LaCie Electron 19blue IV

I have been a professional user of the Lacie Electron 19 Blue IV which I purchased Sept 2004 and have been very pleased up until now.

The tube on this monitor appears to be failing giving the thin white line across the centre of the screen.

After paying a lot of money for this unit I expected it to last a good deal longer than 5 years.

Not a happy customer will have to look elsewhere for a new one.

After a lot of researching of the monitors available, I bought this second hand locally, about 7 months ago, to replace my (even more) aging Mac 17" Multi-Scan monitor for desktop publishing and WOW, but did I choose well! Incredible picture - visitors (and myself still) find themselves just standing or sitting, watching the desktop pictures change (in Mac OS X - you can create your own desktop picture folder, then have the system change the picture at regular intervals). You often feel like you're watching a really, really good television screen, whether it's dvds or just photos/pictures on the screen. It's a joy to create upon.Fonts are crisp and easy to read, and the colour, as stated above, is very real, warm and beautiful. It is relatively easy to calibrate using the on-screen settings (I don't have a manual, so I just go through the menus and figure stuff out to suit my needs). Resolution changes are easy and painless to make - I'm using an ATI 8500 64MB video card and my usual resolution is 1400 x 1050 x 85 hz x millions of colours, with no flickers or flaws. I haven't yet had time to experiment with the BNC and USB connectors on the back. And I'm not a gamer, so I can't comment on that - though considering how well everything else is translated, I can't see it being a disappointment in that area, your video card would be the pivotal decider here anyway.If it died tomorrow, I'll still consider it money well spent, will have appreciated the experience, and will start looking for another one.P.S. Granted that I wouldn't be interested in having to ship this or any other 19" CRT monitor around anywhere for any price.

My LaCie Electron 19blue IV monitor was great while it worked. But after about 2 years it died. Still under warranty, it was replaced with a refurbished monitor, no problem. They said I was responsible for paying to ship the original monitor back, and that it would cost about $30. Wrong. It was $130 for shipping!!! That's almost what they would have charged me for the refurbished monitor if I just bought it outright. My advice is that if you get one of these huge monsters and it dies, don't bother with the warranty, just go buy a new one, preferably from another manufacturer.