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ViewSonic VX2240w

David Murphy — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:00:00 -0500

ViewSonic’s VX2240w is unwatchable at its factory default setting—the screen’s brightness is cranked beyond the point of acceptable image quality. Fortunately, we were able to tweak the display’s settings to produce an image that was at least similar in quality to the Gateway HD2201’s. While the VX2240 matched the HD2201 tit for tat in its ability to produce lighter shades of gray on a solid white background, the former exhibited better color saturation in the lighter shade levels.

Something unusual happens when you adjust this monitor’s coloration options.

Flesh tones on the VX2240 appeared more lifelike compared to those of the HD2201, and the former even offers two additional color temperature settings for picture customization. This monitor displayed no banding issues and only a few color tracking discrepancies on the most demanding black-to-white gradients, but it does suffer from a critical flaw.

When you change its color temperature, the VX2240w is sometimes unable to produce its full range of dark or light contrasts. This sucks the quality out of a normal picture, but flipping the display on and off brings back normal settings. Still, it’s the kiss of death for the VX2240w.

Envision G2219w1

David Murphy — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:00:00 -0500

We are ashamed to have mentally cast off Envision’s G2219w1 at first glance because it looked like a budget monitor. It’s budget in price only, for this 22-inch display offers exceptional picture quality for its class.

We would ask that subsequent versions of the G2219w1 address
the limited space between the display’s stand and its DVI connector.

It wasn’t perfect, though—Envision’s display didn’t reach the same level of gray detail at the dark end of the grayscale as Gateway’s, but it was extremely close. Envision’s display beat out Gateway’s at the light end of the spectrum by, again, a very close margin.

Given their relative similarity in black-and-white gradients, we didn’t expect to see a huge difference in the monitors’ respective color saturations. But the G2219w1 was able to display a full range of lighter colors against a white background far better than the HD2201. The latter showed acceptable performance on its blue and red shades and completely crapped out with its greens.

Given its strong DisplayMate performance, we expected the G2219w1 to perform well with real-world content. And it did. While the overall color saturation was stronger on the G2219w1 than the HD2201, the latter brought out additional detail and improved coloration in darker scenes. For example, we’d much prefer the HD2201’s picture when staring at the murky steps at the beginning of BioShock, but we’d take the G2219w1’s depiction of the flames in the game’s opening scene any day.

No banding or color-tracking issues popped up in our tests, nor did the display suffer from any image ghosting or other abnormalities in our real-world tests. But we did encounter a frustrating problem with the display’s DVI input. Due to the proximity of the port to the display’s base, it was difficult to attach a DVI cable to the monitor. It wasn’t enough to reduce our appreciation of this display’s overall prowess, however. We place this monitor above the Gateway HD2201 in overall quality. It’s not a perfect 22-inch display, but it’s the best one we’ve ever tested.

Gateway HD2201

David Murphy — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:00:00 -0500

We want to like this monitor, but too many issues stand in the way.

In DisplayMate, Gateway’s HD2201 consistently reproduced dark grayscale values, pushing out more dark shades of gray against a black background than we typically find from monitors of its class. The same can’t be said of the HD2201’s merely average ability to reproduce light shades of gray against white.

Were it not for the HD2201’s glossy panel, we don’t think we’d be as impressed with this monitor’s picture.

When tasked with reproducing DisplayMate’s more demanding grayscale ranges, the HD2201’s performance was marred by banding, in which dark lines of compression disrupted what should be a smooth, contiguous transition. Mild color-tracking issues were also evident in these scenarios. This problem makes shades of gray take on a subtle red, green, or blue hue at random intervals. And like Planar’s 22-inch LCD, the HD2201’s grays are tinted warm by default, in both DisplayMate and real-world environments.

The display’s deficiencies resulted in diminished detail in brighter scenes, such as the flaming wreckage of BioShock’s opening segment. Still, the HD2201’s contrast, colors, and detail shine in darker scenes—thanks to an assist from the display’s glossy panel. Such screens tend to produce richer colors and a deeper black than matte panels, and the HD2201 is no exception.

The monitor is laden with connection options, though it lacks optimized presets for different multimedia content.
Even given its technical failings, the HD2201’s splendid darker coloration and input options are enough to squeak it past displays like Planar’s PL2210MW—but barely so.

Planar PL2210MW

David Murphy — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:00:00 -0500

Planar’s PL2210MW display is a classic representation of your average 22-inch display—a 6-bit TN panel that bears the mediocre image quality of that class. In DisplayMate, the 1680x1050 display’s grayscale range was acceptable, although it fell apart at the light end in both the grayscale test and when the screen was tasked with producing very light colors against a white background.

The bare-bones PL2210MW isn’t much to look at when it’s off. It isn’t much to look at when it’s on, either.

More frustrating, the PL2210MW was unable to produce a solid black or white that wasn’t tinged with gray. The display’s grayscale gradients also feature an unwelcome yellow tint that showed up in the grays of our real-world tests.

We didn’t experience any issues with the PL2210MW in our gaming tests, save for the contrast and saturation lapses previously mentioned. These problems hurt the display as a movie-watching platform, as a number of scenes just couldn’t achieve the true black they demanded. Color reproduction on our high-definition photos was of average quality. While we weren’t unhappy with the results, we’ve tested a number of other monitors that produce more color and vibrancy in our test images.

We were troubled by the display’s anemic speakers and lack of onscreen display options for audio configuration. We’d rather do without the subpar attempt and pay less for the product. With support for only DVI and VGA inputs, the PL2210MW stands solidly in the middle of the pack.