The new monitor arrived today from Dell. I expected it on Thursday but it turned up two days early. I won’t complain.

It is an SX2210, a 21.5″ (we still use inches to measure these things, how long before everyone switches to metric?) and it plugs into my laptop. The resolution is slightly lower than the laptop but not that I notice. I like to have a second monitor when I am working and this will do the job nicely.

It has a webcam built in and some connections for a sound box that Dell sells. I don’t do video calls and I already have good speakers when I want to watch a DVD. It also has a load of USB connections, so I could use it as a USB hub, but I don’t see that happening either. What I wanted was a damn good monitor with a crisp, clear image, and I got that. It says it does HD and there’s an HDMI socket in the back. So I guess when I start using HD stuff this will work.

Its max resolution is 1920 x 1080. My laptop is 1920 x 1200 and my other monitor (24″) is the same (there is a good reason for having two of them but let’s not get boring). What happens to Linux when it changes monitors? Good things. It auto senses and snaps up the right resolution no sweat. I haven’t seen Windows XP do that, maybe Vista or 7 does, anyway Linux definitely handles it nicely. The third monitor (3? Yes, long story, but they are all in regular use) is not a wide screen job and nothing flash. I don’t recall the numbers for it but they are smaller. Anyway, under XP I always had to manually modify the settings, under Linux I do not.