Before the personal computer was invented, computers didn’t have monitors with visual interfaces at all. Instead, computers were used as glorified calculators – that’s where the name “computers” comes from. All of that changed just a few short decades ago with the advent of the visual interface – the pc monitor.
Overkill for the home office?
Pc monitors completely changed the marketplace for computers, shifting it from a corporate and business atmosphere towards one where the end user was in fact just an average person looking for a new piece of technology. The advent of the personal computer has inarguably changed the landscape of technology, business and communication and monitors are the sole reason behind this shift.
Without pc monitors we would have no way of interacting with a computer in a way that is intuitive to us. Gone are the days when communicating with the machine by cards with holes punched in them. Now we have a mouse, a keyboard and a screen to work with when trying to get the most out of these amazing pieces of technology.
When choosing a monitor, it’s important to consider the type of work that you will be doing. If you’re a graphic designer you will need a larger, higher resolution monitor than if you’re a businessman on the go. In the former case it’s recommended to get a thirty inch monitor with a screen resolution nearing 2560×1600, in order to have the most space possible to work on. In the latter case, you’re just a businessman who likely travels a lot but still needs to stay connected. You’re better off with a laptop or netbook with an attached pc monitor that doesn’t have as high a resolution or screen size. You just need to access emails, documents and surf the internet to connect with your colleagues – not design websites, graphic banners and artwork.
The monitor has evolved from its humble beginnings as a miniature television screen to encapsulate a wide variety of needs. There are people who simply want to play video games and surf the internet. There are people who just need to look at email and write some documents in Microsoft Word. While at the beginning pc monitors were more of a “one size fits all” product, they have branched out along with the computer market itself. Laptops, netbooks, desktops and tablets have all become part of the marketplace and pc monitor companies have had to play catch up with the times – or face being lost in the past and having another company out-innovate them to take over the entire market.
I personally think that the ultra-thin direction that monitors are going in is very exciting. It would be great to one day have monitors that were less than a quarter of an inch thick – moving towards that holographic, futuristic design that we all see and wish was reality in science fiction movies. That may be a ways off, but there are still enough exciting innovations in the pc monitor market these days to keep this tech-head interested.