- Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 4 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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4.5 stars
"Absolutely perfect monitor for gaming and movie watching"
Pros: Rich and vibrant color, good brightness and sharp looks
Cons: The shiny black frame can be a bit of a fingerprint magnet, and it lacks HDMI input
Summary: All in all, this monitor does what I want it to. It delivers great images and doesn't break the bank. Besides the usual benefits of a 22in widescreen LCD, this monitor excels in a few areas. First, it's very bright. In fact I had to tone the brightness down considerably because desert and tropical locations in Age of Conan were absolutely blinding at times. The monitor also does well on giving deep blacks, beating out most similar monitors I see by far. The glossy screen really helps bring out vibrant colors and the Magicolor setting which can be quickly turned on and off allows for even more vibrant color. The downside to the Magicolor setting is that you really lose color accuracy and the ability to distinguish between subtly different levels of black and white. It also makes the monitor far too bright for general usage such as reading text on web pages. That said, it's great to have on while watching movies and playing games. Response time is great, just like the response time on any modern monitor. Ghosting is pretty much a thing of the past with LCDs these days. The monitor lacks HDMI, which really should be present, but I find it a small flaw given that the machine is just connected to my PC anyways.
Aside from functionality, I find that this monitor looks very nice. It's black, shiny and has a stylish shape that all combine to really improve the aesthetics of my computer area versus my old monitor. Usually this isn't something I care about since I'm more concerned with function, but I must say this screen really goes above and beyond for looks.
This monitor is by no means perfect for everyone. The glossy screen can produce bad glaring in rare lighting circumstances. It's a problem that I think is often overstated given that many laptops have glossy screens these days (for whatever reason) and people never complain about them despite traveling all over to different places with very diverse lighting situations. It's also not what you should be looking at if you have use for HDMI input (obviously) and I would echo the words of the editor that the Dell 2208WFP is probably for you if that's the case. I personally preferred this over the Dell monitor just for the fact that you can run over to your local retailer and buy it rather than having to order it by mail.
