ViewSonic VP930b
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"Nearly flawless" on by nicolokolus
Pros: great color fidelity, no dead pixels and no visible streaking
Cons: uniformity is good but not great
Summary: I just got this monitor a couple of days ago; so far no dead pixels and excellent display quality.
I primarily needed this monitor for running CAD/engineering software but I also play a lot of games; It's quite good for both.
Having an 8 bit MVA panel (rather than a6 bit TN +) color rendition is nearly flawless; the blacks are very deep and brightness is outstanding. Because this panel uses MVA + overdrive (or at least Viewsonics version of it) it has very good response time throughout all transitions. Viewsonic's stated latency of g-t-g is a little mis-leading however, as they only use the time to rise and omit the falling part of the cycle. Thus real g-t-g latency is more like 16 ms, but as tomshardware.com found in their review of the vp191 (it uses the same MVA + overdrive panel) latency is cosistent through all transitions which in point of fact makes it more responsive than many TN + panels.
If you are in the market for a great multi-function monitor with wide viewing angles, great color, and superb gaming performance you can hardly go wrong with this beauty. -
"Defects-ridden Monitor" on by crankster70
Pros: Solid build, understated looks and great adjustability
Cons: Dead Video Input ("DVI") and Dead Pixels
Summary: It was time to retire my trusty 4-year old 15" Samsung Syncmaster and I read lots of good things about Viewsonic, especially, their professional VP series.
So I thought that buying the Viewsonic would be an easy purchase. I was wrong.
My DVI input stopped working after a month. After the Viewsonic support in Singapore gave me a hard time, they reluctantly sent me a replacement. They were not familiar with the concept of customer service so I had to educate them.
The replacement that Viewsonic sent was even worse! The DVI failed after 3 hours. I should also have paid more attention to CNET's comment that this monitor has poor colour rendering. Mine had green streaking and artefacts on the top right hand corner of the screen. On top of that, I found several dead pixels using Dead Pixel Buddy. Annoyed, I shot off an email to Viewsonic together with photos of the green streaking and artefacts. I am astonished that they sent me such a defective monitor as a replacement. My annoyed email must have got their attention because this time they offered a replacement without fuss although they added that they had to import this from Taiwan since the VP930b has been phased out in Singapore.
The replacement arrived today. I ran Dead Pixel Buddy and found at least 5 dead pixels right away.
For a US$450 monitor from their premium range, this is unacceptable. After this experience, I cannot recommend buying a Viewsonic. -
"The wait is over! A great monitor." on by Extreme_Boky
Pros: Colour fidelity is superb, text razor sharp, brightness and contrast excellent.
Cons: The white light bleeding spoils the perfect score.
Summary: For the past 3 years I’ve been waiting for LCD technology to become a viable CRT replacement option. The wait is over! After lot of research and some head to head comparison with Sony and Samsung monitors, I decided to get this beauty. It is a great monitor and one that satisfies most at many levels. Colour fidelity is superb, text razor sharp, brightness and contrast excellent. It displays very dark black and brilliant white. The shades of black / grey are fantastic. It is perfect for office / internet browsing and as good for Photoshop / AutoCAD editing. DVD playback is great as is Unreal Tournament 2004. In fact, games look stunning on this LCD. It needs attention during set-up, where ViewSonics’ LCD Control Software does excellent job. An altogether very strong performance is supported with 1 digital and 2 analog inputs. I use both analog inputs – first for my desktop computer and second for my notebook. Great! I could not notice any major white light bleeding at the corners. However, there is a slight creeping noticeable during night time –it is very minor and only present during DVD playback (because of the black stripes at the top and bottom of the screen). Stand is superb, as is the freedom to adjust this LCD anyway you want. Viewing angles are excellent! You can obtain an amazingly sharp text with the Fine Tune. The screen finish is non-glare which is huge advantage over reflective glossy glass-finished LCD’s. Monitor looks very nice and plastics used are of good quality. Preset settings in software are huge bonus.
Weaknesses? I have to try really hard… Brightness and contrast are very high and need to be adjusted down when using Word and other text editors. The bright white bleeding is noticeable as well. The first is not really a weakness; just a nature of large 19” LCD screens displaying large white areas. The white light bleeding is a weakness and spoils the perfect score, unfortunately. -
"Beautiful color, fast" on by monsieurms
Pros: great clarity, good price, fast
Cons: no usb port
Summary: This is a beautiful monitor, which can be had for about $430 street. It is fine to look it at even when off, and when on it shows great contrast (it has a great contrast ratio) and brightness and handles colors beautifully. At 8ms (typical) it is very fast. (That's the rating you want to compare--typical transitions, not going from all white to all black). It arrived with no dead pixels. The monitor is very form functional, moving up and down or tilting easily. It comes with software to rotate the monitor image. Alas, there are no USB ports. If you care, note that it does not have built in speakers (which I didn't want and I think are inferior to speakers that are separate). Viewsonic also has excellent support, answering pre-sales questions promptly. I just love this monitor. Everything looks great. It's light and attractive, too. I looked long and hard--this has the specs, delivers the goods and the street price is fair for the quality. (Don't even think of paying list!)
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"You Can Do Much Better" on by incontinentia
Pros: Decent--but not great--text. Seems reliable. Great physical adjustments. Relatively nice looking simple black.
Cons: Color, brightness, clarity, menu adjustments, USB port.
Summary: I read a couple of reviews in PC rags raving about this monitor, and I like ViewSonics generally. This monitor just sucks I'm afraid. If you were using it alone you might not notice just how bad it is, but aside an HP LP1965 and HP f1905, it's just sad. In fact, it makes me a little sad to stare at this thing lined up with the HP's because all I can think about is what I could have bought from HP, or someone else. The white is a depressing dishwater, and the overall color quality is startlingly poor. (text is adequate, but that's about the best thing I can say about this monitor.) Do yourself a favor and buy a different monitor. By the way, I've experimented with different video cards, OS, and computers--with the same disappointing result.
