Bought this thing earlier today, literally only a few hours ago, so this will just be some first impressions to start with.
This is - as topic indicates - a 24" computer monitor, it uses white LED edge backlighting and has a stated full 8 bit per channel semi-glossy VA (Vertical Alignment) LCD panel built by...whomever. It also features:
This monitor is made of plastic. It's glossy black around the front, which looks nice if you like that sort of thing, but could look tacky to some. It also has a tendency to reflect light sources into the eyes of the user, which is kinda bad. The rear of the unit is mostly matte, but should be facing the wall in most cases.
The included stand is quite short in height, if you don't like looking down on your monitor you might get annoyed. That, or else you put something underneath, like a couple old phone books or something, as there's no height adjustment either.
...Correspondingly, you can't rotate the screen either, but there IS what appears a VESA-compatible set of holes on the back, meaning you could always use your own stand, one that has the adjustments you need.
The stand's built-in cable management clip is a bit of a joke too it might be added. It hardly lets a DVI connector through, and if filling up all the connectors it will get very crowded...
The LCD screen itself isn't totally glossy like an Apple device, but not fully matte either. It's sort of half-and-half. I myself like glossy because it really makes colors pop (and I'm smart enough to not try to use it with a spotlight shining over my shoulder), but I know many don't fancy glossy, so these people might only sorta hate this monitor.
Being VA, it features better color accuracy, viewing angles and contrast than the cheap and ubiqutous TN panel type, but also slower pixel response time. Noticably slower in fact, particulary on dark colors, where noticeable smearing occurs when gaming. If this bothers you, well, then you're in a bit of a bind as TN monitors are faster but give shite contrast in dark areas instead, so you're hardly any better off really!
I myself am not bothered by the smearing, I've played on much worse panels from years past than this one just fine. Also, the degree of ghosting varies a lot from game to game. A mostly bright and colorful - and very very fast-paced - title like Team Fortress 2 plays really well on this screen, I don't really notice any ghosting here. A darker game like Half-Life Ep. 2 reveals more artifacts, but it's still not an issue; the screen never becomes a mess.
Scrolling browser windows and other bright graphics did not reveal any truly noticeable ghosting. Text is sharp even while scrolling, and I can't really see any pixel overdrive artifacts either. There could be some extremely slight yellowing on changes from dark-to-white, but it could also be my imagination.
Viewing angles are pretty good. I don't know how true the claimed 178 degrees side-to-side or whatever might be (how do you determine that anyway? Colors and contrast shift gradually on LCDs, it's not as if there's a point where the screen just turns pitch black all of a sudden.) The image shifts more when moving your line of sight vertically than it does moving horizontally it seems to me. Just tilt the screen so it points straight at your face when sitting down in front of it, then you should be OK.
Windows Update can download the appropriate monitor .INF and color profile automatically, which is very convenient. Windows also identifies the USB hub automatically of course, and I am pleased to report that it works (tested with a HD webcam). You even get a USB A-to-B connection cable in the box so you can hook it up to the PC straight away, which is a nice bonus. It's kind of on the short side though, but what the hell. It's a freebie. There's also a VGA cable (of dubious quality no doubt), but no DVI or HDMI cable. You probably want to supply your own anyway.
The built-in sound system is strictly analog in nature (and undoubtedly extremely low quality and tinny in nature; I have not tested). It does not function as a USB or HDMI audio device. There's also no mic in/output, so hooking up a headset to the monitor is kinda pointless. The speaker grilles are naught but tiny holes located on the underside of the bezel, meaning it won't compromise the visuals of the unit, but it won't be doing the already most likely poor audio quality any favors either. Probably good for as a speaker for Skype calls or such, but hardly any more than that.
The monitor has several image processing presets, including "Standard", "Movie", "Gaming", "Photo" and "sRGB". The picture is very very bright on Standard setting. Colors are quite vivid. There's some banding visible on the level loading screen of Team Fortress 2, but I'm not sure if it's the panel or the artwork that causes it. sRGB setting is noticeably drab-er. Colors are more muted, and overall brightness is lower when all other settings (the few of them there are) kept identical. There's also an "eco" option that supposedly lowers power useage, but I could notice virtually no difference from sRGB from a visual standpoint so I don't know what real use it has, nor have I checked how much power it saves - if indeed any at all really. The unit doesn't even get warm to the touch after extended use in max-brightness Normal mode, so it's not hungry on juice even at max brightness.
The Gaming/Movie/Photo presets utilize dynamic contrast processing for a purported 20,000,000:1 contrast ratio. No, I'm not shitting you guys, it's what they actually say. It doesn't even need mentioning how untrue that particular claim is btw. Setting the screen to Gaming mode made the first title screen of HL:Ep.2 look VERY dark, and did not look good at all. I didn't test any further, but will in a bit.
"Standard" is from what I gather from the manual your everyday PC useage mode, it might actually even be better for gaming than the Gaming profile... sRGB is calibrated to try to match print, the manual says. Usually you want to set your computer screen to sRGB for the best color accuracy, but for this unit it makes the colors look fairly dull so I'm not so sure that's the best option here. I'd rather have more inaccurate but also more spectacular colors, than a more accurate, slight sepia/grey tint to everything...
There is also a toggle option in the on-screen menus called "ANA", which the manual describes as improving the gray-to-gray response time. Even with it on the monitor can't match a TN panel; I haven't tested properly yet with it disabled so I don't know if it makes any visible difference at all. It's probably very slight at best I would surmise.
Pluses:
Mehs:
Minuses:
This is - as topic indicates - a 24" computer monitor, it uses white LED edge backlighting and has a stated full 8 bit per channel semi-glossy VA (Vertical Alignment) LCD panel built by...whomever. It also features:
- VGA in
- DVI in
- HDMI in (x2)
- Analog audio in
- Stereo speakers @ 1.5W
- Headphones out (on left side of unit)
- Detachable headphones holder (on rear of unit)
- 4-port USB 2.0 hub (2 ports on back, 2 on left side)
- 8ms Grey-to-grey switching time (extremely bogus spec)
- Ridiculous stated dynamic contrast (also extremely bogus)
- Puny cable management system
This monitor is made of plastic. It's glossy black around the front, which looks nice if you like that sort of thing, but could look tacky to some. It also has a tendency to reflect light sources into the eyes of the user, which is kinda bad. The rear of the unit is mostly matte, but should be facing the wall in most cases.
The included stand is quite short in height, if you don't like looking down on your monitor you might get annoyed. That, or else you put something underneath, like a couple old phone books or something, as there's no height adjustment either.
...Correspondingly, you can't rotate the screen either, but there IS what appears a VESA-compatible set of holes on the back, meaning you could always use your own stand, one that has the adjustments you need.The stand's built-in cable management clip is a bit of a joke too it might be added. It hardly lets a DVI connector through, and if filling up all the connectors it will get very crowded...
The LCD screen itself isn't totally glossy like an Apple device, but not fully matte either. It's sort of half-and-half. I myself like glossy because it really makes colors pop (and I'm smart enough to not try to use it with a spotlight shining over my shoulder), but I know many don't fancy glossy, so these people might only sorta hate this monitor.
Being VA, it features better color accuracy, viewing angles and contrast than the cheap and ubiqutous TN panel type, but also slower pixel response time. Noticably slower in fact, particulary on dark colors, where noticeable smearing occurs when gaming. If this bothers you, well, then you're in a bit of a bind as TN monitors are faster but give shite contrast in dark areas instead, so you're hardly any better off really!
I myself am not bothered by the smearing, I've played on much worse panels from years past than this one just fine. Also, the degree of ghosting varies a lot from game to game. A mostly bright and colorful - and very very fast-paced - title like Team Fortress 2 plays really well on this screen, I don't really notice any ghosting here. A darker game like Half-Life Ep. 2 reveals more artifacts, but it's still not an issue; the screen never becomes a mess.
Scrolling browser windows and other bright graphics did not reveal any truly noticeable ghosting. Text is sharp even while scrolling, and I can't really see any pixel overdrive artifacts either. There could be some extremely slight yellowing on changes from dark-to-white, but it could also be my imagination.
Viewing angles are pretty good. I don't know how true the claimed 178 degrees side-to-side or whatever might be (how do you determine that anyway? Colors and contrast shift gradually on LCDs, it's not as if there's a point where the screen just turns pitch black all of a sudden.) The image shifts more when moving your line of sight vertically than it does moving horizontally it seems to me. Just tilt the screen so it points straight at your face when sitting down in front of it, then you should be OK.
Windows Update can download the appropriate monitor .INF and color profile automatically, which is very convenient. Windows also identifies the USB hub automatically of course, and I am pleased to report that it works (tested with a HD webcam). You even get a USB A-to-B connection cable in the box so you can hook it up to the PC straight away, which is a nice bonus. It's kind of on the short side though, but what the hell. It's a freebie. There's also a VGA cable (of dubious quality no doubt), but no DVI or HDMI cable. You probably want to supply your own anyway.
The built-in sound system is strictly analog in nature (and undoubtedly extremely low quality and tinny in nature; I have not tested). It does not function as a USB or HDMI audio device. There's also no mic in/output, so hooking up a headset to the monitor is kinda pointless. The speaker grilles are naught but tiny holes located on the underside of the bezel, meaning it won't compromise the visuals of the unit, but it won't be doing the already most likely poor audio quality any favors either. Probably good for as a speaker for Skype calls or such, but hardly any more than that.
The monitor has several image processing presets, including "Standard", "Movie", "Gaming", "Photo" and "sRGB". The picture is very very bright on Standard setting. Colors are quite vivid. There's some banding visible on the level loading screen of Team Fortress 2, but I'm not sure if it's the panel or the artwork that causes it. sRGB setting is noticeably drab-er. Colors are more muted, and overall brightness is lower when all other settings (the few of them there are) kept identical. There's also an "eco" option that supposedly lowers power useage, but I could notice virtually no difference from sRGB from a visual standpoint so I don't know what real use it has, nor have I checked how much power it saves - if indeed any at all really. The unit doesn't even get warm to the touch after extended use in max-brightness Normal mode, so it's not hungry on juice even at max brightness.
The Gaming/Movie/Photo presets utilize dynamic contrast processing for a purported 20,000,000:1 contrast ratio. No, I'm not shitting you guys, it's what they actually say. It doesn't even need mentioning how untrue that particular claim is btw.
Setting the screen to Gaming mode made the first title screen of HL:Ep.2 look VERY dark, and did not look good at all. I didn't test any further, but will in a bit."Standard" is from what I gather from the manual your everyday PC useage mode, it might actually even be better for gaming than the Gaming profile... sRGB is calibrated to try to match print, the manual says. Usually you want to set your computer screen to sRGB for the best color accuracy, but for this unit it makes the colors look fairly dull so I'm not so sure that's the best option here. I'd rather have more inaccurate but also more spectacular colors, than a more accurate, slight sepia/grey tint to everything...
There is also a toggle option in the on-screen menus called "ANA", which the manual describes as improving the gray-to-gray response time. Even with it on the monitor can't match a TN panel; I haven't tested properly yet with it disabled so I don't know if it makes any visible difference at all. It's probably very slight at best I would surmise.
Pluses:
- VA panel for better visual quality.
- Inputs. This monitor has mojo video inputs! All that's lacking is a displayport connector; component video is kind of obsolete these days so probably won't be missed by the vast majority of people (except those with ancient xbox 360s perhaps.)
- Brightness. These LEDs pack quite a wallop.
- Integrated USB hub.
- Price! This thing is pretty darn cheap, only TN shit can beat it; IPS monitors cost noticeably more and might not offer a compelling advantage for those who just surf or game rather than do video-related work on their PCs, esp. as IPS tends to be the slowest in pixel response time, and cheap IPS units probably don't offer the best quality level of panels anyway.
Mehs:
- No mic connectors.
- Cheap audio hardware.
- Flashcard reader could have been nice.
- A little thick. Maybe because VA could require more depth than TN.
Minuses:
- Glossy bezel. (If appliccable.)
- Semi-glossy panel. (If appliccable.)
- No height adjustment.
- No rotation.
- Sorta cheap, plasticy appearance.
- Very slow-responding on-screen menus.
