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I received an AOC Envision 20” LCD Monitor (TV) from Geeks.com to review. I was familiar with AOC from their excellent computer monitors, it only makes sense they would get into the television business. If you are looking for an affordable, quality set that serves a variety of uses, this might be for you.

The unit is attractive, with a basic, non-invasive design. Thin, as an LCD should be. As a geek, I liked all of the connectors/connections available. It is lightweight with a nice base. Overall it gave me a positive first impression. The unit is wall-mountable. You can adjust the viewing angle from the base. This is handy depending on where you will be using it. There are power, menu, channel, volume and source buttons handily located at the top of the screen.

The TV is listed as being EDTV ready. I had was unfamiliar with that term. Enhanced Definition Television (EDTV) is designed to be a mid-step between Standard Definition Television (SDTV) and High Definition Television (HDTV). EDTV is 480p (p= progressive scan). HDTV is 1080i or p. The benefit of the smaller size is that 480p gives excellent definition on a 20” screen, particularly for the price.

The choices for signal input are plentiful. You have basic co-axial cable, composite, S-video, component and VGA. Based on my research, composite would give me the best picture. I use AT&T’s U-verse service (a review is coming) and read rave reviews of their composite signal. Someone even claimed that they broadcast in HD, but cut the signal back to 480p to conserve bandwidth. I read claims that the composite output was just about as good as the HDMI output. I tried all of the connections and this is what I found:

• Co-axial input – Good picture, no problems here.
• Composite (Red, Yellow and White) – Looked good, no real difference from Co-ax.
• S-Video – A definite improvement, picture sharper and brighter
• Component (Red, Blue, Green) – Excellent picture, best of the bunch.

Thanks to the multiple outputs of the U-verse box, I was able to run the LCD tv and my SDTV side by side making a comparison simple. I drove myself crazy for a while adjusting the colors on both the SDTV and LCD. The on-screen menu makes immediate sense and has a pleasant layout. Once I got the sets to match, I’d feel that maybe it just needed a little tweaking here and there. An hour later, I felt comfortable that they were as close as they were going to be. The LCD picture was unarguably better. It was no comparison.  Any text displayed on the screen was very sharp, as opposed to the sloppy rendering on SDTV. Franky, I was shocked at how poor the SDTV looked in comparison. Anything with a line looked a lot better on the LCD. Colors were richer. Blacks and whites looked truly black and white. The picture was outstanding.

The picture is meant to be viewed from some distance. I’ve read anywhere from three times the width of the screen to eight feet. Three times the width works well for me. Up close, the picture does look boxy and jagged. Viewed from the appropriate distance, it looked fantastic. I doubt you would be using it with your face right up to it anyway. This is not the case using the VGA connection, where you probably would be sitting close.

U-verse gives you the option to choose your definition. You can choose 4:3, widescreen, 720p or 1080p. It defaults to 4:3. When I chose widescreen, it didn’t give me a widescreen picture, but the resolution almost looked HD. I don’t know what the difference is in how AT&T puts out the signal, the widescreen is strikingly better. I’ve read that EDTV provides 80% of the definition of HDTV, and using the widescreen setting that proves true. It is amazing to look at. The standard 4:3 definition is still very, very good, and I found myself sticking to that.

The speakers were a surprise. U-verse offers surround sound through the box, I enabled it and was taken aback at the quality of the sound. I did not notice the change at first, but soon sound were coming from all areas of the room. This television somehow gives a 3-D sound that is very clear. It is impressive for a budget TV to sound this good. There is an audio out line if you wish to attach it to an existing speaker system.

I’m no gamer, so I didn’t have a console to plug in. Consoles output a 480p resolution, so this unit should work very well with your console of choice.

I hooked my Windows Vista box up to it, the picture looked great. Fonts were off slightly, I’m sure they just need tweaking for the screen. The 800 x 600 resolution, while not normally what I would use, actually works well at a comfortable distance. I started Miro, and bingo, I had a media center going for all intents and purposes. With my wireless mouse and keyboard, I was comfortably chilling and surfing. I tried Netflix’s new streaming service and was watching a movie instantly (almost). Look for a review of this service soon.  It is nice to view the content available on the internet without being chained to a desk. It is also convenient to just plug into a VGA port without going through the typical hassle of connecting the tv to the computer.

The menu options for PC input are nice. You can adjust the red, green and blue levels. You can choose “cool” or “warm”. One particularly nice thing is that you can choose the source of Picture In Picture (PIP), so I can have live TV running in a little box while I am using the computer. It might be helpful if I were a sports fanatic, stock junkie or didn’t want to miss any of my “stories”.

The remote is well designed. I’ve suffered through poorly designed remotes, where doing a basic task (like fast-forwarding) becomes at best a chore, at worst a nightmare when it does something you do not want it to do. It is trim and fits nicely in the hand. My only nit-pick with it is I wish more real estate was devoted to the volume buttons, since those are used the most. They are conveniently located where my thumb rests so I can’t complain too much about them. Switching to the PC has its own button. Choosing the input is directly across from that. The layout makes sense and is easy to get used to.

The smaller size of this unit is a selling point for me. The ability to effortlessly switch between the television and computer makes it useful. I could see it as a great addition to a kitchen. You could watch tv while you cook, jump online to get a recipe or check your email. The adjustability of the viewing angle enables you to easily have it face where you are. It works well in a bedroom. It would be perfect for a smaller dorm room or a kid’s playroom. If you don’t need HD but don’t want the enormity of a SDTV and don’t need a gigantic screen for the space, this unit is perfect.

Priced at $214.50, this is a no-brainer to recommend. The picture is outstanding. The variety of inputs is very nice. The VGA port is an excellent addition. The sound is fantastic. It is built well. The manual is actually helpful. I could find nothing to complain about. If you are looking for quality at an affordable price this unit will work very well for you.

Features/Specifications:
AOC A20E221 Envision Series 20-inch EDTV-Ready LCD TV
General Features:
Silver profile
20-inch TFT LCD display
Built-in 181 Channel NTSC TV Tuner
EDTV-Ready (480p)
800 x 600 resolution
4:3 aspect ratio
0.51 mm x 0.51 mm pixel pitch
500:1 contrast ratio
500 cd/m2 brightness
160°(H) /120° (V) viewing angle
16.7 million colors
16 ms response time
10-watt speakers
31.5 – 48 KHz horizontal frequency
56 – 756 Hz vertical frequency
PC input resolution 800 x 600 @ 60 Hz
NTSC color system
MTS/SAP sound system
V-chip and Closed Caption
Motion Adaptive De-interlacer
Adaptive 4H Y/C Comb Filter
3:2 Pull Down Recovery
Progressive Scan
On Screen Display (OSD) function
Wall mountable
Top Panel Controls:
Power
Menu
Source
Channel up
Channel down
Volume +
Volume -
Side Connectors:
L/R Audio line out, L/R AV1 in
Component in Y/Pb/Pr, L/R
L/R/Video AV2 in
S-Video, L/R RCA
Mini Headphone jack
Rear Connectors:
TV tuner
15-pin VGA
Mini Stereo jack
Power plug
Power Specifications:
100 – 240V, 50/60Hz, 1.5A
Unit Dimensions:
17.6 x 27.4 x 9.9-inches (H x W x D with stand, approximate)
15 x  27.4 x 3.7-inches (H x W x D without stand, approximate)
Regulatory Approvals:
FCC
cULus
Package Includes:
AOC A20E221 Envision Series 20-inch EDTV-Ready LCD TV
Manual
Stand
Power cord
Remote control w/twwo AAA batteries

KDE 4.0 was released last week and all hell seemed to break loose. What I view as a solid first step in a very positive reaction was met with some applause, but generally scorn and complaints. I think some perspective is needed, and I humbly offer to try and provide some. I’d like to take issue with some things I see that are just plain wrong.

KDE 4 is Vista. Vista is an operating system. KDE 4 is a desktop environment. Right off the bat, on a basic level, this is wrong. If you only look at the DE aspects of Vista, it still doesn’t stand up. People complain about Kickoff, the new (possibly temporary) menu in KDE 4. Have you used the monstrosity that Vista provides? Plus, if you do not like Kickoff, you can drag the old style launcher to the taskbar and be happy. Vista offers nothing of the sort. KDE 4 runs very well on modest hardware. Vista is painful on modest to good hardware. I had a hardware failure on my main machine yesterday. It runs Linux. I’m stuck writing this from Vista on a 64 bit processor (AMD 3200+) with 3 gigs of RAM and it is unbearably slow. My desktop effects consist of some translucency and some crummy 3-D window switcher. With KDE 4 there are a lot more useful effects this early in. KDE 4 = Free Software. Vista = closed source. Complaints people have with KDE 4 are already being addressed. Some have been fixed. Get that kind of action from Microsoft. The Promised Land, KDE 4.1, is rumored to be released in about six months. The Promised Land for Vista, SP1, is still unreleased a year into its life (and the reports of the beta are less than glowing.) Maybe it kind of looks like Vista with the use of black, but that is about it.

KDE 4 is Gnome. This is usually meant as a swipe at Gnome as well as KDE, based in the belief that the Lords of Gnome sit in their ivory towers deciding how the peons can use their computers. The great Nautilus-Spatial-View Wars of 2004 saw a lot of bickering on this front. Since a lot of configurability that KDE is famous for just wasn’t ready for the 4.0 release people are assuming that it is just gone forever. It is coming; you can relax or file bug reports. If the configurability you are used to isn’t there in 4.1, then I’ll be right there with you. I believe the developers when they say it is coming. It isn’t like there is a lack of options in KDE 4; I’ve even read complaints that there are still too many. It is just that the most visible ones, like in the taskbar, just aren’t there yet. That is right in your face immediately.

This also feeds into the Holy War that Gnome and KDE are locked in. We have choices. Some people like Gnome, some KDE. There are plenty of other choices as well. Fans of gerbils can use XFCE. Enlightenment is cool. FVWM Crystal works nicely. Blackbox, Openbox or Fluxbox. Why so much energy is devoted to Gnome people attacking KDE people and vice versa confuses me, other than people love to have an enemy. In the words of convicted wife-beater Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?” When the negativity impacts development (my 10 things I hate about KDE 4 RC2 article was accused of stopping development for hours, weirdly) then things are getting out of hand. Some thicker skins might be in order as well.

KDE 4 is lacking in cowbell. The “needs more cowbell” joke stopped being funny about three days after you heard a co-worker say it for the first time. That was years ago! Enough already.

It was a mistake to release KDE 4.0. This has already been addressed nicely here, here and here. For the “tl;dr” crowd, the release has to get out into the real world and take a beating. I’m sure the complaints so far have been useful in some sense and will influence direction. This is a complicated issue that has been covered in more detail by people smarter than me; I just wanted to address it. I’m surprised to even see this, since “Release early, release often” is such an ingrained part of Open Source. Imagine if Duke Nukem Forever was Open Source and followed this philosophy.

“My experience with KDE 4 is the One True Experience” There are so many odd combinations of hardware, distributions and preferences that everything becomes equally valid. The experience you have with KDE 4, for you, will set your ideas into stone. I’ve read there were numerous problems with the Kubuntu packages. People who used those are naturally going to be unhappy with 4.0 for good reason. OpenSUSE has done an outstanding job with their packages. I’ve used them and have a positive feeling about 4.0. Nvidia cards perform well with the proprietary driver and KWin’s composite. I’ve read ATI doesn’t work that well. For the ATI owners, composite will be horrible. Some people love Kickoff. Some people hate it more than anything else in the world, apparently. Who is right? People passionately hate Dolphin, others love it. Most people, for these reasons, are going to have very different experiences with KDE 4. If we could just cut each other some slack and recognize the validity of each person’s opinion I think the overall atmosphere will improve.

Things haven’t been perfect. It is too bad that KDEPIM wasn’t ready. From what I have seen and read, it will be worth the wait. Distros have had some trouble with packaging. Things are nowhere nearly as bad as you may read, either. Before my hardware failure, I had been using 4.0 as my main desktop for weeks. I’m starting to prefer it, warts and all.

Here is my somewhat lousy analogy for KDE 4. You’ve lived in a house (KDE 3) for years. You have everything set the way you want it to, have gotten used to the oddities of it and love it. Some major parts of it have fallen into disrepair (arts) and it is time to move. You decide to build a new house from the ground up (KDE 4). It reaches a point where you can move into it, or stay in the old one for a few more months. You decide to move. The old house had cable. The neighborhood for the new on is being wired for cable, but it isn’t available just yet. Is your old house better because it had cable? Is the new one a failure because cable isn’t ready yet? The new house has a different thermostat that is quite different from the old one, and you can’t set it the same way you could the old. The builder promises that in a couple of months you will have three thermostats to choose from that are a lot better than the old one, but at least the current one works. The builder also says that if you do move in, he’ll listen to things you don’t like and give you the opportunity to change things, instead of just giving you something set in stone. He even promises to continue to improve the house for years to come. You can either live in the old house for a while longer and watch the progress of the new one and stay comfortable; or jump into the new one and get used to it. Odds are you aren’t going to complain that you shouldn’t even have built a new house. Particularly because it is free and built at no cost to you. It could be worse; you could be in the luxury prison down the street, where the prisoners complain that the old one, while bad, was much better than the new one.

The KDE Release Event is today. I had hoped to go, but the complete lack of free flights complicated it. Congratulations again to everyone involved. You have a lot to be proud of, and a lot more work ahead.

KDE 4.0 is out as of today. Click here for the official announcement. A separate announcement with info on packages for different distributions is here. OpenSUSE had the updated packages available when I checked at midnight last night–great job yet again by the packagers (or packager?).

A wll written and helpful Visual Guide to KDE 4.0 is available here. It has plenty of screenshots and information.

A post on Aaron Seigo’s blog  is very interesting, and gives you more of an idea on why you should be excited about the KDE 4 series. Click here for that. If anything, it should give you an appreciation for what the devs are going through and the hard work they put in. All for something we get for free.

This is a big step forward, and the first of many big steps for KDE. Congratulations to all of the developers and to everyone involved!

Using KDE 4.0 yet? If so, leave a comment with your experience.

Update! The following link, and Emergency FAQ, has been posted and is helpful:

http://software-libre.rudd-o.com/KDE_4.0.0_emergency_FAQ 

I’ve complained and cheered about KDE 4 RC2 from openSUSE. I’ve updated to the latest openSUSE packages since writing those articles, and things have moved in a very positive direction. I’ve been able to use it as my main desktop without issues for about a week now. I’d like to commend openSUSE for the outstanding job they have done with KDE 4. Using one-click install, it couldn’t be easier to get it going. With YAST it is very easy to keep it updated. With the release imminent, I thought I would take one last look at what openSUSE terms KDE 4 RC2++. I’ll warn you, the list may be odd, these are just things I have come across in daily usage. I promise no rhyme or reason!

Fixes to my complaints:
-It is no longer crashy and inconsistent. I haven’t had a crash in days. Behavior now works as expected, consistently. Improvement was quick and dramatic.
-Right click in Dolphin now works correctly.
-Right click on the taskbar does give options, albeit limited. There is still no option to change the bar size, but changing my resolution has made this less of an issue. I don’t even mind the transparent strip across the top of it now that I am used to it.
-Blurry fonts are no longer blurry fonts.

General Improvements:
-Responsive. The overall speed of the desktop has improved with the latest updates. Everything feels very close to normal.
-Pager is in the taskbar. I think this will give people a level of comfort. I’m preferring to use Ctrl + F8 and Alt + Tab to move around. Old people will like seeing the familiar four box grid.
-Digital Clock is configurable. At some point for me it wasn’t. It now acts exactly as I would expect it to. You can choose your timezone, font, whether to display a 24 hour format, show the date, basically, anything a configuration junkie would want. It looks nice, too. Now maybe the Clock Nazis can chill.
-Composite effects work nearly flawlessly on my setup (Nvidia 8400 GS). I’m liking the effects more and more. Compiz has always felt like a second class citizen with KDE, this helps to overcome that. The effects are smooth and feel natural. I hope there is a webpage with the keystrokes and tips for using it once 4.0 releases. If not, I’ll make one.

Small things I like:
-The new splash screen and logout screen are beautiful. Nice touches. Pic of logout screen below:

-I like the new default wallpaper. It fits the darker theme but isn’t too dark. There is already a lot of whining about the choice, like it won’t take five seconds to change it.

-Being able to right click the title bar and choose the window opacity. That is slick, and helpful.
-Marble is cool. what is marble, you ask? It looks like GoogleEarth, but uses no hardware acceleration, so it is small and lightweight. More info here.

-Oxygen Cursor Theme- I’m using the White Cursor Theme, it looks nice but is not obnoxious. More info here.
-Deal or No Deal- until they get sued, the game Deal or No Deal from playground, I believe, is a nice little time waster.

Bigger things I like:
Okular- Great interface and it works very well. I love being able to uncheck the “Obey DRM limitations” box. Clever. It is fast. The toolbar is clean, with options to junk it up as much as I’d like. I love that it can handle multiple formats. It is consistent with the rest of kde 4 and fits in well.

KPlayer- I’ve never liked KPlayer, for no good reason. I like the updated interface. Unfortunately there isn’t an openSUSE package for Dragonplayer (formerly Codeine) at the moment. I may actually start using KPlayer.

Kdegames – The games are cleaned up and consistent looking. They look fantastic in SVG. Excellent job here.

KDEPIM- Ridicule me, remind me it is alpha, I don’t care. I really like it and it doesn’t even crash all that much. I cannot wait until it is finished. Pictured is KOrganizer:

Consistency- It has been hard to write this without using the word consistent fifty times. Everything just goes together nicely. I normally wouldn’t care too much about this, but the more I use the desktop the nicer it seems. KDE 4 apps have a KDE 4 identity. That is a good thing.
I could go on and on, but the release is tomorrow and I’d rather write about it.

Final Thoughts:

Once again, I have to applaud openSUSE’s KDE 4 packaging team. Outstanding job. My hat goes off the the KDE developers, the progress in the last few weeks has been incredible, and this release is shaping up to be phenomenal. We are stepping into the future tomorrow, and making a big jump. I respect the courage and hard work that has gone into KDE 4.0 and I cannot wait to install the release tomorrow.

I hope the negativity–that I contributed to–settles down once people use KDE 4. Install it and stick with it for a week. You may not like it at first, you may love it at first but give it a chance. Use it for a week before you start bitching. I think, like me, you will be pleasantly surprised. It is better than you have read. I look forward to KDE 4.1, and can’t wait to see how this grows and changes, but 4.0 will be my desktop of choice. Now that I am used to using it daily, I prefer it to anything else. It isn’t as if 3.5 is going away, or there are a lack of other choices if it isn’t for you. I predict the community will rally around this release. Complainers will still complain and further progress will be made. The bottom line: The future begins tomorrow. I’m excited.

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