Home > Consumer Reviews > NEC DiamondPro 930SB 19" CRT Monitor (Black)

After doing much research on this monitor I thought it would be a great buy. It's supposedly the new version of the NEC 912SB that was discontinued, and has been highly praised by many in several PC hardware forums I visit. Well, something must be wrong...

I'm now on my second Mitsubishi 930SB, and the same problem occurs as it did on the first: blurry text. Running at the recommended resolution of 1280x1024 @85Hz, text is very blurry in the center of the display. It's even worse near the center bottom of the screen. However, both the left and right edges of the screen stay sharp at that resolution. The first one I bought was worse than the second one, and NEC-Mitsubishi tech support told me it was defective and to get it replaced. My thoughts are that it could be a bad batch of these as both were manufactured in November of 2003. I had a 19" Sony E440 prior to this monitor and it didn't have this problem. And I'm using a ATi Radeon 9800 Pro video card so I know this isn't the problem.

Other problems with this monitor are bad geometry and bad convergence. The center part of the screen looks "fatter" compared to the edges, which may be the reason for the blurry text. Images look out of proportion and not very sharp if viewing them at the center of the screen. As a Web designer working with graphics, this poses a problem for me. I actually run this monitor at 1280x960 for the proper 4:3 aspect ratio, but it still looks "fat" in the center of the screen. The Sony I had didn't have this problem, and IMO is a much better monitor.

This monitor does have good color saturation and contrast, and is great for gaming and watching DVDs on. But, for a 19" monitor at this price, I expected much better results as running at a lower resolution (1024x768 @85Hz) just to get clear text defeats the purpose of using it. And having to lower the refresh rate to 75Hz at higher resolutions to get clear text is ridiculous--not to mention hard on the eyes.

The bottom line is that the NEC-Mitsubishi 930SB DOES NOT live up the recommended specs and should be avoided.

There is always a chance of getting a defective unit, the other guy just got very unlucky. I recieved mine and it worked famously.

This monitor is pristine! Beautiful, clear, perfect. It looks great right out of the box with some minor tweaking. I couldn't be happier with this monitor. I had a top of the line 19" viewsonic, but this one blows it away. Refresh rates are quick and it is a great monitor. If you are into high end graphics or games, this monitor is for you. You can not find a better monitor in this price range.

Major kudos to Amazon too. I ordered it on saturday with the "Super Savers" shipping and recieved it on Tuesday. If only all free shipping were that fast!

I purchased this monitor for use with digital photography, as I needed to get accurate color reproduction and a clear image. This NEC monitored delivered that in a bug way. I'd investigated an LCD monitor as an alternative, but it was clear there was at least double the bang for the buck going with a CRT (plus better image quality).

I then looked at alternatives, and in the end came down to the 930SB and the Lacie 19". Now Lacie has a great reputation, but these monitors are practically the same (in fact, many people insist they share the exact same tube) and the Nec is priced lower.

Having purchased and received my monitor I can tell you it is absolutely fantastic. This was an easy decision and I am thrilled with the results. Assuming that you are looking for the best image you can get for the money, I think you will be too.

My new Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 930SB developed all kinds of problems within 3 months of use - lots of noise, pictures shaken, horizontal waves and vertically warped lines. So I took it for repair.

Then they called me saying that it is 'not repairable' Instead they shipped refurbished one. After spending hours of resizing, calibrating and hooking up, I found out that this refurbished one does not turn itself off or does not go into energy-saving mode when I turn off the computer. There is a huge white blank space with black background. This stays on even though I disconnect the computer and the serial cable. That means it has nothing to do with my computer. I have dual monitor set up. And I do not have any problem with other monitor, nor did I have this particular problem with my previous monitor. So I had to take this refurbished one back the next day. Currently I am waiting for the third monitor from them.

Even though the people at their service/support department was cooperative and helpful, I would hope their product quality
got better so that I do not need to deal with their service/support people.

I could not be happier with this monitor! I bought it for our home computer after our Sony 17" started to lose it's mind. I did some research online and came across this monitor. The reviews on this site and Zdnet were very helpful and I am sure now that I made the right choice.

After reading some of the other reviews on this site, you might be asking yourself if you really want to buy this monitor. Especially after seeing that the reviews are so extreme...1 star and 5 stars! How do they mesh?

In all honesty, they don't. The people who had problems either: 1) had VERY bad luck or 2) didn't spend the time changing the monitor's settings to get the picture the way it's supposed to be. For instance, I got very different results at different refresh rates. I am sure this will vary for each person depending on their graphics card. Right now I'm running it at 1024x768 at 90Hz and the picture I'm looking at is CRYSTAL clear...as is the text that I am typing.

For gaming I would rate the monitor as outstanding. I was replacing a Sony, so I know what a clear picture looks like. This monitor far surpasses the Sony in quality. After tweaking this monitor's settings ever so slightly, I saw things in my games (Ghost Recon and Counterstrike) and photos that I never saw before. The colors were brilliant and the picture was sharp.

I would highly recommend this monitor. If you have problems with it, spend a few minutes changing settings around and I promise you won't be disappointed. Amazon, as always was fantastic with shipping and I got the thing only 4 days after ordering WITH the Free shipping. Can't beat that.