The question is should I spend the extra several bills to purchase a flat panel monitor, or should I stick the fad out with my very functional regular box monitor? The answer is that there is no answer. There are basically two things that I see that are attractive about the new monitors that are sweeping across the world, into consumers homes, at an incredible rate. First they are attractive, low profile, elegant and refined. Second they take up less room and weigh less than the typical box-type monitor that has been with us for decades.

What I don't see a difference in is everything else. When I say everything else I am talking about quality of graphic both as far as color and clarity, efficiency of power usage, compatibility with other types of media (TV, DVD, etc.), and cost. Wait… that last one that is wrong. There definitely is a difference in price and that is the biggest reason why I think that I will wait until the fad of the flat panel monitor is out the window and the prices for these admittedly attractive looking machines is down to earth and worth their weight (which is considerably less as mentioned above.

Now I have been strictly talking about computer monitors in this discussion about flat panel monitor pros and cons. What I should mention next is the TV which I take a very different tone. I think that there are enough cool things about the flat screen TV that I would be willing to pay a good bit more for one of them than for the box TV. HOWEVER I still think that the price tag on these beautiful creatures is a bit exorbitant and I will have to wait until they come back down to earth.

So why do I think the TV flat panel monitors are so cool. Well for one the thought of being able to hang your TV on the wall is one of the coolest things that I have heard of. That is about the best savings of room that I can imagine for a TV. The other thing is that the picture quality on these TVs is head and shoulders above the rest of the TVs that are equal in sized but not flatness. The plasma screen allows higher resolution and better image quality without the distortion that you get from a rounded screen.