Found a $79 LCD monitor with image flip!

[Owen]

This is the Haier KXT7020BK 7" TFT LCD Monitor. It looks like SRP is $129 but I found it at Office Depot (in store, not online) for $79 today so I thought I'd give it a try.

It's a widescreen monitor, and I figured I could just flip it over for use on the RedRock. It doesn't say so on the box, but now that I've messed with the menus I discovered that it has an image flip function built right in! Very convenient.

At such a low price it's not the greatest display, and certainly not HD (1440x234 resolution, which I found to be a rather odd spec), but it is a great low budget solution for an HVX on-board focus monitor and especially for M2/etc users.

The unit can also be powered with the included AC adapter, car adapter, or the detachable batter brick that holds 10 AA batts. Input is for composite video. It seems that the built-in TV tuner is rather worthless, but that's not what we need it for anyway, right?

While I'd love a higher-end monitor, I can't afford that right now -- so if you're in my boat maybe your local OD store will have these as well. I found it on a Christmas rack in the middle of the store along with cheap DVD players, digital picture frames, etc.

Here's a link to a site with info -- but not with the low price:
http://focuscamera.com/sc/froogle-lead-1.asp?id=964609235&rf=froogle&dfdate=11_06_2006&sid=857861814
The one at the link is silver -- the one in the store is black... to match the HVX!

 

[insanityfw]

Great find owen, if even to use it as a quick reference/framing solution.

 

[Barry_Green]

(1440x234 resolution, which I found to be a rather odd spec),

It's only odd until you realize that it's a lie, and when you understand the lie it makes more sense. Apparently they like to pretend that the red, green, and blue all count as individual pixels, so they triple the number that represents horizontal resolution!

The true res is 480 x 234 (think 480 x 3 = 1440).

 

[SomewhereinLA]

Good luck focusing HD with such a monitor. You won't ... But it might be good for framing your shots.

 

[poweredbyjolt]

Would this monitor be better then the on board LCD?

 

[Owen]

Ah, that makes more sense Barry.

I'll still use the zoom function of the focus assist as a final step in checking my focus, but I think as an image flip and quick focus solution it should be better than the on-board. I'm getting tired of shoving that bread-tie into the hinge of the on-board LCD!