise it as a […]
I just picked up a pair at OfficeMax tonight for $279 a piece. I read every single comment before purchasing and checked the manufacture date on them. The latest they had available in the store is 09.2007 so I’m chancing it but I was certain to also pick up the extended warranty they offered thanks to all the precautions I found here. So far no dead pixels, no black lines, 1920×1200 seems to be running great on my Ubuntu box running an 8600. I’ll try to post updates if anything arrises. This is pretty much the only useful location I’ve found in relationship to these monitors so it’s wonderful to stumble across such a resource, thanks ninjatales 😉
JZ
So far I’ve used them for about 8 hours since acquiring them yesterday. The images have been crisp and it took a little tweaking (on top of ninjatales settings) to get both to match with brightness and contrast. This is more due to nVidia having different output for primary and secondary DVI ports on the card. I’m still getting a bit of a flood when there is a large amount of white so I’ve still got some work cut out for me to get exactly the way I want it. Games have looked terrific, though my 8600 begins to show it’s limits trying to play 1920×1200, at 1680×1050 the games run very well and look beautiful. I might have to upgrade my 8600 soon enough now that the 9x series nVidia cards are on their way to market. Also, I can verify, my stands tilt, not a lot but enough for my needs (maybe 15 degrees or so). I haven’t had any dead pixels, black lines, burning smells or whirring noises yet and I typically am one of those that can detect the sound of the older TV’s and their high pitch whine when powered on. Anyway, so far so good for this status update so it does appear somewhat confirmed at this point that 09.2007 and after manufacture dates might be a better crop than the initial offerings.
JZ
Yea the stand should tilt just a bit but not enough compared to other LCDs. I might’ve confused the Soyo with my other old LCD (which didnt).
Like I said this thing is a hit or miss and hope it all turns out well for you.
I bought one at OM on Black Friday for $240 plus the extended OM 1-year warranty. Manufacture date was 09/2007. Ran it off the VGA on a PIII ThinkPad sporadically with no problems until 2/19/2008 when vertical black lines started appearing, colors went green, then black, then nothing. Powered on/off several times with the picture coming back very briefly, then black again. Terrible electrical “burn” smell (burned out the LCD backlight?). Took it back to OM and they did a direct exchange, but that “used up” my extended warranty according to the Store Manager. Now I only have the remainder of the Manufacturer’s Warranty if it burns out before Nov. 2008.
I hesitate to open the new one and have to deal with Soyo RMA if something goes wrong. I was told by OM manager that Soyo sends you an OM gift card for the amount you paid for the monitor when you return a defective one. I may sell this one new in the box on craigslist for what I can get for it and write it off to “you get what you pay for.”
Was going to go with the Samsung 2405BW (?) at Circuit City, but got sucked into the $150 discount on the Soyo. I was not impressed with comments regarding LG service and support for their TVs so I skipped looking at their monitors. Just got a new Dell 24″ on my desk at work. It runs “hot” but the picture is fantastic.
Wish I’d found this thread when I was researching the Soyo back in Nov.
Just figured I would add my two cents in. Purchase 2 of these 24″ monitors about a week ago to add to my 2 dells in a quad setup. After about a week, one of the monitors developed a black line across the middle of the screen. Went to OM today and they exchanged it for another. Hooked this one up and after 15 minutes it resets itself to 640×480 resolution with 8 bit color, must be a new glitch, didn’t read anyone has had the same problem so far. Anyway, I will be returning both before the 14 day has elasped. I will spend the extra money and get 2 more Dells, they have been very reliable and exchanging them in a breeze and free too. Too bad, these look nice and great pictures, guess that the tradeoff for poor reliability.
I feel fortunate that I’ve been able to have mine work for now, still hesitant. Been close to 35+ hours in use and so far so good but I know it could be a bit before I recognize any issues so still watching and waiting. I don’t know if it matters but mine don’t seem to be running extremely hot, it’s 71 degrees farenheit presently in my office and they feel cool to the touch on the entire bezel. Anyway, just an update for my experience.
@John & @Steve
Both of you mentioned Dell 24″, what model(s) are you talking about?
I have the Dell 2407WFP at work. These are $699 on Dell site. Quite a bit more expensive than the Soyo, but way more quality and reliability. Plus, company bought it – not me.
Bought this a couple days ago, I’ve left it on for a few days , and it looks Stunningly gorgeous.
After reading these comments, I’m going to leave it on till the end of the return period on max brightness. I hope that it’s good one.
James…
I am using both the Dell 2407WFP and 2408WFP. Both are excellent, but cost quite a bit more. In the long run I believe they are worth it, you can pay less now and end up paying more once they break down. Dell is the greatest when it come to warranty service, never a shipping cost and immediate replacements.
Still going strong and beautiful.
The days are starting to heat up here in Los Angeles, and it’s getting me concerned because I know these LCDs get hot and this one is smarting to smell like something is ever so slightly burning.
But I think it’s okay, we’ll just see how it keeps going. knock on wood
Yea I got that burnt plastic smell from my 24″ Soyo. A damaged LCD is one thing. A burning LCD that takes your apt down in flames is a whole new subset. After 2 days of use, I promptly returned it before I ran into serious trouble.
But I honestly hope that smell is nothing serious and I was merely panicking.
http://astore.amazon.com/lcd-monitors-projectors-20
I have 5 of these. Yes youread it right ‘5’ they have been running perfectly. The first 2 I got in October. Then I got 3 more in Feb. not one problem. I do financial (currency)trading and they are up 24/7. The problem might be in the video cards and not the monitor. I am using Nvidia 6800’s and 7800gt’s
[…] are some negative reviews about this monitor on the web. I hope those issues won’t apply to me because dragging such a […]
Just bought two of these monitors, not the TN version (which apparently exists — noted by 3ms response time on the box) from office max, made sure to get the one year OM warranty… I will let you guys know if anything shows up, but for now, no dead or stuck pixels on either monitor.
I bought one last year during Black Friday for 250. has worked perfectly since. no issues, no dead pixels or lines. I run it all day long playing 3d games at max res and its all good. no noise or heat issues. must be one of the lucky ones..
What do you mean by the VGA port will not accept analog? Hugh?
I get the shut down on both VGA and DVI connections. Tried it on different computers. I can’t even type this message without the screen going black and needed to shut it down and back on again.
Ok…I might be going kamikaze right now……but I really want a 24 incher…and this is the cheapest one here in Romania(should I go with a less expensive 22 inch Horizon monitor or shoudl I get an extra 100 bucks and buy this one?)also I’m on a budget
plus I’m like really lusting over the image quality of this monitor(will be used mostly for gaming,mostly at 1920x16whatever)
@flyingboat: I guess VGA is analog but the port on the Soyo I had only worked when hooking up to computers. I tried it on a TV tuner card (compatible with other computer monitors) and it didn’t cooperate.
@Vlad: This provides great quality but questionable reliability depending on your luck and the type of gfx card you are running.
Man, I’m glad I came across this thread. I had my credit card out for their 26″ … sold online only (special price until 5/31) for $399 via Office Max. That means shipping if something goes wrong — and taken from experiences here, Soyo isn’t worth the gamble.
Are monitors getting worse? I have a 21″ Hitachi Accuvue bought in 1996 ($2200) and NEVER had one problem and it still works like new.
What do you guys think of the 24″ Acer for $380? Consumer Reports gave them a great review.
I did the Soyo free-after-rebate motherboard fiasco and only got my rebates after a year of badgering. I allowed myself to buy this model because there was NO REBATE. Refurbished ones have been in and out of stock about 3 or 4 times at Computer Geeks for ONLY $200 (plus $14 shipping) . Girlfriend bought one for work, and it has been perfect. I bought two for dual monitor setup, manufacture date 1/2008. One has one stuck pixel that I can’t fix (despite the special programs that cycle it and the pixel massage), but otherwise is OK. Second one turns itself off. It too three phone calls to Soyo support (phone, then online to get RMA, then phone, then calling again) but eventually Soyo agreed to RMA exchange and THEY PAID SHIPPING COSTS IN BOTH DIRECTIONS since the monitor failed within a couple of days of initial setup.
1. The first one had a dead pixel in it.
2. The replacement one started giving horozonal line across the screen after a week, wasnt the video card.
Last one, 3 stuck pixels after a week.
AVOID>
@Dave: I’d pick an Acer or ViewSonic any day over a Soyo. Tack on a 100 bucks to the price and I’d still be unfettered.
@Doctuh and rabbit4me1: What graphics/video cards were you guys running? Also the manufacture date of the LCDs. Would be interesting if we can track a trend based on those two factors.
Manufacture date, as I said in my original post, was 1/08. I am running a Gigabyte silent GeForce 7600 GT video card. I also tried a BFG Nvidia GeForce 7900 GT and got the same results.
I have this monitor and have experienced NONE of the problems mentioned.
NO dead pixels/black lines
NO whining or noises
NO heat issues. It barely gets warm after hours of use. No burnt plastic smell.
The DVI-i port is not fake. The reason your DVD player won’t work is that the DVI input does not support HDCP, and this monitor never claimed to support it. The reviewer said “If it works or not is up to you but it sure as heck didn’t do anything with my DVD player.” Of course it didn’t work. Google “HDCP” and you’ll find out why. This is afterall, a PC monitor, not a TV!
“The VGA port in the rear can’t accept analog signals as mentioned in #5”
I had no such issue.
“No built-in tuner but that would bump up the price”.
It’s not a TV. It never claimed to be. This is a PC monitor! If you want to watch TV on it, buy a PCI TV tuner card.(under $80 USD)
Lastly, it sounds like the users who are having problems probably just plugged it in, without reading the instructions first. you must set your display settings to a supported resolution and refresh rate BEFORE you plug it in. The wrong settings can damage the display, causing the issues that have been mentioned. I had NO problems using this monitor at full 1920 X 1200 resolution using Nvidia Geforce 512 MB 8400GS graphics card.
I too have had no issues with this monitor, an it now 2011 and I got mine in 2007, and the dvi input works fine, in fact, I have used a hdmi adapter on it and watch tv on it from att uverse, and great picture as well. So I have no issues with it and also use the computer throught the dvi and vga and no issues on either as well. So far I love my 24 inch monitor from Soyo.
Vulcan
RMA monitor from SOYO arrived yesterday. Manufacture date 1/08. It works perfectly at 1920 x 1200 resolution and has NO stuck pixels. The color seems more intense than my other monitor, and I’m not sure why. So, two of my three Topaz S monitors work fine now, and one as ONE stuck pixel that I can’t fix (and I can’t RMA the monitor because SOYO’s criterion is much higher, something like FIVE of them).
Please note…the refurbs are still out of stock at Computer Geeks. However, the price on their web page is suddenly $279.99 instead of $199.99. If you got one at $200 plus $14 shipping, and it worked, then you got a deal! I don’t expect to see 24-inch LCD @ $214 delivered again any time soon!
Here is a data point from a 50+ age user:
Bought the 24″ Soyo Topaz S from OfficeMax on Black Friday (2007) for $250. I did not buy the warranty extension.
It is very bright. I have the color adjustments turned way down. It has one stuck pixel at left center. It runs warm, but not hot. I have used it when the room temperature is above 80F and had no problem. I’m using it with a Mac Mini (Original 1.42 G4). I use it for CAD, code development, and the usual Web browsing and e-mail. I don’t play games, but do watch DVDs and have never noticed ghosting. It works well in the native 1920×1200, but does not seem to scale well to lower resolutions, especially 4:3 types. In conclusion, I think that I got a great bargain and it has held up for 8 months so far. I shut the power strip off every day, so it has held up under power cycling. The color fidelity is not great, but for CAD, it is fine.
Additional info on the 24″Soyo Topaz S:
The back lighting is much more uniform than on my Dell 2001FP (1600×1200). The speakers w/o an amp are useless, and even w/ amp sound awful. The panel is divided into sections that you won’t notice unless you are playing around with the OSD controls or see the video card reset. The Soyo doesn’t have a splash screen like the Dell and auto-senses the input either DVI or VGA. It does not have HDCP.
I’m still a satisfied customer.
A question for owners of this monitor (6ms model with MVA panel):
– how warm is yours? Mine is about 120F, which I think is too much.
I have no other issues with it. It works with DVI 1920×1200 for two weeks now.
I just bought a pair of the newer DYLM24E6 (the -D6 was the slightly older model without the TN panel) and lo and behold — the first one had one dead pixel, and one stuck green pixel.
Figuring my luck couldn’t be that bad, I unboxed the second one and there is a bright pink pixel staring me in the face. I guess the rumors were true
Which is a damn shame because the picture is otherwise spectacular, bright and crisp.
I will be taking these directly back to OM tomorrow.. I just haven’t decided whether to gamble on another pair or just get my money back.
1 or 2 dead pixels on a 24″ LCD is fairly good and used to be an accepted standard for 15″ LCDs back in the day. The question is will the issue blow out into end-to-end lines of dead pixels.
I exchanged the previous two DYLM24E6s for a new pair today at OM (I got their last two). One monitor has no dead/stuck pixels, and the other has 1/3 of a dead pixel (the green channel is dead) but its not very noticeable unless its on a white or green background so I guess I’m happy.
I got the 2 yr extended warranty from OM so I will be set no matter what. I will post again if I have any problems.. otherwise you can assume smooth sailing.
This is James back from Feb 2008, just thought I would pop by and leave an update that now after 4 months of use these have become one of my favorite monitors. I still haven’t quite situated the desk here for the shear girth of my display now but so far only one dead pixel on one of the monitors and that took about two weeks to become noticable (had to spot it on the black background bootup screen to see the solid blue of it). Anyway, looks like a grab bag and seems like Soyo has upgraded their quality controls possibly. 😀
God bless your Soyo!
I Recently Purchased their soyo 26″, Within 2 days, i noticed the whining noise coming from the case vents, and it already had a pixel blow out in the top middle of the screen, purchased from tigerdirect, so taking my chance with exchanging it , as it is a rather lovely monitor, but if something else occurs withing 30 days of my exchange, full refund, and afterwards probably trying another brand such as KDS or samsung. (though i want a true 26 inch not a 25.5 inch)
LCD’s these days, all brands are usually grab bags, some better, some not. it all depends really. Hopefully, i get lucky with the next shipment, if not, then
I am done with soyo’s line.
I got this monitor 6 months ago. I am totally satisfied. I got no dead pixels and no lines through the monitor fortunately. Also I have had no problems running with my nvidia graphics cards. Sure it doesnt have all the best connectors…also it is a bit hot, but for the price 299$ its amazing. Hopefully holds up for years to come and I get no dead pixels or flaws in the monitor. I am totally satisfied for the price.
Now when i am the half way mark of this article on LCD, you are more than sure that i would be completing this article and that is what would be the most satisfying for us.
The frak?
I was blaming my computer for sporadic black screens for the past 6 months and finally I realize its the monitor. Today it fully died: No picture on DVI for more than a split second. It was built in June 2007.
I’ve run it on the DVI input at 1900×1200 for the past 10 months. An 8800GTS 512MB drives it. My 1 year warranty is good until November, so it looks like I get to deal with an RMA.
I did enjoy the picture quality on the monitor. It looked great on many games and for general home use. Also, no dead pixels or black lines. It was no-frill and exactly fit my needs until it started black screening. I never tried the VGA input and have no desire to do so.
Now I’m back to my old Dell2005FPW which still works fine but is noticeably poorer picture quality.
I’m disappointed in this slow drawn out death and will keep my fingers crossed that the replacement is a good one.
I’ve just had it for a week and it’s really amazing! It gives you a 170 view angle and 500cd brightness, and only less than $250, you can’t find anything better than this one! I really like the large view angle, much better than the cheap PN panle on my two Samsung LCDs. Of cause you got what you’ve paid for – no fancy OSD menus or MagicBright functionalities and it can be a little annoying to go through layers of menus to adjust brightness, but it worth every peney of mine and I would recommand to everyone.
Forgot to mention that there was some sticky things on my panle when I got it, took 5 minutes to carefully wipe them off though. But still it’s a really good deal.
I have a 24″ SOYO which has worked like a charm at 1900 for well over a year.
For the past few months, I’ve been getting flicker(using cad), which is sometimes real bad with photo overlays(large aerial photos). Often, if I turn the photos off, the flicker completely disappears.
I’ve also noticed that text on the screen causes less flicker than photograpphs.
DURING the times of flicker, I’ve also noticed erratic behavior of my mouse movement.
This makes me wonder if the issues, although related to the monitor, are actually caused by software, or the video driver card(in this case an on-board e-machine).
IN any case . . . no matter how bad the flicker becomes, a cold shutdown of the computer resolves the issue . . . every time(so far).
Could be realted to your computer hardware. Specs? Graphics card? Check your cables too. Regardless, I’m still happy I returned it.
Had one for a few days, there is now a six inch side black stripe down the monitor. Going back. Soyo will never again come into my house.
Well I got my replacement monitor and its worse than the first! The ‘new’ one won’t even display anything for even a split second. Additionally, it came with something rattling around inside of it and blatantly stripped screwheads on the back.
Oh yeah, they didn’t send a stand with it either!
Looks like they receive defective monitors , shuffle them around, and send them back. Shady stuff.
Now I have to wait ANOTHER two weeks to see just what junk they send me on the next go around. I would have saved my $20 to ship the first back if I knew this was going to happen.
I received my SECOND replacement monitor the other day. This one came with a stand and actually works…so far. It has one stuck pixel but I’m happy that I can actually use the thing.
One thing I noticed is that I had to really crank the brightness and contrast way DOWN (<10). I also had to turn down both in my video card control panel.
But it does look good now.
I bought 3 in october and they havent been off since. They are all running great so far….
Picked one up in July 07 for $300 Canadian to run on a Vista based 2.7 Ghz dual core and Nvidia card (a 7300 GS, I think) via DVI @ 1920 X 1200. Manu date 11/07. Runs great. Looks great. Nothing too taxing: Email, surfing, word docs and a couple flight sims, etc. No dead pixels. No black lines. No hum or noise. No burnt smell. No flicker or blanking out. Also run a Hauppauge tuner card with it and TV looks great, too. Use a power bar (as the on/off switch) and totally remove power after every use. On average about an hour a day. No probs. It does run quite warm and I don’t use the onboard speakers. Bottom line: Love it…got lucky? Hope so!
Ooops! Make that July 08…
My third 24′ “TOPAZ S” just shot craps. Each one has lasted about 2 months. I noticed that most of the positive reviews were from people who had only had them for a few days. Seems to me if it lasts longer than 3 months you might just have a good one. My feeling are BUYER BEWARE!
I purchased my Soyo Topaz S 24 from Officemax in sept.2007. Just today there is a vertical blue line appeared on the screen.
Too bad I’m out of the manufacture warranty and didn’t buy additional warranty. sigh… we’ll see how long this one could last.
I purchased my 24″ SOYO on Dec. 26, 2007 for $250.00 at Office Max. Installation was without a problem. It has been working just fine since then. No dead pixels, no hissing noise, and support the max resolution of the video card. I have this monitor hooked to an HP xw8200 workstation with two Dual Xeon 3.2 GHz processors, a Nvidia 9800 GTX+ 1GB video card, and running on XP Pro. The problems I had in the begining with resolution and video replay were due to the video card (only 128 MB) not to the monitor, everything changed when I replaced the card. I’m very satisfied with this monitor and for the comments I’ve read, I feel very lucky. And if it last one more year, I’ll have my investment paid off in a very rewarding way. This monitor is a jewel to me.
My THIRD Soyo (Second replacement one) has now just crapped out too.
Now I have a horizontal black line across the screen about two inches up from the bottom. Obviously, these monitors are major PoS. If yours works, you are very LUCKY.
Never will I even consider a Soyo product again.
Bought mine back in July 07 for $300 and has been suffering from flickers of black when it overheats ever since some time in 08. It stopped during the winter (I guess the ambient temperature was cold enough?) and from all the poor RMA soyo’s people were getting I decided to hold out until it gets bad again. Well it’s Feb 09 now and it’s starting to flicker black every 30 minutes unless I have a massive fan blowing at its face constantly. I hope I’ll get a decent replacement. Glad I bought that 2 extra year warranty from OM.
You probably made the right choice to return it. I do not have specific experience with this monitor, but as a tech who has frequently built computers over the last 12 years, I have learned to avoid the Soyo name like the plague.
Every single time I have used Soyo parts, either they have died within the first 30 days of use or they have died almost exactly a year later. Granted, it has been a few years since I’ve tried anything from Soyo, but the reviews I’m seeing on this monitor indicate that this has not changed.
Now I have my FOURTH Soyo (Third replacement). They ‘upgraded’ me to a refurbished PEARL (same crap, different shell). This one has 5 stuck pixels including a few in the middle. Sadly, as lame as that is, I’m beyond tired of sending stuff back. Any wagers on how this long one is functional?
@Soee_Slack: This appears to be worse than Microsoft’s RROD problem we all like to crow about every now and then.
With the economy in taters and reliability issues (product RMAs hurting their finances), I guess the bigger question is, how much longer can Soyo stay afloat?
I got my Topaz S (DYLM24D6) on 1/18/08 from Office Max and was very satisfied until this April 09. I can turn it on and it will run ok for about 1 1/2 hours when the screen goes black. I turn it off on the front of the panel for 15 minutes and then turn back on and it works again for 1 1/2 hours. Over and over again, I can’t deal with this much longer. All of April this has been to case. I know it is the LCD because I swapped out the video card and the monitor and it worked fine. So I am sure it’s the Topaz S.
I have a Mac G5 dual with an ATI 9800 XT. I paid a little less than $300 for the Soyo and it got me 15 months of use out of it. So all I can say is it cost me $20 a month to own this LCD. I have started looking for a new 24″ and from what I see, I can’t stand the looks of all those cheap TN panel models out there. Looks like I am going to have to pony up for one of those Dell ultra sharp models. Who else makes LCD with better panels?
This is James back from Feb 2008, just thought I would pop by and leave an update. Seems like people continue to have problems but I’ve had them running on the stock DVI cables now with my 9800 GTX’s in a dual-monitor setup for quite some time. I was disappointed I didn’t have a native HDMI input on these monitors. Otherwise, they run warm but definitely have been a great pair of monitors for me, though I seem to be an exception. I continue to troll the local store aisles and the internet looking for a better deal and all the newer ones look much less appealing, especially when you’re considering a multiple monitor configuration (I’m now looking to go with 4), they could have done without the built-in speakers in my opinion. I’ll be sure to post here the first time I experience anything more than the single dead pixel on one of them.
My PEARL is still working after two months. The stuck pixels come and go with as many as 5 at a time to as few as 2. I’m guessing this one may last and was probably originally returned because of the stuck pixels. Oh well.
I just wanted to add a comment in support of the monitor. I purchased mine when officemax first had them for $299 with free shipping. That was way over a year ago. I got it for work as I find my dell 14″ laptop screen to small to do anything productive in Excel. I have a Dell docking station and run DVI to the monitor at 1900×1200. I have not had a single issue using it for 8+ hours a day for almost 18 month. I recently got a workstation and am using that too with a DVI KVM switch – not a single problem. No dead pixels, no lines, no shut-downs. I suspect ther are many more satisfied customers like me who just don’t take the time to post.
If you need a big monitor give it a try – Officemax are good people and will help you if it is defective, but give it a try – it is amazing value for money
Samsung LNB750 HDTV
Compared to the 22 year old RCA 27″ CRT it replaced, of course it is better. With the cable plugged in the picture is great. It took several days to learn the convention of the menu, but once learned and the contrast and colors adjusted for the room it is in, the picture is clear and easy on the eyes. In fact, the picture is so good the way it is, I do not plan to call the cable company to upgrade to HDTV for another bundle of dollars.
The B750 has many, many options and things I will never use, but the 150,000:1 contrast ratio was more important to me, which the B750 has over the A650. The $[…] Samsung instant rebate put me over the fence to buy now during the tough economic times. The TV’s speakers are not very good, and they lack bass. I use an outboard amplifier with big Pioneer CS-911’s with six speakers including a 15″ speaker in each box.
This is probably not the technical review you expect, but even after two years of HDTV homework, I find I know very little about the subject. I just like the picture improvement I am getting on a fairly large screen.
Have this same monitor, it’s still running great.
It runs HOT though. It literally warms up my room and I can feel a radiation of heat emanating from it at all times. I am considering getting a 17″ panel on the side to save electricity. It’s a monster.
I’ve owned this monitor for 2 years and I’ve been running it at 1980×1200 with both DVI and vga. I’ve calibrated this and it very simple to get spot on. Having said that 5 days prior to the extended warranty epiration the monitor is now switching to green. A whack on both sides will reset it. It’s going back this week.
Hey again, this is James from Feb-2008 and I’m still running strong. One dead pixel but no other issues aside from positioning on my desktop. Survived two system upgrades and three moves successfully. These things have run terrific and I’m a horrible person as far as power consumption goes because I’m not sure they’ve ever been turned off (though sleep mode does kick in still). I haven’t had any other issues with my pair of these so I’m guessing someone somewhere was smiling on my purchase of these. My only two negative issues with these monitors is the refresh rate which presents some tearing in fast applications (games/movies) and the bezel dimensions are not very comfortable to manage dual displays (I have mine in a reduced bit inverted “V” shape to minimize the overall bezel issue). They have treated me well so far and I feel fortunate looking back over other comments since I’ve last posted. Looking at the current stock of 24″ offerings, I’m extremely disappointed and feel very lucky to have a good pair of these working for me, those new models are flimsy and just seem sooooooo much smaller now and much more cheaply manufactured.
Thia is a good post… Thanks 🙂
My 24″ Soyo is now 2 years old. Has been running non-stop for months. Developed a very annoying flicker that was evident mostly when my gmail homepage was filled with loads of emails. As soon as I would click on one of the emails, the flickering would stop. I could not figure what to do.
Tried reducing my resolution that had been on 1360×1024 down to 480. Made no difference.
In reading the above comments, I was prompted to check my cables. I saw that I had a loose vga cord and the D-sub cord both plugged into my monitor. I removed the vga plug, and instantly the flickering stopped. I have waited 3 days before filing this comment, just in case the flickering would return. But everything is rock-solid.
When I decided to increase the resolution to 1900×1200, a whole new world of beauty appeared before my eyes. Now I really love this screen.
So maybe I got lucky on this one, but I would gladly buy another.
Acer Aspire One AOD250-1962
I love this netbook. Its small enough that i can take it anywhere but not so
small that i cant see the screen. I adapted very well to the keys that are
smaller and closer together.. and dont have any problems with it. Everything
loads up quickly and the colors are great. The battery does die out rather
quickly but that is why it is good to bring the charger with you when you go
places.. the webcam works nicely too. I definitely recommend it to anyone who is
under a budget and needs a laptop.
Interesting post! Thanks for the information.
I have recently bought this used 24″ monitor from CL and it looks good but the only thing that did not work for me was the speakers. I am not too sure if they would have to be set up or something…Thought it is just a plug and play kinda thing. I hooked it up to my Dell 8300 via DVI-i port and there is no sound coming out of those built-in speakers. Checked the volume in the monitor settings and it is set to 100% and then checked the volume on my PC and it is fine too. What else do I need to do?
My does not have a stand and I am looking to see if I can pick one up from a local flea martket…
Please let me know if you know how to get the speakers to work. BTW, there is no problem with my sound card, just to be clear.
Did you plug in the coaxial audio cable? DVI does support audio signals, only video. You can get a male-to-male audio cable (3.5mm I think?) for pretty cheap, plug one end to your audio/microphone jack on your Dell and the other to the Soyo.
An update to mine: I sold mine last summer and has been missing it ever since 😦
Don’t confuse DVI with HDMI. DVI is digital video only while HDMI is digital video + audio.
If you want sound out of the built-in speakers, the monitor should’ve come with a 6 ft audio cable (standard 3.5mm RCA male connectors on either side). Plug that into the sound card output on your computer and into the speakers … there’s a place to plug it in right around the speakers area.
However, the speakers are essentially shitboxes. You’re better off buying $5 speakers elsewhere and save yourself some dignity.
my tv would not cum on
Ok, have the 24″ Purchased at OM on Maui about a year and a half ago. I’m back on the mainland and it’s worked perfectly until today. For some reason it’s dead. I have tried changing out the power cord. Banging it. But, get no light or anything. Any thoughts, other than tossing it over the side of my boat?
I think there was a master switch in the back. Try toggling that. If there isn’t one, then does the power button make that annoying bright blue light come on?
If yes, then check to see if you can see stuff on the screen when you hook your computer up to it. It could be that the back light is damaged but you can still see stuff if you hold the screen at an angle. Cheap fix.
But if there’s no power light, then try using your warranty.
next time please reviw samsung 32 inches for me…
I’ve had a Soyo 24″ monitor for almost 2 years, one of the P-MVA panels. Like numerous other users have reported, while the panel is outstanding, the power supply is junk. Mine began acting up last year; I now have a tiny fan mounted inside to help cool the heat sinks.
But help is finally available. You can now buy a replacement power supply that is an order of magnitude better, and it’s only about $30 shipped. Just Google “Soyo 24″ power supply” and you’ll get to the forum where the guys have bought these supplies in quantity.
Picked one up in July 08 for $300 Canadian (Manu date 11/07) and after 21 months, heres an update. Now running on an Asus Mobo with AMD Quad core 3 Ghz. and Nvidia 9800GT 1 GB video card @ 1920 X 1200. Still runs great. Still Looks great. Email, surfing, word docs and a Hauppauge tuner card. Coupled with a dual monitor (beside an LG Flatron 23″ monitor) No dead pixels. No black lines. No hum or noise. No burnt smell. No flicker or blanking out. Still use a power bar (as the on/off switch) and totally remove power after every use. On average about 2 or 3 hours a day. No probs. It does run quite warm and I don’t use the onboard speakers which are, for all purposes, Crap. Bottom line: Love it! Ninjatales got it right: Get some cheap speakers and save yourself some dignity. If you bought it used and your speakers didn’t work, the seller did you a favour.
Bought a SOYO ARIUS HONEYWELL 22″ WIDE LCD Monitor in late 2008; connected it to a new Compaq CQ2009F with the ATOM Processor and WINDOWS XP HOME SP3. Worked like a charm until about a month ago when it failed to hold the image on the screen during start up. With the monitor power light either blue or amber and the screen black, I would start the PC (by moving the mouse a bit) from standby mode (I have not enabled hibernation). The monitor would hold the image for a second while I would position my mouse to type in my password. The monitor woud go black, but the PC would go thru the startup routine. I’d get to desktop for a split second, then the screen would go black. At this point I’d turn the monitor power button off and on to try to get the screen to stay open. When the problem first started I would turn the monitor on and off 3,5,10 or 20 times and then the image would stay up. Today I must have tried the on/off routine for 3 or 4 hours. The screen finally came up and stayed up, but I did hear a faint whistle/hiss sound at the back of the monitor each time an image came up during the start routine (so NINJA, you may not have been imagining this noise in the 24″ SOYO LCD!). This black screen problem also occurs when restarting from the restart icon onscreen and when starting “cold” by pressing the power button at the tower (I’d get 1 second to display the COMPAQ screen, 1 second to display the Windows XP screen, 1 second for a blinking cursor in the upper left, 1 second for the mouse arrow, 1 second for the Welcome Screen and my password). Throughout the past 14 months I would keep the PC and monitor “on” 24/7 and allow them to go into standby (I set the HD to “never” turn off). A few days ago (in desperation) I also set the monitor to “never” turn off, but the problem keeps coming back. Another odd problem was an occasional loud single “crack” sound coming from the monitor at irregular intervals throughout the past 6 months or so. It was loud enough to hear when one was in the same room, but it didn’t correlate with instances of black screen. No smoke, no burnt plastic smell. Unlike the 24″ monitor, this one never gets very hot. I attributed the noise to indoor climate (expansion and contraction of the plastic, etc. heat during fall/winter/spring temperature and humidity changes). I learned today that SOYO went bankrupt a year ago (almost to the day), so the 3 year warranty is a cruel joke. What kind of problem does this black screen issue seem to be? I am not a lab tech, so what should it cost me to have an honest tech repair it (replace bad caps? re-solder bad connections, etc. if that’s what’s indicated). It’s a good monitor otherwise. I’d like to keep it, but if my vendor (J&R MUSIC WORLD) allows me to replace it, what should I replace it with? THANKS FOR THIS GREAT FORUM!!!
I have 2 of these used for over 2 years and love them, however one has just went dark if I hold the right button in once in a while it flashes and when booting it says disconected I have tried new cables I geuss I had a good run with it while it lasted
Thank you for your good article. I know new things, because on this blog.
I have this monitor, all I am anoyed with is if you turn the monitor off (and leave the computer on). It is very hard to get the screen to come back up. It flashes on for less than a second then goes blank. Not sure if there is a trick or a setting i could change to fix it.
jon
I have had mine now since Sept of 2007, earlier in this thread I answered I had it for almost 2 years, sorry that was a mistake, anyway I have had 0 problems out of it, as for the issue with the resolution at higher resolutions, those issues usually are the graphic cards, some do say they support those resolutions but sadly they really don’t, I use an nVidia 9600GT card with 512 Meg ram, DDR3 and a custom made tower with 4 Gig ram, amd anthlon II 3.1 gig processor, and the afore mentioned monitor, and to this day the monitor is running smoothly in both DVI and VGA modes, with no issues at all, to me it has been the best buy I ever made for computer use, and will stand by it.
I also have been using the monitor with a DVI switch and have had a HDMI adapter on the monitor through the DVI port, and plays TV well through DVI as well as the Computer, it has had the best picture I have ever had from any type of monitor, for the price I think I got a great deal, though now the extended warranty I got is now expired, I think I still got a great buy.
Sometimes you can get a bum product, it happens, even with the best of them, I know, I got a bad Mitsubishi monitor similar to this one, and when returning it got this one, and been happy with that choice ever since,
Remember this, just because you get one or two bad products, that the whole line is going to be bad, is a falseness, you have to try again. I could have done that with my Mitsubishi, but when I saw the specs for this monitor, and it had the better specs for the price, that sold me on it. And like I said, I haven’t regretted that decision, I am not here to bash the user who had the bad experience, but to let them know I do understand, and that sometimes you may have to try two or more to get a good one, sometimes that happens, most times it doesn’t, but it does happen from time to time. I am sorry they had a bad time with their purchace, as from where I got my monitor, I got it from Microcenter, they have stores in most states and big online, and deal strictly in electronics and computers. And never got anything from them that they didn’t stand behind.
Vulcan
@freddiefarkle, jeff, and any others that have a dark screen, I also build computers, someone wrote earlier in this article, about getting a power supply for the monitors, by typing the monitor size and or make in google, and and you will find a forum where people have bought the power supplies and replaced theirs and the monitors work, if my monitor goes dark I am going to just fix it myself, and save some bucks. The power supplies for these things are easy to replace. I have had mine open to check it out. Though these things are cheaply made, I was impressed on how they layed them out for use, and the way they had the back lights in, now I know why the lighting was so uniformed, They may have had cheap quality parts, but they did have top quality design on the product.
Vulcan
Might you take a look at my website and offer me comments? Thanks!
And what website may that be?
laptops…
[…]Basic review of the Soyo 24″ LCD monitor « NinjaTales Blog[…]…
hi i have had this for some time but never had the cd to upload a driver for it -the problem im haveing is when i got to print some thing ,i hit print and the print page comes up and to press ok on the print screen it is below the task bar and can not get to it can some one help ,i went to staples and they said it was a montor problem
Have you tried to reset the monitors resolution in windows or on the monitor itself, sometimes you have to set it to a higher resolution to see all the things on a window, or you have the wrong resolution setting for the monitor set, that would make the window go off screen as you are describing, remember it is a wide screen and some of the regular resolution settings for standard monitors won’t work right with it.
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Had a good one. It’s on many hours a day, beautiful bright colors, wide angles. Here’s the problem. It gets hot. When I mean hot, I literally and absolutely mean that it can lower the room temperature by up to 10 degrees. It is that freakin ridiculous. In the winter nights it is nice because my room is noticeably warmer than every other room in the house. But in the summer, it is downright atrocious. I bought a desk fan, not to cool me, but to cool this monitor for these hot summer months.
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It is now Dec 29, 2013 and I have had my Soyo 24 inch wide screen monitor now since 2007 I think I got it around August or September of that year. It is still running strong and well, so far no issues at all.
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