During the Pandemic I bought a new Mac computer and then paired it with a very inexpensive 4K television that I purchased from Walmart. Today that monitor died suddenly. One moment I was typing away and then the whole screen went blank. I tried turning it on and off again with no luck. I even let it sit for awhile but it truly died.
I can't say the death of my TV/Monitor came unexpectedly as it showed signs that end approached. A few days ago I noticed flickering in the middle-left of the screen. It only happened when the monitor had been off for awhile and then I turned it back on. Once the TV seemed to warm up, the flickering went away. That warned me it would soon bite the dust so I started looking at local deals for the best TVs.
My last TV/Monitor came from Walmart and so I started there at Walmart.com. I didn't see any good deals and so I headed to my usual Internet search engine and quite a few options in the $150 range from Best Buy showed up. My local Walmart is right next to Best Buy and so I figured I would start at Best Buy should I need to rush out and purchase something. That is where I headed today when I got the black-screen of death.
I have to say that I didn't have any problem finding a parking spot as it seemed relatively empty on a Thursday evening. I pulled up near the front and walked right in. I quickly found the TV isle as it takes up about a quarter of the store. It took a few seconds for the salesperson to find me and ask if he could help. I told him I needed a 4K TV at 43-inches. He explained they don't make them that small. I told him they did and I had seen it online. Then he said that I would probably return it in 2 weeks because I would blow out the speakers. I explained I only needed it for a computer monitor and didn't care about sound.
Best Buy had several TV's that met my criteria and I could choose from a number of them. Ultimately I decided to go with Insignia even though the salesperson tried to up sell me a Sony or Samsung. I told him I work for Sony and get a really good deal on them but don't want to spend that much for a computer monitor. That brought up a whole other conversation I did my best to ignore. The guy had to get a forklift to grab my potential new purchase from the top shelf and so I helped him by moving a few boxes of other TV's out of the way. Once I had it, I headed to the checkout and paid for it.
I got home and unboxed the new TV so I could set it up and finish the work I started before my old screen died. I plugged everything in and had to go through a rather advanced setup as it is also a SmartTV. I really just wanted to get back to my work. Eventually the setup finished and I could see my old work. I almost brought the TV right back to the store because it looked awful. The text did not look crisp and I thought I the resolution got screwed up. I fiddled with settings on the computer but didn't have any luck.
Next I tried the settings on the TV. This is an important piece of information: Insignia televisions have a number of different picture modes:
- Standard
- Movie
- Dynamic
- Natural
- Game
- PC
- Custom
I started trying all of them to see which one looked the best. As you might guess, everything came into focus the moment I tried "PC." I would even go so far to say that it is significantly better than my old Walmart TV. I am very pleased with my purchase and hope it lasts 6 years like my last one did. After tax, the total purchase came to $161.15. I think that is a bargain!
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