Discussion Forums > Technology

Just need to understand how Westeners buy things

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whiic:

--- Quote from: Sosseres ---The most important on-line purchase to actually see off-line is indeed a monitor (to a lesser degree mouse/keyboard). If the demands you have of viewing angles and colours are met or not can't be told from most reviews or facts.
--- End quote ---
The biggest problem from evaluating viewing angle stuff with review can be that you possibly cannot get a proper idea of the extent of the issue with a few pictures. You'd need dozens of picture, and you'd also need to compare it side to side to another monitor. On a mall, they're physically side by side, and both monitors are in the same lighting environment and you are viewing with your own eyes (i.e using same optics, unlike different review sites having different cameras and different environmental lighting). Plus monitors are a light source instead of just reflective to light. No camera is even intended for capturing a light source. Biggest problems were of course related to CRTs flickering while filmed with a video camera, but I could still see potential issues from trying to take even still images out of a non-flickering TFT.

Yeah. Anyway, monitors HAVE to be viewed in-situ (or window-shopped before buying online).

One thing that totally pisses me of is TFT specs and to even further laptop's integrated TFT specs. Where's all the information that actually matters?

Panel type: TN, IPS, AFFS, MVA, PVA, ASV and their variants S-IPS, S-PVA, P-MVA, A-MVA, S-MVA (yeah, more than 90% of panels are TN but occasionally you may run into S-IPS). Whether you're buying a separate monitor or a laptop with a monitor, you need to really dig into stuff over the net to find this information. Not only is it not listed in simple specs at the mall or at online retailer, the manufacturers site probably won't tell it either. You need to find some hardware hacker site to find out about these "hardcore stuff".

Resolution: While I could barely understand that panel type isn't specifically advertized (though I don't understand why it's hidden completely), the fact that they don't mention TFT native resolution is totally enraging. If online shop has a laptop listed, it will probably only tell the diameter of laptop's screen, nothing else about the screen itself. Same applies to mall specimens but at least in the mall, you can guesstimate the approximate resolution of the screen by looking at it. There's only a small variety of common resolutions so it's not that difficult. Even if you couldn't tell the resolution, you can at least put them in some order from best to worst. Desktop monitors usually have their resolutions published by both mall retailers and internet retailers. However when shopping online, they are usually categorized in the product list by diameter with the title not containing any mention of resolution... thus you have to open detailed specs of every f'ing monitor available through them! I can pretty accurately state the size of monitor I need, with only few inches per category, but I cannot state that I need at least 1080p (either 1920x1080 (FullHD) or 1920x1200 (WUXGA)).

Surface finish of the panel: You know... does it reflect stuff annoyingly. Ironically, sometimes they even advertize the glossy surface as superior. Having bought a laptop in are when ALL laptops came with glossy panel, I'd really want to take a sandpaper and scrub the panel to make it matte... but I don't since it'd break in the process. But I really would like to. Heck. I'd like to take pound of dynamita and blow up the whole f'ing laptop only because the f'ing monitor just pisses me off! Who is the fucktard who invented glossy TFT? Or in fact, the glossy surface it the natural form of TFT. It's just that since the beginning of TFTs, they've more or less understood why they should use a matting layer on top of it. Suddenly, someone came up with an idea that it never was needed in the first place, as if everyone manufacturing TFT so was were mistaken. And as a backlash result, everyone started making glossy ones. And not now it has lashed back to the other end again with glossy finishes disappearing again. And they don't bother to inform customers about glossing at all. Luckily, at the mall, you can see it with your own eyes. They can't bullshit with you on resolution, surface coating, luminance and chroma shifting on viewing angle (and uniformity of the shift as well).

Hizoka003:
i life in the middle of no-where, its a 15 mnute drice to get to the nearest town for me, and my store options are basically wal-mart... soon i'm getting a best buy.... but all in all i buy most things on line... mostly because its cheaper

Mcgreag:

--- Quote from: kostya on April 28, 2010, 05:34:30 PM ---
--- Quote from: Mcgreag on April 27, 2010, 07:14:25 PM ---Sweden here.
I do almost all my shopping online, not just tech stuff but books, movies, cloths etc. ...

--- End quote ---
Books and clothes? With books, especially technical ones, I prefer to go into a store and read the book a bit to see if I like the tone and content. It does not mean that I will not then write down the title, edition, and author and go home to get it off Amazon, but I never buy a book online without either seeing it in person or having someone tell me to buy it (in the case of texts for classes).
Also, I could not imagine buying clothes online. When I am trying clothes on in a store I will often find that even though the clothes are in my size, they do not fit right.

--- End quote ---
Most of the online cloth stores here have 100% free return policy (not including underwear of course). They even encourage you to order the same article in several sizes to see which fits best and then send back the rest (they pay return postage fee).

As for technical books I haven't bought one since I finished collage. Technical guides you read online. Books will be outdated by the next version of that software anyway. For non technical books I do very little impulse shopping, I buy authors I know are good or have been recommended. So I always look up online review and stuff before buying. Only exception to this are the Pocket Shop at the airport/train station, there I might pick something up that I haven't heard of before to read while traveling. It might seem like I don't read much but I would say that I do, 2 full ikea billy bookcases looking at a 3rd atm and that's not including manga.

Books are cheap enough so that's not a big deal if you don't happen to like it. Also you can save ALOT by buying books online. Brick and mortar book stores have in general a markup of over 100%. An online might have around 20%.

kurandoinu:
I prefer to buy clothing in shops, having large breasts a lot of things won't fit properly and look strange. I do however occassionally splurge with a tshirt online, mainly because I know what size to get myself and only ever get them from teefury. Clothes shopping is nowhere near as fun online though.

Sosseres:

--- Quote from: kurandoinu on April 30, 2010, 06:32:28 AM ---I prefer to buy clothing in shops, having large breasts a lot of things won't fit properly and look strange. I do however occassionally splurge with a tshirt online, mainly because I know what size to get myself and only ever get them from teefury. Clothes shopping is nowhere near as fun online though.

--- End quote ---

I will have to disagree about how fun it is. I totally and utterly abhor clothes stores. Something in the smell makes me want to puke/leave directly after entering.

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