Envision EN2028

It’s not surprising that the EN2028 falls on the lower end of the pricing scale, because it offers less. Its cabinet is certainly no-frills. A hinged neck allows you to lower the screen by as much as three inches, making the bottom bezel flush with your desktop, but it’s not possible to swivel the screen from side to side or flip it into a portrait orientation. However, if portability is an issue, the EN2028 folds back upon its base for easy transport.

Inputs consist of a VGA and DVI port. The OSD provides control over the separate red, green, and blue color sliders, in addition to brightness and contrast controls. But the EN2028’s picture had weaknesses we couldn’t fix by these means. In DisplayMate, the monitor was able to produce very dark grays against a decent black background, as well as light grays against white. But compared with the other monitors in our April roundup, the EN2028’s white looked muddy, tending toward gray. And no tweaking could change that. Furthermore, the EN2028 showed slight color-tracking errors in DM’s grayscale screens, and was unable to produce a perfectly continuous grayscale of more than 85 steps. Combined, these flaws manifest in a picture that’s comparatively dull and flat.

What’s more, we observed significant ghosting in our game tests. (Interestingly, all of the LCDs in this roundup are spec’d with an 8ms response time.) If you’re looking to save money, there are plenty of 19-inch LCDs that cost the same, or less, and offer much better image quality: Samsung’s 940BF comes to mind.

Month Reviewed: April 2006

+ LOOKING GLASS: Inexpensive.

- LICKING GLASS: Lacks ergo options; poor image quality.

VERDICT: 5

URL: www.envisiondisplay.com