Did it have to be pink?
It all started a few weeks a ago when I was playing around with my desktop background. I was home and on my main monitor, a 20.1" Dell from years back. It was at that point I noticed a dark area towards the bottom of the screen. Dirt maybe?.. nope. It was a permanent burn in, or dying pixel, not sure, but now that I see it I cannot ignore it, no matter how hard I try.

Ok, well it's been a few years and I could use some more real estate and perhaps a higher resolution... ok, time for a new monitor. Now I looked around at Dell's and HP's, but I was really hooked on the Apple cinema displays. What I did not like is $900 price tag for 23", that's almost twice what anyone else charges. At the same time it would look good and it matches my MacBook Pro... So I looked on eBay and found these monitors going for ~$500. On my second bid attempt I got a uses 23" for about that price and was very excited. I even paid extra for 2nd day in hopes it would arrive around my b-day. This was the last time I was happy about any of this.

Two days came and went.. nothing. And the tracking number I was provided game no information. I thought for sure after the weekend it would be here... I was wrong. After about 5 days I got ahold of the company that sold it too me, a brink-n-mortor eBay re-seller called 'iSold it'. They said it had shipped and blamed the USPS for the slow delivery. Well another weekend came and went... nothing. The following Monday I had enough. I wrote a email letting the company know that if they could not tell me where my package was by end of day that I wanted my money back or good old Mr Visa was getting involved. Well the threat seems to work 'cause 20 min later there was a knock at the door and the package was dropped off. What was odd is that the shipping I paid for required a signature, yet the postman was pulling out by the time I looked out.

But now all was well, The monitor was here and I could finally bask in 1920x1200 of goodness. I did look at the shipping label and it said "Media Mail", which I now understand is the slowest, cheapest method around. Well, that explained it. I wrote the company back and expressed by displeasure that the package was not sent via the method I paid for. And too their credit, within a hour, they credited back all my shipping cost. The monitor just got that much cheaper... woo hoo!. Then I turned it on...

At first it seemed OK, different, but OK. Surely it just needed some calibration. I noticed that the edges seems a bit pinkish. When I but a white background on the monitor, it was very pinkish. Not good. I tried for a day to get the colors right, but to no avail. Then I looked on line and found that this was a common defect for early cinema displays. There was no way that the seller did not notice that, and it sure as hell was not mentioned in the items description. So I've emailed the company back and said I want my money back. They've asked for some pictures as proof and I've sent them some and this is where we currently stand.

So far this b-day gift has not gone over as well as I hoped, and I think it's back to buying items new from now on.
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