As a PC Authority reader you probably spend an inordinate amount of time in front of a computer. For many of you it's not only a tool for working but also a source of endless hours of entertainment. But basking in the warmth of a monitor's glow will eventually lead to tired and sore eyes, not to mention the possibility of a host of other problems.

How many acronyms can a monitor have before it chokes on its own resolution? We have all come to expect CRTs, LCDs, TFTs and God knows what else but now Samsung has come up with a monitor with so many acronyms it will leave you gasping.

Electronics giant Samsung has unveiled an ambitious next day replacement service on several of its PC monitors in a move that was initiated by its Australian subsidiary.

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Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

Advanced in some ways, this Acer monitor performs admirably, bar wallet performance.

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Impressive and free antivirus and antispyware package

An impressive monitor all-round, the Philips 170B4BB came near the top of the pile for its great mix of specifications, and did extremely well in all of the testing. This was the only monitor in the roundup to rate three perfect scores in performance: with impeccable clock timing and phase locking, the clearest desktop of all tested displays, and the only monitor capable of displaying a truly dark black.

This monitor aced many of our image quality tests, handling fine colour transitions with ease and producing sharp images.

HP crashes the 30" party with the most versatile display on the market.

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Here's a monitor that would look at home on an executive desktop.

If you're space conscious or limited when it comes to your PC set up then no doubt you've already looked at the TFT display option at some point. We've got three new TFT offerings from three companies in the Labs this month, which should give you a good idea of the state of play of the TFT market at the moment.

Philips is no slouch when it comes to the monitor game, and the proof is in the outstanding Philips Brilliance 109P10...

Hitachi CM643ET

We made the decision to test this model as the representative of the leading monitor vendor by volume shipped, having already had the monitor available in the Labs from the Peripherals Plus Athlon in our 600MHz PC Labs (see page 54).The monitor itself is a fairly nondescript piece of equipment.

They say that once you've used an LCD display on your desktop you dont ever want to go back to a CRT...

The first place to start tweaking is your BIOS. Enter your BIOS by hitting a key combination on system boot (look out for F1, Del etc). A word of warning though, the BIOS is a very powerful tool, but can cause damage if pushed the wrong way.