KDS Rad 7c – Space Saver Extraordinaire

Author's Rating:

Pros: Extreme space saver. Quality image, decent speakers plus USB connections

Cons: None

The Bottom Line: 
This monitor is a keeper. Great viewing angle, good speakers and reliability. Quite a combination.

Author's Review
We remodeled our offices in the last year and while they look great, there seems to be a lack of something important – space. Many of the new workstations barely had the room for a monitor, keyboard and mouse, let alone any work. When we went looking for new flat panel monitors there was only one company to look at since we already had some great flat panels from them, KDS. The model we chose was the Rad-7c, and these things are hot. The company that our vendor went through was so back-ordered on them that it took approximately six weeks to actually get the monitors. When we finally received them, we were not disappointed.

The Look
These monitors are very attractive. Boasting a 17” screen and only about eight inches of desk-space. They are slightly wider than a standard 17” monitor but that is due to the speakers that run along both sides of the screen. The screen itself produces a beautiful image that is viewable from a fairly wide angle. This is much improved over older models of LCD screens, which had to be viewed almost straight on or not at all. The speakers are nothing to write home about but do produce a nice smooth sound.

Ease of Set up
As with most monitors these are extremely easy to set up and get going. Simply plug it into the wall and the computer and hook up the speakers to your line out on the computer and you are ready to go. Windows 2000 Professional picked them up and installed the drivers automatically. Like most monitors today, this one uses an on-screen display to adjust settings. Rather than the clunky dial that many of the CRT monitors have, this model uses tasteful buttons on the right side of the monitor. The OSD is simple to navigate and set the screen accordingly.

Reliability
While we have only had these monitors a little over a month, they have given us no problems at all. Unlike many of our other monitors, once you set your screen settings they remain. Some of our other monitors tend to sporadically lose their settings. We have had no complaints from the users about these at all.

Specifications
The monitor is compact! It is roughly 8 ½” deep and 20” wide by 18” high. The space saving is tremendous over your standard CRT monitor. While not matching the best of the CRT tubes, this monitor boasts a .26 dot pitch, which is fairly respectable for an LCD monitor. I was rather surprised to see that not only is its maximum resolution 1280 X 1024, but that is the recommended resolution as well. I am used to dealing with CRT monitors that are capable of very high resolutions but recommend several steps down from their maximum. I was also surprised by the weight of this monitor. With the compact size I expected it to be fairly light. However, they really packed it in there as this monitor weighs in at a hefty 21 lbs. True that is half of a CRT monitor, but this is much less than half the size. The feature that I like best about this monitor is that everything is detachable (read replaceable). The detachable power cord is becoming standard on most of today’s monitors, but KDS takes it a step further and removes the connection from the computer to the monitor completely detachable. This means that a damaged cord can be replaced rather than an entire monitor.

The Bottom Line
This monitor was a bargain at roughly $500 when we got them. If you can still find them they have come down even more. It allows the user to have workspace in an area with very little desk space available. It provides a sharp, clear image at a reasonable cost. I would definitely recommend this monitor to anyone who needed a compact monitor.