The Short Story

I bought this display to replace my 17” KDS Trinitron flatscreen monitor. Did I need it? Heck no. I did want it, however, and I saved up my sheckels and watched for a sale. I have been extremely pleased with its graphics rendering and quality of picture. The pricetag may drive you away, but I personally think it is worth every penny.

Best parts of the MultiSync LCD1760V
1. 450:1 Contrast ratio
2. 16 million color display
3. 17” viewable area, just like any LCD
4. Auto configure setup for best viewing
5. Lightweight
6. Small Depth with stand

Worst parts of the MultiSync LCD1760V
1. No DVI input; only Analog 15 pin connection
2. No height adjustment on stand
3. Annoying pop up window every time you change the resolution

How and why I bought it

As I said before, I did not really need this monitor. We had just bought an even larger desk for our computer with plenty of space above for storage. However, I still feel the need to have the best and brightest electronic gizmos within a reasonable price range, so I started looking for a good unit at a good price.

I went on down to my local Circuit City from which I had just bought my Palm Tungsten C, which I have reviewed at "http://www.epinions.com/content_118730559108". My wife and I had narrowed down our search to 17” LCD’s as the price of a unit bigger than this really shoots up astronomically. We played with all of the 17” LCD display settings to ensure that we were seeing the best picture possible. Have you ever noticed that when they have monitors lined up on a display, the most expensive always looks the best? If you play with the settings on the monitors, you may find out that that is not necessarily true, but they make it look that way. The same is true for big screen televisions….

In any case, what I found was that by comparing the Sony, NEC, HP and Samsung models, I liked the NEC Multisync LCD1760V’s display the best. It appeared that the colors were brightest and the contrast was the best. This was somewhat deceiving as the contrast ratios on a few of the competition was actually 500:1, which should theoretically make it better. It didn’t look like it to either my wife or me, though.

Knowing which one I wanted, I started pricing out the various internet sites, such as pricewatch.com, tigerdirect.com, and newegg.com. That was on Saturday. The Sunday paper came out and there was a $50 rebate on the NEC Multisync 1760V at the Circuit City we had comparison shopped at the day before, making it the best deal of all! In June of 2003 it was $450 regular price, $400 after the mail in rebate. Today, November 22, 2003, I found it for the lowest price at Newegg.com for $420. It hasn’t rocketed down in price, at least yet!


Out of the Box

I ran down to the Circuit City that day, of course, and bought the display. I got the box home, opened it up, and pulled out what looked to be a smaller monitor than I had seen on display at Circuit City! My wife mentioned the same thing, and we soon realized that this was due to the fact that we had put it on the desk next to our older 17” CRT monitor. While the CRT’s are much, much bigger, you actually get 1” less viewable area in the same size monitor. For instance, the 17” CRT only has a viewable diagonal length of 16”s, as the outer half inch on each side is used to support the monitor in the case.

Also in the box was a power cord, an analog cord of the 15 pin type, and finally a brochure on liquidview. More on that later.

I am running Microsoft Windows XP, so there was no need to install any display drivers. I plugged in the monitor, turned on the computer, and booted up. XP knew right away that there was new hardware to add and added it. I had to adjust my settings so that it was in the 1280X1024X32 native resolution, and then voila, we were in business. (This is dependent on your video drivers; mine is a BFGTech Asylum GeForce FX 5600 Ultra, so like I said, no problems)

After several months…

After several months of use, I still say that this is a high quality display. Between all of the TFT(Thin Film Transistor) type LCD panels that I compared, this one had the best looking picture with the brightest brights and the darkest darks. It also appears to have the truest colors, meaning that when I take digital pics on my Olympus 510 (reviewed at “http://www.epinions.com/content_56346185348"” and view them through the LCD, the colors match. This was another concern going into this purchase, and it was all for naught. The warranty on this display is 3 years parts and labor with a 3 year backlight warranty as well. I do not anticipate having any reason to turn this in for warranty service, however, as there has been no problems at all with it up through now.

The size of the monitor is 14.7 in (W) x 15.1 in (H) x 7.7 in (D) with the stand, and 14.7 in (W) x 12.6 in (H) x 2.5 in (D) without the stand. This is important, as you could theoretically take this off of the stand and put it on the wall. I do not know anything about that, as I have not tried it. The stand works for me, although I would like a height adjustment for it. I have an IBM 17” LCD at work, which I think has inferior graphic rendering ability compared to this display, but it does have the ability to raise and lower the monitor off of the desk. That would be nice for this one as well. The weight with and without the stand is 12.8 lbs and 10.1, respectively.

I had heard that LCD’s did not display high bandwidth games without shadowing or fragmenting, but I have not seen this issue. I play Enter the Matrix, Ghost Recon, Unreal Tournament 2003, and Splinter Cell all on high resolution with Antialiasing and Anisotropic filtering on with no visible degradation of graphics whatsoever.

The only other complaint I had when I first fired it up was that the icons and type was so darn small! 1280X1024 is very robust resolution, but it does tend to make the words on the screen very small. If you go down in resolution, the graphics become jagged, and the letters do not look full on the LCD. This is where the Liquidview software mentioned above comes in. It allows you to automatically increase the font size of the lettering and smooths out the jagged edges, making your visual experience all the better. There is a way to smooth out the fonts in Windows, but I would recommend getting the Liquidview software as it much more robust than simple smoothing.

Summary

In short I love the NEC MultiSync LCD1760V. I believe that if you compare this monitor to the competition side by side, you will see that the colors are the best and brightest, and the performance is strong enough to handle whatever you throw at it. It is in the upper end of pricing, but certainly not the highest by any stretch of the imagination. You can watch for a rebate on this unit and get a heck of a display for a heck of a price, just like I did!


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 400
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh