Adjustment and Performance

After getting everything up and running, the need to adjust any of the settings on this monitor other than brightness did not arise. Pressing the "I" button to auto adjust the screen to the current resolution is sufficient enough for most people. However, the options for those that like to perfect the display settings are all present and accounted for. The selections on the base menu from right to left are the brightness, contrast, color settings, OSD settings, other settings, input settings, and exit. Under color settings, the standard color temp settings such as 5500, 6500, and 9300 are present. In addition, there is a user color option where the ability to control individual color levels are available. After that, there are the OSD options, which include position, time out, transparency, color, language, and exit. Following the OSD options are the input settings which allow manual switching between Analog and Digital inputs on the fly. This is very useful for doubling up two computers on one monitor. Finally there is the Exit option and that is self clarifying.

Let's move on to performance, where the money is put to work.

With the computer booted up and the monitor installed through standard plug and play monitor support; everything seemed work with little effort other than plugging everything in. Windows automatically recognized the limitations of the monitor and noted the maximum resolution of 1440 x 900 at 60Hz. When changing resolution all you need to do is push the auto-configure button, if it doesn't perform it automatically, and you are ready to go. In the desktop world, everything worked and looked very well. For instance, the cells A through V in Excel are available at standard widths. There is adequate space for viewing two word documents at the same time or looking at two windows such as Firefox and word simultaneously. This is great for business and general research/school productivity. Another great desktop environment feature is the color accuracy and clarity on high quality still or non-dramatic motion and all of this right out of the box. 

Since the business side of performance is analyzed, games are next.  Games used to test the monitor are Test Drive: unlimited, Silverfall, UT2004, NVIDIA's 6800 ultra video showcase with nalu, and finally 3dmark 05. At this point, the problems with the D-sub's limited capability became readily apparent. In any scene that would have large amounts of motion and lighting changes, there would be subtle amounts of streaking and pixilation. This was very obvious when playing UT2004 and Test drive, which are both fast paced games where scenery flies past. In these situations, the monitor has trouble keeping up with fast paced areas causing streaking. Occasionally, it is bad enough to cause the whole monitor to streak across large rows of the LCD. It is beyond acceptable limits in the 3dmark test where the heavy machine gunner fires up his gun. The larger amounts of fluctuating light levels heavily task the monitor and it just can't keep up. After running into this issue, a DVI-D single link cable was used instead of the default. When a digital cable is used, there is far less streaking issues and made many of the games more than playable for this monitor's price range. 

Video performance is another plus to this monitor. When the performance compared with the price is analyzed, this monitor looks like an even better purchase. While watching several HD videos from documentaries to movie previews the performance issue with the D-sub is apparent again. Using the DVI-D SL greatly reduced pixilation and overall response time of the monitor. Watching the videos close on a desktop environment is acceptable with great brightness and good clarity. However, when you watch this screen from a few feet away, the pixilation and streaking is negligible. This works great as a secondary monitor for working and watching TV/movies at the same time.