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5 out of 7 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Not perfect, but pretty good"
Pros: Good performance; very affordable widescreen
Cons: Only RGB/DVI connections; No height adjustment; some 'screendoor' in corners
Summary: I just upgraded from a 17" Viewsonic P-Series CRT to to this display which seemed to be the most affordable widescreen in the 19"-20" area. I was unfamiliar with Viewsonic's VX high-speed line and also consitered their VP920b 'square' display.
I gave it the rounds last night playing Halo, Fable, Ultima Online and some general web browsing.
Compared to my 17" CRT at 1024x768 there is TONS of desktop space with this panel. The native resolution is so fine (1680x1050) that default text can be difficult to read at a reasonable distance (and I have good vision). But contrast and image quality is quite good, though color reproduction isn't quite as good as my CRT was. On a pure black screen you notice some screen-door effect (ie light coming through causing poor black performance) in the corners. But it's about on par with other LCDs I've used.
This screen has a heavy fixed base and you can't adjust the height short of putting something under the base, but it does tilt.
Also there are only VGA and DVI connections on the back panel. So no composite, SVid, component, HDMI, and no USB hub which seem common on wide displays now.
3D games just looked phenominal. It was like going from 27" TV to my 42" plasma all over again. Landscapes were flawless and moved very smoothly across the entire screen. Ultima Online and other fixed-size Flash, etc. games were quite diminished by the high-resolution. For example, UO's gameplay window which is a fixed 800x600 square looks quite small, and using non-native resolutions to increase size (obviously) greatly deteriorate quality.
Video playback performance was pretty good but I did notice some flicker on the vertical edges of the video playback area (using WMP playing a DVD).
- 2 replies to this review
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Your review was very detailed and good but the results also depend on the graphics card you use and the hardware setup of your computer. Anything high definition or digital requires more power, performance and resources. So keep that in mind.
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Decent review, but dude, if you're going to use a term like 'screen door effect,' at least know what it means first.
Backlight bleeding through the LCD panel and creating bright spots on a blacked screen is just that: backlight bleed. Undesirable, yes. Screen door, no.
Screen door effects result from pixel borders' inability to broadcast even light levels compared to the rest of the pixel. The dark borders run together to create a grid-like overlay on the image, similar to what you see when looking through a screen door, hence the name.
Read up some.. http://www.hifi-writer.com/he/video/screendoor.htm
