Planar PX2411W

It’s easy to be seduced by the sheer size of a 24-inch LCD screen—any display that big just looks like it means business. And there was a time when large LCD panels were almost exclusively high-performance parts. That’s no longer the case. As the 24-inch LCDs reviewed here demonstrate, large screens are just as varied and prone to flaws as their smaller counterparts.

It’s got the same screen size and resolution as Westy’s LCD, but Planar’s PX2411W is clearly intended strictly for desktop use. Its plain, flat-black aesthetic is very office-appropriate, inputs are limited to DVI and VGA, and HDCP is not available through the digital interface, so you’ll have to watch protected content over VGA.

You can’t even play games on the PX2411W. Well you can, but you might be put off by the periodic hitch in the picture when the screen is displaying motion at a high frame rate. When we saw this issue in an HP LCD (September 2006), it was attributed to the panel’s limited v-sync variance. Whatever the cause, it’s a flaw we can’t ignore. And the same goes for the ghosting we observed in areas of high contrast.

So it’s of little use to us that the PX2411W offers some convenient features, such as a telescoping neck for height adjustment and a variety of OSD options. Or that it performed passably in DisplayMate and functions acceptably for web surfing, movie viewing, and other typical screen tasks. You’re better off with one of the other two LCDs, which happen to cost less.