Shopping Alert

If you are a techno gadget freak, this is not news to you but I’m posting this for all other forms of life in Japan:
BUY AN LCD MONITOR RIGHT NOW!
I bought two last week because everyone is predicting the prices will rise again soon… I bought a new high performance 17″ Mitsu for 1/2 the sticker price (at an online store I use often – PC Success), and it’s kicking ass for all the games I play. I also got a 17″ Iiyama for Nam, who spends many hours every day working on her doctoral thesis – this should help prevent eye strain. Our old CRT’s are out in my hallway, doing what they do best – taking up space! An unexpected bonus of switching from CRT to LCD was that it opened up a huge (albeit dusty) space on my desk (which I actually already filled up with stacks of CDs, assorted phone bills, food wrappers, etc., but that’s another story).
I opted for the Mitsubishi and the IIyama because these two companies along with BENQ are the only ones that use a 100-240V power supply, which is what I will need to use them in Thailand when we move. I’m only writing about this because I actually went to Osaka to compare product catalog specs to actual rating labels on the floor models a couple weeks ago, and I thought I’d save someone else the trouble since I’ve seen this question asked elsewhere.
To give you an idea of how cheap LCD monitors really are in Japan right now, I just saw offers for some 19″ models under the 30,000 mark – wow! I remember when 15 inchers were twice that price – not so long ago. I’m glad I waited so long to get ours.