Great LCD!
Written: Mar 15 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Low refresh time, Viewsonic quality, multiple inputs
Cons: No height adjustment (common complaint)
The Bottom Line: Great monitor. Relatively inexpensive. Would by again and recommend to anyone
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| voodoohellfire's Full Review: ViewSonic VA1912wb (Black) 19" LCD Monitor |
My wife and I bought this monitor to replace our 20" CRT monitor and so far it's a great replacement. Our reasons for replacing were mostly I wanted to and the sheer size of the CRT made it so you had to 'sit back' away from the desk because you were literally on top of it if you didn't. Hopefully this 'review' will help anyone looking for a good, relatively inexpensive LCD monitor.
One of the big reasons for picking this monitor over the many out there is the widescreen format. For some reason, there seems to be a premium being placed on these right now, and the only thing I can think of is the supply/demand issue. I personally think that widescreen will become the standard down the road, but there are some things with computers that take forever to change (floppy drive anyone?). I'll admit, when we first fired up the monitor, the widescreen display took a bit to get used to, after staring at a 'box' for so long, but it seems natural very quickly.
The second 'big reason' was the refresh time on this monitor. From 'gray to gray' is 8ms. For those that are technically minded you probably understood that. For those that aren't, here's a quick explanation. On CRT monitors, the entire 'picture' on your screen is redrawn a certain amount of times per second (measured in Hertz). Typically, the higher the amount, at the higher resolutions, the better. With LCD, the lower the amount of time to 'refresh' individual pixels, the better the monitor. Lower times mean less 'ghosting' or 'trails' as you move the mouse or play games or watch videos and things move.
I tested the refresh time by loading up Half-Life 2 and experienced no ghosting at all, and the display ran fine, with no 'hiccups' at all. I also tested it by bringing up my 'Pirates of the Carribean' DVD, and the display looked great.
I would give 2 cautions with this monitor. Whenever the resolution is switched out of it's native (which is 1440 x 900), it tells you via a On Screen Display that the best resolution is the native one. Slightly annoying, but able to be turned off via the monitor's menu. I had seen this complaint in other reviews prior to buying it, but no one had actually mentioned the fix. The second caution is blacks on this monitor. Dark movies or dark games don't show 'true black'. It gets very close, but not true black. The only way to get that is to turn it off. It's not really an issue with this monitor, it's an issue with LCD's in general. Since there is a 'backlight' so you can actually see everything it displays, blacks are really dark, but not truly black. Try holding a flashlight behind a black sheet and you'll get an idea.
Overall, great monitor..very happy with it, and really happy with the much increased desk space we have gained.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 299
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
voodoohellfire
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Reviews written: 1
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