Great bang for the buck, but not without issues
Written: Sep 10 '04 (Updated Sep 13 '04)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Bright, sharp, lots of contrast, great value, 19" viewable area equals a 21" CRT.
Cons: Colour accuracy.
The Bottom Line: Buy this LCD because it suits your requirements, and you won't be disappointed.
|
|
|
| trohricht's Full Review: BenQ FP951 19 inch LCD Monitor |
Let's face it, the days of the CRT monitor are numbered. They're heavy, they guzzle electricity, they spew radiation, they flicker, they fall out of adjustment over time, they age and lose their brilliance. In short, CRTs are old technology, and it's only a matter of time before they are replaced entirely by the emerging breed of inexpensive, reliable LCD flat panels.
The BenQ FP951 is a classic example of technology costs coming down over time while capabilities increase. At 19" this is the biggest screen that can be considered "mainstream" in the current market (though I suspect the next few years will see 21" and maybe even 24" flat panel prices drop to consumer levels). Considering the FP951 retails for around CDN$700 right now, the specs are nothing short of amazing. But specs do not tell the whole story as I found out, and while I am still pleased with my purchase of this monitor I definitely think it is more appropriate for some uses than for others.
This review
In this review I am going to talk about the FP951 as it relates to my own personal requirements. I own a small graphic design studio, so my time is spent either on tedious administrative work or tedious graphic design work. I do not play games (let alone first person shooters or fast action games) and I do not watch videos on this PC. Gaming and video are major components of the monitor-buying process for many, many consumers. This review comments on neither.
I will also mention the equipment driving the display: a Matrox G450 dual-head card with 32MB. The FP951 is DVI-capable (in fact it has dual inputs that you can switch between) but I am not driving it with a DVI signal. Matrox is considered to produce some of the finest video cards available for picture quality and graphic display, but with the current setup we are still taking a digital video signal, converting it to analog in the Matrox RAMDACs, and then converting back to digital for display inside the FP951. No matter how clean the process some information will be distorted or lost.
The specifications and the company
Taken from http://www.benq.ca/english/wm/front/benqmain.asp?MenuHead=131&ShowType=program&FileURL=product.asp&Dataid=10671&GenMenu=&RootId=undefined
- Ultra-slim Bezel Design
- 1280x1024 Max Resolution
- 250 cd/m2 High Brightness
- 700:1 Ultrahigh Contrast Ratio
- Super-wide 170/170 Viewing Angle
- 25ms Response Time
- One-touch iKey Auto Calibration
- Dual D-sub/DVI inputs
BenQ really seems to be on a roll lately. In less than five years they have gone from complete obscurity (at least here in the Canadian market) to releasing some of the top-rated devices in their category, particularly DVD writers. While this is encouraging, it means there is little track record to follow when assessing BenQ as a company. Do they make reliable product and honour their warranty obligations? Beats me. This monitor is the first BenQ product I've owned. It's the first BenQ owned by anybody I know.
Setup and ergonomics
The box contains all the necessary cables and documentation. The AC transformer is a small "brick" type with a thin power cable that plugs into the back edge of the bottom of the monitor. Ports for DVI and VGA are also located here. The stand is simple and allows for a decent range of motion. The FP951 is wall-mount capable if desired.
It took me longer to set up the monitor than I'd hoped, because my Matrox PowerDesk software seemed confused by the .icm monitor profile provided by BenQ. I had trouble setting my display properties for 1280x1024 @24bit, and had to tweak things and restart the software a few times before the settings "took." I don't know whether to blame this on the .icm supplied by BenQ, or maybe some temporary flakiness in the PowerDesk settings. In any case, once it was solved everything worked fine and the "AutoAdjust" key on the FP951 works well to eliminate artifacts and maximize display quality from whatever signal is provided.
The onscreen menu does the expected things in the expected way. There is an option to manually adjust the RGB channels as I discuss further below. One handy feature is that the "input priority" item (which allows you to switch between DVI and D-Sub input) is accessible by pressing the "exit" key just once ... a big help for those who want to flip back and forth between two signal sources.
Daily use
I purchased the FP951 to replace an aging 21" CRT, and the difference is truly stunning. Crisp display, colour saturation, and brightness are the greatest inherent strengths of LCDs, and the FP951 does not disappoint. In truth, the monitor is too bright for my uses. I have been forced to "deaden" the Windows 2000 monitor profile using Adobe Gamma software. This has helped but not cured the condition. At the end of the day, the FP951 is simply unsuitable for colour-critical work.
I spent considerable time tweaking the display (using the onscreen controls and using software tools) but the best I've been able to do is create passable colour accuracy through most (but not all) of the spectrum.
In my experience there are two distinct issues: first is an overall magenta cast, and second is an issue with yellows overwhelming other colours in certain situations. The magenta cast can not be corrected (at least not completely) in colour management. The problem seems to be that the green-through-orange part of the spectrum is "short" on curve space (not enough tonal range) while red-through-blue seems "long" (ample tonal range). This means adjustments are not linear, and anything done with the onscreen controls or in software tends to have too much effect on yellows while not touching violets enough.
On screen, this creates a situation where browns pick up too much red (e.g. skin tones often appear flushed), and pale greys shift to magenta (e.g. moody, cloudy skies pick up an inappropriate warm cast).
In the yellow part of the spectrum, I have noticed it's difficult to get pale, delicate yellows to display properly ... they seem to oversaturate and shift toward orange. Much more frustrating though is the tendency for pale greys, greens, and blues to show yellow in their lightest shades. Doing design work in the very lightest pastel shades is near-impossible with this monitor.
Perhaps it would be possible to fix one of the above two problems, but fixing both proves to be an exercise in chasing your tail ... lessening one problem worsens the other, and on it goes.
Finally, like all LCDs, the FP951 suffers from some viewing-angle problems. At 19" diagonal, the display is wide and tall enough that the display appears different at the edges compared to the centre, even when the viewers head is kept still. This is not a massive concern for most tasks, but for colour-critial work it's tough to overcome.
For word-processing and web surfing though, the FP951 is a lovely, vibrant display. Eyestrain is reduced substantially from a traditional CRT. Out of the box, it may require some colour tweaking using the onscreen controls or by adjusting your monitor profile in the operating system, but this will easily get you 95% of the way toward colour accuracy, and for many users 95% is more than good enough. Another nice feature is the relatively thrifty nature of the display; it does not suck in power and pump out heat the way a 21" CRT would do.
Quality and dead pixels
To be brief, there is not one single bad pixel or subpixel on my display. I got a perfect screen out of the box. BenQ has something called their "A+ Panel Quality" guarantee, and while the BenQ website is not clear on what this guarantee actually means, it seems to have worked on my panel. I have heard many stories about "acceptable" numbers of dead pixels and how many manufacturers or retailers refuse to service LCDs with up to 5 or 7 dead pixels. Perhaps I just got lucky.
Overall
The FP951 is many things. It is a screaming good value for daily administrative use. It's bright and sharp. It's perfectly flat. It's light weight with a thin bezel. The 25ms response time is probably adequate for many gaming and video applications. It is advertised as a consumer-level display and it performs very well at this level.
But FP951 is not up to snuff for professional use in graphic design. It's simply too hard to calibrate.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 550
Operating System: Windows
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
trohricht
|
|
Member: Thomas Rohricht
Reviews written: 26
Trusted by: 6 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.