Source: Tom's Hardware UK – Keywords: Monitors, Displays
Categories: Hardware
Acer Al2416w
Acer wanted to be simple with this LCD monitor and the result is an overly simplistic monitor. It sounds ideal on paper and the performances seem to be first rate, and it’s for sale at only €600. So is it better than the Dell? We’re not so sure.
Design and finish Let’s start with the flaws. The screen seems to have a basic finish. The plastics are quite grainy and the assembly could be better. Can we just chalk this up to its price tag or do we deserve more for our money? The answer is that we deserve more. Read on to see why.
Equipment Acer has gotten rid of the DVI plug, and so you’re left with only a VGA plug. We should say that anyone hoping for a multi-feature monitor should probably just forget about it. This device will be exclusively used for one task. Naturally you can connect it to a PC, or even an Xbox360 (but only after you’ve picked up a 360 to VGA cable cable). So, you can watch HD-DVDs with the console, again provided you have the necessary leads. This setup isn’t really all that popular though…
The colours are correct by default but the settings are pretty rudimentary. The display only has three tuning modes; ‘warm’, ‘clear’ and ‘user’. Basically, if you’re a photographer, don’t bother. The ‘warm’ setting is perfectly set at 6500K, but there’s a not-quite-negligible green dominance. The ‘clear’ setting is (strangely enough) set to 8400K and is useless. To get decent colouring, the ideal is still manual tuning. This one isn’t very hard to set up properly; a combination of red =99, green= 99, blue=100 should be satisfactory.
Once properly tuned, the monitor finally offers good performance. It’s even better than the LG monitor in the dark.
Here again, the screen was built for video playback, with a brightness that’s just too strong. For long hours of work in front of your PC, we recommend a particularly low brightness setting (around 10%). The contrast is correct every way. When we tested it with the Gretag Eye-one Display 2 the Acer screen showed itself to be completely compatible with the standard.
- Previous page Lg L245WP Contd
- Next page Acer Al2416w Contd.
- Four Wide Screen 19" Monitors Compared
- Realistically Augmented 2D? The Neurok Optics 17" 3D LCD Monitor
- The Westinghouse LVM-47w1 1080p LCD Monitor
- NEC develops system-on-glass LCD modules
- Canon and Toshiba highlight 55" SED TV at FPD International
- Wide Format LCD Monitors: Part 2
- 20" LCD Monitors: XXL Displays
- Asus PW191 LCD: Looks Can Deceive
- 19" LCD Monitors: The Spring 2006 Collection
- Is the Acer F20 the Ferrari of LCD Monitors?
- What size TV do you use to play classic games?
- Are disk bearings really harmed by spin-up?
- Dell 20" widescreen LCDs
- How to make my 8200 multi-headed
- configuring a GX620
- How do I adjust monitor color in Windows? New monitor is p..
- Are monitor drivers necessary? Buying new monitor for Wind..
- 21.6" BenQ G2110W vs. 19" Asus VW198T
- Samsung SyncMaster225BW display problem
- Glossy Screen LCD's
s/HDPC/HDCP/. Speaking of which, "tomshardware.co.uk/membres"? I don't *think* I'm French.
"It also eliminates the screens smaller than 23” as they don’t feature a resolution compatible with Full-HD (better than to 1920 x 1080)."
Actually, Lenovo's L220x is a 22" 1920x1200 panel. The extra 2" of saved desk space matters if you have to fit it on your desk with another five monitors, or if you want to mount it beside a CRT of similar height. Bigger is probably better in a television, of course - and it's around the same price as 24" panels (at least, those with DVI), so you're not saving anything but space. I believe it also has issues with scaling, if not as badly as the first batch of 30" panels. It might be an interesting option for some readers, though - I was looking at one as a 1600SW replacement.
You can also get Viewsonic's 23" VP231WB WUXGA panel, but it's very expensive. I'm ignoring QWUXGA panels, too. None of these support HDCP.
Lets get one thing straight you don't need HDCP to watch Blu-Ray and HD-DVD from a PC. DVI will be sufficient. Maybe just if you're Vista!!
There is no colour gamut for the Dell... Whoops!!
I personally would like to see some higher end 24" monitors added into the mix... Is it really worth those extra bucks to get a better (wider) colour gamut?? For example I have my eye on:
BENQ FP241VW
Which is a lot more expensive then the monitors reviewed here... But a TFT should last years and years (if it is turned off to save the backlight)... So surely it is worth spending more on a monitor than computer parts that will be obsolete after a few months!!
Lets at least revisit 24" monitors with a review of the high end in the near future please!! THG simply do the best reviews of TFTs on the web. However what happened to the latency response graphs you used to publish?
Bob
Um, you don't need HDCP to watch high definition video *until* the image constraint tag is turned on. At which point you need a secure end-to-end system (which at one point meant specifically the 64-bit version of Vista, if you're on a PC), or a legally dubious crack of the system. Maybe the ICT never will be turned on (for discs - I believe you need it already if you want to plug a Sky box into it). Regardless of my feelings about HDCP and DRM in general, exacerbated by owning several monitors capable of full HD without any HDCP support, I'd be biased towards monitors with it for the premise of this article.
A wider colour gamut isn't necessarily a good thing for HDTV - so long as you can express the whole range of colours encoded in the standards, extra gamut just stretches the digital pixel levels further apart with some of the extreme values unused and makes calibration harder. This assumes you're trying to set up the HDTV to look as near to the specification as possible rather than shooting for extra-vibrant. The same isn't so true for colour-managed applications with wide gamut printing, so I won't turn down an Eizo CG221 (another WUXGA <24" monitor) for Photoshop work if someone offers it to me...
I've always been a little wary of black frame insertion (not that I've ever seen it in action, but one thing in favour of LCDs is the lack of flicker). The FP241VW looks interesting, though. I'd like to see a round-up of the high end too - perhaps getting to the bottom of exactly what Toshiba are offering with their apparently rebadged T221?
Incidentally, a friend is standing by the strategy of using a decent CRT (e.g. a GDM-FW900) as a desktop HDTV. It would be interesting to compare one with these flat panels, especially given the going rate for one on eBay.
Bob's right, though - THG monitor reviews are always worth reading. Here's hoping for more!
i had two days to enter this site and when i did i thought something was going wrong with the explorer.
very good stockselling review. i believe you couldn't find older monitors in the market for sure.
and the prices you mention ... even in Greece these monitors are cheaper.
and what happened with all the amd reviews? and this, amd that, even OUR OWN SILENT HTPC is amd.
i don't have a problem with amd i'll buy a pundit p2-m2a690g and an athlon x2 4200 next week, i just try to understand what's going on here.
It is a pity that the featured DELL 2407WFP monitor is discontinued by dell :-(
Never mind the FP241VW, why leave out the Benq FP241W? Consistently rated higher than all of the other monitors here, even though it was the first to offer HDMI connection, and available for £434. I have one and it's ace, I haven't been able to compare it with any other monitor though.
I was disappointed with this review. Most of the pages seemed muddled, graphs weren't in the right places and only 4 reviewed? This is the first monitor review in over 6 months on THG. There have been literally hundreds of new monitors of all sizes and this is all we get? And to omit the BenQ FP241W was a mistake surely?
I want to buy a quality 24" monitor when I upgrade my PC as my old Iiyama VM Pro 454 is beginning to die a death. Please can we see some of the higher end stuff reviewed. Better still, can we actually see some more monitors reviewed?!
More information for this topic see at http://fileshunt.com. Maybe it will change your point of view.
If you can search
http://fileshunt.com
what is going on at Tomshardware?
I agree with Stoppem, this review looks like an early beta version that was never finished...
Tomshardware used to be the prime place to go find out about monitors. It seems you've folded down to automated syndication of various tech news, and your reviews are done by unpaid inturns who don't really feel like it!
That there's no roundup of 22" monitors is just beyond me...
You guys need reviewers / writers? send me a message, cause this is pathetic.
If 17" laptops can have 1920 x 1200 displays, why do we have to go to 24" for desktop monitors?