On Wed, 16 Mar 2011, Nix wrote:

On 12 Mar 2011, Daniel James stated:

Most 24" monitors are now 1920x1080 (16:9 ratio) but these two are both
1920:1200 (16:10) which will give a little more vertical height, which
is useful for text editing. Both have USB hubs built in, the Dell also
has an SD card reader while the Nec has (rather tinny) speakers.

I've never entirely understood what USB hubs are supposed to bring to a
monitor?

You plug your keyboard and mouse into the monitor, then the monitor into
the main case. You put the monitor on your desk, and your case on the
floor. Reduces cable clutter. One of the great Apple innovations was ADB,
which let you do that back when PC users were dragging vast great serial
connectors around their offices.

Not so helpful if you use a wireless keyboard and mouse, of course.

The ability to build in tinny speakers and SD card readers?
(The latter in particular seems deeply arbitrary.)

I find the whole idea of SD card readers pretty baffling, to be honest. If
a device stores data on an SD card, it almost unfailingly also has a USB
port, and it's far easier to plug the device in via that than it is to
fiddle about with tiny little bits of plastic.

The one exception i have to that is replacing the card in a mobile phone,
when it feels safer to do copy files from the old card to the new card on
a computer, with the device sitting inertly switched off.

tom

--
Once you notice that something doesn't seem to have all the necessary
parts to enable its functions, it is going to mildly bug you until you
figure it out. -- John Rowland