We have an expansion project underway at work that will entail $2-2.5MM in capital outlay, and as such we are working quite extensively with outside engineering and contracting firms through drawings and plans as well as online meetings and the like. It came to my attention recently that our Engineering PC (that PC which houses all of our Engineering applications, drawings, etc.) was woefully out of date. It is pretty difficult to see your CAD drawings with any amount of detail on a 15" CRT monitor, for instance. We put in a request that was granted to update the Engineering workstation, and one of the first items on my list was a better monitor. In the past I had used a 21" CRT monitor for this application, but the large amount of heat that they put off as well as the massive amount of space that they take up forced me to take a look at a comparable screen size in LCD screens. As a 21"CRT only has about 20" viewable area, the 20" LCD's were pretty much a direct replacement…

I wanted a monitor that had both DVI and VGA inputs for maximum flexibility. The monitor should have a wide viewable area as there are numerous times where several folks will be hovering over the desk making changes on the fly. The brightness and contrast had to be sufficient to define the differences between the black background and white lines found often in the CAD drawings, and the response time should be low, as the 3-D walkthroughs can really ghost up a poor LCD screen. Finally, a thin bezel would be a plus, as at some point in the future a dual-screen system would be nice to have as well.

The ViewSonic VP201b LCD Monitor fit the bill perfectly. In addition meeting all of the above wants, there were a few 'extras' such as a 4-port USB hub, pivoting screen and wall-mountable frame. A rundown on the important specifications, from ViewSonic:

● Viewable area: 20.1"
● Brightness: 250 cd/m2
● Contrast Ratio: 400:1
● Response time: 16ms
● viewing angles: 176 degrees both horizontal and vertical
● Optimum Resolution 1600 x 1200 pixels
● 4 USB ports (cable included)
● ThinEdge Ultra-Thin Bezel; 0.67" edge ideal for multiple monitors
● Weighs only 18.7 lbs with stand!
● 17.6" W X 18.9" H X 10.5" D with stand
● 17.6" W X 13.6" H X 2.8" D without stand
● 15 pin VGA and DVI connector (cables included)
● Height adjustable stand
● Pivot option supported for PC's; not supported for MAC

Out of the Box

This monitor is a beauty, let me tell you. After arriving onsite, we pulled it from the secure box and assembled the unit, connecting the monitor the two piece height-adjustable stand. The stand itself is a fairly solid affair, round in nature with two legs extending forward and to the sides to distribute the weight and create a sturdy platform for the display. Along the back of the stand are three 'rungs' that you can snake your wires through to keep them organized, and we have the power, USB communication and VGA cable pulled through these.

The monitor itself is sharp looking with minimal decoration, mainly due to the fact that this would detract from the experience when in multi-monitor array. There are five buttons along the front and bottom bezel, those being power, plus, minus and up down. In the lower left corner is a silver ViewSonic emblem while the upper left has the three birds. The bezel is very thin all the way around, allowing the user with lots o' cash to set up one of these if they so desire:

http://store.viewsonic.com/OA_MEDIA/vsc/products/LCDMount/quad_300x300.jpg

Yee Hoo, wouldn't it be nice? In our case, that alone would have taken all the funding for the complete workstation, so we stuck with one single monitor.

The power cable, USB cables and video connections all connect just under the connection between the stand and the flat panel, tucked behind the monitor. One good thing about this is that the power adapter is built into the screen casing, so there is no wall wart or power brick to work around. One bad thing about it, if you don't plug your USB peripherals in at the time of purchase, it can be very difficult indeed to use them. Granted, a USB mouse or receiver for a Wireless mouse would work great here, but for USB Flash Memory drives or anything else that you insert and remove frequently, this is a pain. Perhaps in the next iteration ViewSonic will choose to move at least two (if not all four) to the side panel or front, although this would screw up the multi-panel option.

Once we had the LCD plugged in and ready to power up, we loaded the drivers and adjusted the graphics card resolution to the native 1600 X 1200 that the VP201b likes so much. I had forgotten how much I liked the larger screens; it is hard to come home to my mere 17" Samsung again! The On Screen Display is fairly intuitive, and we discovered the auto-adjust feature quickly. The LCD adjusted all parameters, and it looked good. No need to adjust at all. If we did need to adjust for our particular setting, it is relatively simple change the contrast, brightness, input selection, color adjustment, and picture adjustment including position and size. One thing I found early on is that the user can turn off the automatic resolution notifier that will pop up if the resolution is turned down from 1600 X 1200. Our Process Control program uses 1024 X 768 exclusively, so to fill the screen I will change the profile to one that has the res set at this. Having the ability to turn off the annoying notifier is a godsend some days.

In Use

We bought this unit to allow us to run 3-D simulations and walk throughs as well as view large CAD drawings with fairly good detail. This monitor may actually be overkill for this application, but the price was right for us. The height adjustable stand allows the monitor to travel approximately 4" vertically, allowing for persons with quite a difference in height to use the monitor ergonomically. The pivoting capability is something that works, and works well so long as the drivers are set up for it. Most newer ATI or NVIDIA cards have the functionality built in, so you will not have to add any proprietary driver per se. We don't really use the pivot function on this PC all that often, but it is nice to know that it is there. Just be aware of which direction you wrapped the cords around the base column, as pivoting away from this will put undue strain on the connections. The monitor can tilt forward, and backward and from side to side as well.

The viewing angles on this screen are amazing. We can have a large number of folks standing at various heights and angles to the monitor and still see the image clearly. There will be more distortion as you come almost even with the monitor from the side, but other than that you will be able to make out the image quite well. When you have local management, a CAD designer, two engineers and the construction general as well as subcontractor foreman standing around, all can see any changes to as-builts as they are rendered. This is great!

This monitor may actually be designed for gaming, as a 16ms response time on a 1600 X 1200 resolution screen would be great to pair up with a top-of-the-line graphics engine and today's hottest games. Since I use this at work, I haven't loaded any games on the system, but I have slipped a few movies in and watched them to judge ghosting effects. Judgement? There just aren't any. Watching a movie with some very bright areas and dark patches in succession (such as The Matrix) will tell you if there is any ghosting at all. Another quick test is to open a word document with black text on a white background and quickly scroll up or down. If the response time is low, the pixels turn off and on fast enough that you do not see a 'smear' effect of the text running down the page. With some 25ms and higher response times I have noted the ghosting effect, and it never bodes well for gaming or video viewing. This monitor has no problems whatsoever. As a matter of fact, ViewSonic claims that the ClearMotiv technology enables digital HD quality full motion video at 62.5 fps. I don't have any HD feeds, so I can't confirm or deny this, but it is supposedly ready for 480p and 720p HDTV.

Text and graphics jump off the screen at you, or so it seems. The 250 nit brightness seems typical of today's LCD's while the 400:1 contrast ratio may be about average. However, setting this next to an IBM 17" LCD in the office with a 600:1 contrast ratio yields no noticeable difference in looks, at least to me. The screen is bright enough, and the contrast is great, even under the auto-adjusted settings.

Support

ViewSonic has a pretty poor dead pixel policy, so you should keep that in mind as you weigh the benefits of this monitor. According to Newegg.com (where I bought this for $659) the dead pixel policy is a replacement or refund for 8 or more dead pixels. Many manufacturers have policies of 3 or 5, and you need to understand that you must have 8 or more dead spots on your monitor before they will even talk to you. This fact alone is what dropped my rating of this screen from a 5-star rating to a 4-star rating. Aside from this, ViewSonic offers a 3 year warranty with this monitor. Also available in the support section is a monitor calibration guide and some Frequently Asked Questions and Answers. Also available are user guides and driver/software packages for download…

Overall

Overall, we have been very pleased with this monitor. The great viewing angles allow for multiple people collaborating on a single computer for as-builts, etc. The fast response time means that we can smoothly run our 3-D walkthroughs of the system, and the large size means eye strain is a thing of the past while examining and approving CAD Drawings. For a state of the art system, you need a state of the art display, and the ViewSonic VP201b Flat Panel Monitor fits the bill nicely.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 659`
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh