Monitor positioning problem...

Angilion

Angilion

Angilion

Man of Honour
Joined
5 Dec 2003
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Just to the left of my PC
I've just bought a Samsung B2430L. All well and good except that I can't get it at the right height and the right distance. On my desk, it's about 7 inches too low. On my high desk behind it, it's the right height but a little too far away.

As I see it, these are the options:

i) Put up with it being a little too far away.

If that wasn't an issue I wouldn't be posting this.

ii) Build something to raise the back of my desk by 7 inches.

Would you trust your monitor to something I cobbled together from stuff I have lying around?

iii) Buy a mounting arm (the monitor has VESA 75 mounting points).

A wall-mounted one is easy to find for as little as £10. But I don't want a wall-mounted one. I don't have a wall behind my desk and I'd have to either drill into the wall (with a drill I don't have) or glue wood to the wall and mount it on that...and that doesn't sound like a good idea.

Desk-mounted ones seem far rarer and usually cost half as much as the monitor, which is much more than I want to spend.

So...any reasonable desk-mounted arms that are cheap? All I need is for it to raise the monitor about 7 inches. It doesn't have to extend, rotate, swivel or make the tea.
 
It sounds like your desk is quite unusually low. If I had known that i would have advised taking some measurements first using the 'height with stand' part of the specifications as a guide. Choices are limited at that budget but there are a few decent monitors with a HAS. Or did you not realise your desk was unusually low?
 
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PCM2 said:
It sounds like your desk is quite unusually low. If I had known that i would have advised taking some measurements first using the 'height with stand' part of the specifications as a guide. Choices are limited at that budget but there are a few decent monitors with a HAS. Or did you not realise your desk was unusually low?
Click to expand...

My desk is flat. My head is quite some way above the desk when my chair is at the right height to be comfortable for my arms. That would be true whatever the height of my desk.

I had overlooked (haha, every pun intended!) the problem because I've been used to having my monitor on a desk I've built up much higher, which is behind my main desk. That places the monitor at the right height, but it's a little too far away. It was suboptimal, but it worked. It still works, but with a new monitor I want it better, especially with the narrow optimal viewing angle imposed by TN panels. It doesn't take much of a change in angle to change colours, let alone brightness (e.g. the bar where Noscript info appears under Firefox changes from pale blue to pale yellow with maybe six inches of vertical movement).

I've just this minute improved matters by tilting the monitor backwards so the viewing angle is right. I didn't know it tilted backwards. The tilt on this monitor stand is very stiff, so much so that I thought it didn't tilt at all. It wasn't until I read a passing reference to really stiff tilt on some Samsung stands that I thought to try it. It needs more force than I like to use, but it does tilt.

So it's not ergonomic and it'll probably give me neckache, but the viewing angle is right. Maybe I can get away with a smaller tilt and a few inches of stuff on my desk to raise the monitor.

Man, that tilt is stiff.
 
It wasn't a reference from me about the stiffness of Samsung monitors was it? I think the majority of people assume that you can't tilt them because of how stiff they are. :D

If you Google 'Targus Universal Monitor Stand' this is a possible idea for around £30. There are other such contraptions available on a certain rainforest website sometimes referred to as 'monitor risers'.
 
I think the tilting reference was in one of your posts. I've been reading a lot and I'm not sure where it popped into my memory from. I'm now idly curious as to whether it's mentioned anywhere in Samsung's documentation. It certainly isn't clear.

I've looked at some monitor risers, but once again it's the "stuff I don't need" thing. In this case, space under the riser. I can get the desired effect with some old phone books and some wood - extra height, no wobble, no sliding and a flat top to put the monitor on. It won't win any design awards, but I'm only interested in functionality. Am I missing anything concerning functionality, any reason to buy a riser rather than use phone books and wood? Hmm...maybe the lack of wobble was in part due to the weight of my old CRT monitor. An LCD on a stand would be more likely to topple.
 
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Thick and solid blocks of wood would be good. You could always paint them too. Depends how crafty you want to be. ;)
 
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