What do you think about people who poke your screen?

[Angstromicus]

I genuinely hate it when people poke my LCD screen, it can cause permanent damage to the display, ESPECIALLY with finger nails or other sharp objects. Today I had a buddy point out something on the screen, and he accidentally rammed his fingernail into the display several times like he would with a CRT. My $1,200 ****ing dollar LCD. I know, you could buy three computers for that price, but I wanted a nice quality PVA or IPS display screen instead of the cheap TN displays. Plus the extra screen real estate really helps me with (school) work.

I'm guessing this is just an old habit because you could poke a CRT until your finger broke and the CRT would have sustained no damage, but the fragile displays of an LCD are far different. With LCD's the display elements are no where nearly as well protected as a CRT's.

I was EXTREMELY irritated, but I did my best to quell my anger, so I just gave him a fair notice to "please don't ram your finger nail into the LCD, it cost over a grand and it is sensitive to kinetic force."

I don't see any damage, fortunately. There's a millimeter-sized dark spot near the center-edge of the screen, but I think that's just crud or something, because I'm sure he assaulted the screen farther away from the edge.

Sheesh, I just can't understand such ignorance from people, which only makes me more angry. I doubt everybody who mindlessly pokes LCD screens is like my buddy who was used to CRT's (although he has been using LCD's for a while, I still don't know why it did not occur to him that he should not poke a $1,200 monitor). But as for the people who mindlessly poke LCD screens for reasons other than being used to CRT's, does anybody know the psychology behind such behavior? There are several "warning signs" for the uneducated that they should not poke an LCD, such as:

1) Irritation from the owners of LCD screens that they poked in the past.
2) The "Newton Rings" that reverberate out from the impact. This can't be good for the LC's, and it should indicate to the assailant that the display elements are right there at the surface, and kinetic force to anything tends to cause physical, or even chemical, change in atomic or general structure, which I assume would be unwanted in an LCD panel.
3) Smudge marks left by oils or food from the skin. Even if an LCD had a glass surface instead of a plastic or matte, it's a major annoyance to have smudge marks on a screen or to clean them.

Edit 1: How come people tend not to pick up on at least one of these until permanent damage to their own LCD or a life-changing encounter with the enraged LCD screen/laptop user?

Edit 2: That dark spot is not crud, it's ****ing DAMAGE! OMFG, I've only had this monitor for a few days !

[TheJamsh]

charge him. period

or if its a few days old, say its a warranty thing

[Angstromicus]

I may be able to get by with the warranty thing. But he is a good friend, and even if he had the money I wouldn't charge him, though. It was purely an accident. But I still can't help but to be pissed about the incident.

[bigbadbogie]

At least punch his lights out...

[GreenHeart]

I may be able to get by with the warranty thing. But he is a good friend, and even if he had the money I wouldn't charge him, though. It was purely an accident. But I still can't help but to be pissed about the incident.

My warranty says my monitor could fall of the desk & it would still be covered. 

[Warfreak]

my monitor could fall of the desk & it would still be covered. 

Lucky....... while i was setting up my pc, my (Target bought) UV Lamp (was on for 1 measly minute) tilted ON my monitor and MELTED the top of the corner....... It seems to have caused no damage (ive been using this monitor for roughtly a year now).

The warrenty (i cant remember WHAT it covers exactly) most likely doesnt cover a crazy occurance like that, if it does though, its only been a year .

Also, for the record: the lamp was immediately thrown out and i've bought NOTHING from Target since. 

[OvermindDL1]

I still use a CRT (although I have an LCD on another computer) on this computer and I still do *NOT* let people touch it, at the very least they put their nasty finger grease and oil on the screen.  Thankfully my desk helps mitigate these acts thanks to it being a very nice corner desk with the monitor being 3 to 4 feet deep over a wide desk that they would have to lean over first.
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[Zero Angel]

I don't think it's a big deal, really. LCD's are a lot tougher than they seem to be. I do IT stuff at a computer lab where people poke the LCD's on a regular basis, and I havent ever seen an LCD sustain permanent damage from that. If your monitor failed because someone tapped on it with their finger nails, I would be more concerned about the quality of its screen (durability-wise) and promptly consider asking for a more well built monitor.

[Angstromicus]

After a more in-depth analysis it appears as if the dark spot I see is some kind of "pressure spot". Chances are I just did not notice it until I started scrutinizing the entire screen for damage. Though, I did not know pressure spots could be this tiny, as it is only about 3 or 4 pixels wide. The monitor was made in China, so maybe a fingernail, piece of lead- 234, or some other foreign object somehow became carelessly lodged behind the screen while the TV was being manufactured. I'll call tech support about it and see what they say.

Bah, so much for 24-hour tech support. Apparently their displays department is currently out of office hours. Maybe I misread something. But I took several hi-res screenshots of the area on the screen, and it looks almost definitely like a smudge, as sub-pixel defects don't seem apparent in the pictures that show the actual sub pixels. The defect is much easier to see with out-of-focus or less detailed pictures. Maybe it is just a smudge, because the ever so slightly zoomed out pictures show the smudge not matching up with the pixels. I don't want to make matters worse and scrub the screen. If anything, I should order some iKlean and a very soft cloth.

[Red Devil]

Rubbing it gently usually fixes it for me.

[Angstromicus]

I called tech support and asked for a walk-through fix for the problem just to be safe with the warranty, but they said they could not do anything about the dark spot. I really felt happy with this display anyway, but they said they'd send me a new monitor anyway.

I'd rather press my luck and see how the next display looks. Most of the time even their 30 inch displays don't have any pixel defects, so odds are the next TV should not be having any problems. It just makes me feel better this way anyway, after that guy poked the screen. Again, it probably didn't cause any damage, but it's just very unnerving. I suppose that dark spot on the display was a godsend in disguise .

[Red Devil]

Which brand/model is it?

[Angstromicus]

Samsung 305T Plus.

Btw: New desktop screen for me (will post when I set thunderbird up with POP3, gmail seems to redirect me to the login page every time I login, under any email address). Kmail fixed my problems in linux.

Edit: Ah crap, I can only get thunderbird to show my first 10 emails. My imageshack login is probably the 2000th message .

[Nielk1]

Try clearing all GMail related cookies and the site should work again. Sometimes they get fubared.

[squirrelof09]

The monitor was made in China

Ladies and Gentlemen, The new American curse word.