Home > Consumer Reviews > Kogi L4AX 14" LCD Flat-Panel Monitor

It's frustrating for me to read useless reviews from people who either do not have the product or trash companies for allegedly not sending them the rebate check. First of all, you should never buy a product based on rebate promises, because if your rebate form gets lost in the mail, they are not responsible. Second, as the recent Dilbert cartoon points out, rebate items probably have inflated prices anyway.

In the case of the Kogi L4AX I got my rebate check after a little over two months. I followed the instructions very closely, and sent in both the invoice and the packing slip and carefully circled the monitor, the price I paid, Amazon's name, and the purchase date. I also made a copy of everything just in case.

Now about the monitor. This is definitely a cheap monitor, both in image quality, construction, and the after-rebate price. I'll be honest: this is not worth the original, inflated price. The rebate is a must if you were to buy this monitor. While 14" of viewable space is not bad -- at 1024x768 (native resolution) you get razor-sharp text -- this monitor has viewing angles narrower than even Kogi's own 17" offerings (which lag behind rival products from NEC, Sharp, etc.). Color saturation is actually not bad, as you get red reds and blue blues, unlike many of the KDS LCD monitors I've seen at higher prices. The response time (i.e., the time required to draw each pixel) is pretty slow, evidenced by the ghost trails when you play games. But, for those on a budget and with a tight desktop space, this is a good choice, provided, once again, on your getting the rebate. If you can spare a bit more money, go with a 15" or bigger. My recommended brands are NEC/Mitsubishi (best quality and good value), Sharp (expensive, though), Eizo, and ViewSonic.

The price might seem right, but this thing is pretty bad. I checked out one at the local Best Buy and it was terrible. Sitting right next to it was a NEC and Viewsonic and they made it look like dirt.

Just to be certain it wasn't a dud, I looked at another store where they had three different models: some worse than others but all pretty bad. If you really think this is what you want you had better go take a look at it first.

I honestly think you would be better off with the cheapest, Nec, Viewsonic, Sony, Samsung, or Planar display you could find.

I bought this Monitor because AMAZON advertised the Monitor for $ 209.00 PLUS $ 70.00 Mail-in-Rebate. I send in what they asked for but my Rebate is reclined because I don't have a ORIGINAL Invoice from AMAZON. The Monitor was delivered from the Manufactor so I only have a computer-printed Invoice from AMAZON. They will not accept the Invoice. We gave this matter to the General-Attorney from AZ because is it not right. We saw on TV a few days ago this happened all the time with Mail-in-Rebate for Computer-Equipment's.

If it looks to good to be true it probably is. I went with the more positive reviews of this product, but after a disappointing set-up where the monitor flickered on and off and no where to turn to for tech help I put in back in the box and returned it to Amazon.com. It's priced to move no doubt and I thought I could live with a no frills monitor but learn from my experience and put down another hundred bucks and own a monitor you can have more faith in.

After droppping the Kogi off at the UPS, I went to Cnet and found the editor's recommendation of the Samsung-SyncMaster 15" TFT-LCD Flat-Panel Monitor-152N. It's a great monitor, there's plenty of tech support and software (although I haven't needed to use it yet) and a 3-year warranty. As long as you're going to make the investment for a monitor, pay a little extra and get one you can have some confidence in.

It was a tough lesson for me to learn but a priceless one.

I do not care if you get this monitor free after rebate, it is not worth it. Check out KOGi Tech. Support pages. FAQ #6 is about this little peice of work. The screen splits into 4 parts and swaps positions with the part on it's oppisite side. I had gone through 2 of these before I looked at their site to find out that their solution was to unplug the power from the monitor without powering it down when the screen splits. No real solution like send it in and we will fix it. If you do not mind unplugging your monitor all the time, go for it. There is a certain place that thinks they are the BEST place to BUY things that has it for $149.00 after rebate. Pretty cheap to enter the world of LCD but is it worth the troubles? You decide.