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Regardless of what anyone else is telling you, the only valid criterion when chosing a monitor is how you like it. The human eye is capable of distiguishing far more than what the most sophisticated spec sheets could reveal and here are a few pointers.

Back to the refresh rate: every eye is different and what satisfies your eyes may not satisfy somebody else's. There are a few very simple tests to determine whether a monitor you are looking at will satisfy your needs.

• Don't look directly at the monitor, look somewhere next to the monitor so that the screen is in your peripheral vision. If you can see it flicker, the screen is most likely to give you headaches in the long run.
• Grab a bite. One of the funny things about monitors and their refresh rate is that, at a low refresh rate, if you chew on someting, you can see the screen produce some really strange waves, running up and down vertically. Again, the gist is that, the lower the refresh rate, the more pronounced this effect will be.
• Ok, not everyone munches in front of his or her computer, so what is the point? The point is that those two tests described above will let you know beyond the technical specifications, whether a monitor is going to be comfortable on your eyes. If not, chances are that you might get headaches and further develop nearsightedness in the long run. Take this into consideration when thinking about the $20 you saved on a bargain monitor.

There are a few more things to keep in mind when buying a monitor and a few more tests to do. Don't let anyone fool you by showing you a beautiful color display with flowers in a mountain landscape. This is exactly what you don't want to look at. What you do want to look at is an Excel spreadsheet. Watch out for the lines, are they straight or are they curved? Are there unsharp areas in the corners of the display? And, most importantly, are there shadows on the screen? Only an immaculately white background qualifies if somebody wants your money.

The last thing about monitors concerns the warranty. Monitors are, after all, the most longlived part of any computer system. Five to seven years life span are almost the norm which is reason enough to carefully look at the warranty. Good manufacturers have their monitors specified at a minimum of 60,000 hours mean time before failure, the better versions are specified at 200,000 hours mtbf. In addition, a good manufacturer offers a three year warranty on parts and labor often in conjuction with a 1 year 48 hours hot swap warranty, meaning that, in case of a failure, a new monitor will be shipped from the factory to arrive within 48 hours. Upon arrival, the defective monitor will be taken back in the same shipping box that the replacement was delivered in without charge.

In a computer test lab like the one I am running, hardware, including monitors are stressed way beyond what the average users ever do to their equipment and I have really come to appreciate these little warranty benefits, without which, I would have been stranded for the average 3-4 weeks that a standard repair service takes, even, or especially, if it is a warranty case.

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