X-bit labs

22" Monitors Roundup: Part 1 (page 15)

Category: Other

by Oleg Artamonov

[ 08/12/2007 | 08:53 PM ]

Conclusion

The conclusion to my today’s tests is not an encouraging one. There is none among the half a dozen 22” monitors I have tested that does not have this or that serious drawback.

First of all, monitors with this screen diagonal are currently produced with TN matrixes only. It means that if you want a monitor with really large viewing angles you’ll have to consider 20-21” or 23-24” models.

Secondly, all the manufacturers released 22” monitors without response time compensation at first (monitors with this screen diagonal have appeared but recently, so the tested monitors mostly belong to the first wave of such products). They have a specified response time of 5 milliseconds as measured according to the ISO 13406-2 standard, i.e. on a black-white transition. Such matrixes are actually not very fast and have an average response of 15-17 milliseconds with a maximum of over 30 milliseconds. This makes them less suitable for dynamic games.

And finally, all the tested models have gross problems with color reproduction setup. TN matrixes are not actually meant for professional work with images, yet I think a home monitor must deliver true-to-life colors instead of queerly shaped gamma curves and a color temperature dispersion of 2000-3000K.

These drawbacks may be corrected in later revisions of the reviewed models and there’ll be leaders and outsiders then, but so far I have to confess that none of them is free from defects.

Choosing from the available products, the Dell E228WFP and Samsung SyncMaster 225BW look best among RTC-less models (such models are limited to text processing tasks and suit but poorly for games). They are neat and nice-looking, with convenient ergonomics and acceptable setup quality.

If you want to have a home monitor capable of handling dynamic games, you may want to consider the two models on fast matrixes, LG Flatron L226WTQ and Samsung SyncMaster 226BW. The former might be called the leader among the two if it were not for its high level of RTC errors. Its excellent speed is accompanied with strong visual artifacts you can easily see not only in games but also at everyday work. The SyncMaster 226BW has a worse color reproduction setup but it can be corrected more or less successfully by tweaking the settings of the monitor and graphics card whereas the problem with strong RTC artifacts cannot be solved. That’s why the model from Samsung is preferable to the Flatron.