ThinkVision C220p review

Graphics pros have a great advantage when it comes to buying a monitor: high-quality jumbo CRTs can be had for a song. But the downside is that the most design-conscious potential users are forced, for the sake of image quality, to suffer bulky, aesthetically unappealing form factors. For a 22-inch flat-screen CRT, the IBM C220p is not bad-looking (black being a slimming color even in monitors). It also has good image quality and is about half the price of a comparably sized LCD.

As you might expect from a monitor with a cathode-ray tube big enough for a 22-inch viewable area, baby got back. In fact, the IBM C220p weighs more than 67 pounds and measures 20.19 inches wide, 20.33 inches high, and 19.04 inches deep, yet it's surprisingly agile for its bulk. With most CRTs, adjusting the forward tilt and the side-to-side swivel requires considerable upper-body strength, but the C220p glides so smoothly on its base that you can tilt it back and forth and swivel it about 180 degrees with only the lightest touch. There's also a notch engraved in the base to help you line it up for optimum swivel range.

Four buttons on the C220p's bottom front bezel launch and navigate the onscreen menu (OSM). The buttons also serve as hot keys to switch between the D-Sub and DVI-A inputs (DVI-A cable is included) and control the brightness and contrast functions. The OSM is easy to navigate. All of the buttons have finger-size grooves in them for an easy fit, and one of the buttons is designated for exiting submenus, so you don't have to scroll around to exit the OSM. All of the menus in the OSM contain nontechnical explanations about each setting. For example, the Purity setting improves the image quality in the corners of the screen, and Convergence reduces colored shadows on letters or lines.