News I Bought a Used Monitor and It’s the Best Tech Purchase I Made This Year

[Admin]

While many used PC components are worn out or just not worth it, a pre-owned monitor can offer great value for the money and plenty of longevity.

I Bought a Used Monitor and It’s the Best Tech Purchase I Made This Year : Read more

 

[Exploding PSU]

I've been buying used parts for quite a long time, especially parts that don't really have obvious "wear and tear" (CPUs, motherboards, cases, etc.). Better bang for buck, and with today's consumer protection and what not the risk of ending up with a dud part is almost nonexistent.

The only parts I wouldn't buy used are GPUs (used to buy second hand GPUs, but with the mining craze, I'm sure you know what I mean), SSDs, PSU, and keyboard / mouse. Especially the input devices. I don't know what kind of grubby hands had used those parts and what sort of "strange stuff" those devices had gone through (shivers). I'm not taking any risks.

 

[aac11005]

I've had tremendous luck when buying used monitors and TVs. My last purchase was a Gigabyte M32U 144Hz 32-inch monitor from newegg. It's been great so far, specially after doing some light calibration. My rule of thumb is to look at the reviews of an "Open Box" item, if the cons are things that I can live with, I buy it. The key when purchasing used monitors is research. I've found myself using both TH and rtings reviews before I make a purchase.

 

[neojack]

hum like 90% of what i own is second hand. All my furniture, home, most of our clothing, about half of my IT stuff.

But it's cute to see others discover that the used market exists.
Goods options not cited are Craig's list, Kijiji (at least in canada), Facebook's marketplace

 

[bit_user]

I bought a laptop sold as "open box (new)". It had no signs of wear or use, that I can recall. I don't really know if the battery suffered from the prior use, but I mostly leave it plugged in and wouldn't mind replacing the battery if I had to.

15+ years ago, I bought 2x 24-inch CRT monitors, used. The first one I paid almost 50% of the MSRP and I brought a laptop so I could plug it in and inspect the image. The second one I got a couple years later for about 25-30% of the new price and they weren't really setup to have me plug it in. So, I settled for just checking that the screen wasn't scratched.

I continued to use them until 2020, when I started to work from home. In the summer of 2020, the CRTs simply gave off too much heat + I wanted more size & resolution. That's when I switched to LCD.

BTW, I grabbed a 2007-era LCD monitor being thrown out at the office, and it actually has some obvious burn-in. So, that can absolutely happen with LCDs at least of that vintage. I don't mind, since I don't use it as my main monitor.

 

[elforeign]

I have 1080p monitors, some are 15 years old still going strong! I actually now regret getting rid of some of my old CRT behemoths because while they took up lots of space, and weighed a metric ton, they did have quite beautiful images and still worked just fine!.

Also, I have to say I bought a Dell S3222DGM off the best monitor recommendation (July 2022) and got it for the $299,99 deal at the time and I have to say thank you! I am very happy with that monitor, it is fantastic for gaming, every day use, etc. I also followed the review on here for the color settings and it really improved the color balance of the monitor. I kept my old Asus VG248QE as my second monitor, that thing still rocks!

Tomshardware is awesome! Always looking out for us tech freaks

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

The caveat about monitors is that if you're like me, after a few years the backlight aging will cause it to start flickering at frequencies which trigger migraines. LED backlighting helped a lot in that area, but even my 4 year old LED backlit monitor is starting to do it to me, even with the brightness down.

 

[pug_s]

Most used monitors out there are 22" to 24" 1080p monitors. If you need 2 of them for your home, I am sure that they are easy to find and they are cheap. However, anything higher than that and higher refresh rate, you are better to find them when they are on sale new because they are harder to find than cheap 1080p monitors.

 

[plateLunch]

For flaky monitors, if you're handy with a soldering iron, you can keep some going for a really long time.

Samsungs are known for having cheap electrolytic capacitors that go out after about a decade and cause flashing and intermittent behavior. People on eBay have capitalized on this by selling capacitor replacement kits. Go in and replace the capacitors and your monitor is good for another decade or so. I have four, 15 years old or so.

 

[bit_user]

The caveat about monitors is that if you're like me, after a few years the backlight aging will cause it to start flickering at frequencies which trigger migraines. LED backlighting helped a lot in that area, but even my 4 year old LED backlit monitor is starting to do it to me, even with the brightness down.

On CRT monitors, I found I'd need at least a 75 Hz refresh rate to avoid it being fatiguing. Haven't had any issues with CFL or LED-backlit LCDs, but then I also haven't used any gaming monitors.

Ironically, on CRT monitors, I seem to recall you get less flicker at higher brightness levels. Not sure if that had something to do with the persistence of the phosphors or the persistence of vision. The few times I used an old-timey oscilloscope, I'd turn the brightness just to the threshold where it no longer flickered.

For flaky monitors, if you're handy with a soldering iron, you can keep some going for a really long time.

My CRTs started to get a bit flaky, but I found they were fine if I put them on a high-quality A/C power filter.

Samsungs are known for having cheap electrolytic capacitors that go out after about a decade

Uh oh. I'm looking at one that's about 12 years old, now.

It's a 1440p that's so old HDMI couldn't even do that resolution. So, it has a DisplayPort + 2 x DVI Dual-link inputs! I switch it between 2 machines, and when upgrading one of them, I had to get a $60 converter that properly converted to DVI Dual-link! Luckily, since I use that machine for work, my job paid for it.