Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have only had this monitor a short time as I write this. I can give a good review on use and set up nonetheless. I have read about some of the issues people have seen and I cannot find that any of these are true at all. I am a geek too. I have been in IT for 30 years from Administrator to Architect. I demand the best out of everything I use when it comes to technology. The monitor sets up VERY easy. It has a CD that has the drivers on it and a setup program. The program is run from the CD and the software setup is the usual installation type info boxes seen in most software installations. The OS required me to reboot two times to sync the monitor and load the driver correctly. After that the monitor came up in the exact 1 2 configuration I wanted. If I wanted to move the monitor to the left side I could have changed the 1 2 display to reverse too. It is at 1600x900 resolution with vivid colors (250,000+ colors at 18-bit). No wash out, no distortion, and no fuzziness. What happens with the color differences is that many people run the 1st monitor at 1920x1080 (or higher with a higher color bit rate) while running the AOC at the lower 1600x900 (with a lower color bit rate). The colors will look a little different then. I now run both screens at 1600x900 for a nice match up. 1600x900 is pretty decent and I am very happy with that resolution. After all this is a notebook and I am not going for high resolution. It compares to my HP Envy built in monitor....almost. In fact they look practical identical. No two monitors will ever match perfect but this is VERY close. One thing I did have to deal with was that it sits a little lower on the table than my HP ENVY notebook monitor. I use a rubber hand rest to prop it up and it looks and works great that way. My ENVY has a 17 inch screen so the match up is perfect. Another cool thing is they do include the cable and a carry case for the monitor. The cable I expected but the carry case is a nice bonus. I know nothing about the durability yet, but I will post something a year or so from now and let you all know. I expect it to handle normal carry case situations and small bumps and jolts without issue. If not, well that would be an issue. I also need to talk about the arm on the back that props up the monitor. It is very stiff and so no matter where you move it holds the monitor in place. (That is good!) It does seem a little wobbly at near vertical (That is Bad!). If the arm is pulled out at least half way it is pretty solid then. This is the one feature that could have been done differently. I would have preferred an arm in the middle that pulled out and had better angles. Something more like Microsoft's Surface but adjustable. Still, it stands up just fine. Don't let this arm be the reason you don't buy it or use it. It works great. I strongly recommend this monitor for the reasons I listed above. It really does work off just a single USB unless you have an older USB. Mine is 3.0 and it works great. I also use Windows 8.1 64-bit. My video card is a Nvidia GEforce 840M video card. UPDATE FOR 2016!! Now a year or so later and I have more comments on this monitor. It is very durable and has been hauled all over the place and bounced on the ground in a wheeled carry case. No problem there. Here is a major issue. There is no way to get this to work on a new Windows 10 server. None. I have it working on this one, but the driver was installed on Windows 8.1 and then the system upgraded. I tried to install with the latest drivers from AOC and using the Disk that came with the monitor. It will not install and causes major video issues that are a pain to fix. I fixed them, and hooked it back up to this older laptop (About 18 months old). The new Spectre is just not able to work. The instructions (AOC) admit they do not support Windows 10. Wow. There are still no drivers available from AOC and no support. I wrote them, and they do not support it is what they sent back. WOW!!!! Don't buy this unit!!! I am not dropping my 5 star rating to 3 stars.