ViewSonic VP171b 17 inch LCD Monitor

Pros: adjustable height and rotation (horizontal), 16ms response time, rotates 90 degrees (vertical).
Cons: price, unit a little heavy than expected.

This is my first LCD and I'm very happy with it. I have own it for 3 years now, and everything seems to be working great. Out of the box the unit is a little heavy than expected, but tons lighter than my 17 CRT. 17" in LCD means 17" whereas 17" CRT ...

Pros: Great color, DVI inputs and VGA inputs, very fast screen refresh
Cons: There's really nothing not to like about this monitor

I bought two of these and use them in a dual monitor setup with an nVideo GeForce 6600 card (both connected to the DVI ports on the card). I've used a lot of monitors, and these are far and away the best I've used. Color is rich and no matter what I've thrown at them they work perfectly. They also have some of the best scaling I've ever seen (display an 800x600 image on a 1280x1024 LCD and you get a scaled image) - as good as a CRT - although this might be the card I'm not sure - I've only used the card with these monitors.

I didn't have room on my desk for two 19" monitors, and they aren't cheap, but you're definitely buying a quality product here. You won't regret the purchase. I've always been a ViewSonic fan but now I think I'm a ViewSonic exclusive customer for life.

Pros: Wonderful 17" viewable LCD area; Very fast monitor
Cons: Toasted and self-destructed less than a year later.

Ive had my VP171B for just under a year now. I did not keep it on all the time, only when I used my computer. Its been a fantastic LCD monitor in almost all respects. Until last night, when the screen suddenly became very light, then very dark till it vanished, at which time I smelled a noxious odor and viewed thick black smoke rising from behind the LCD screen! After immediately pulling the power plug, I made sure that the monitor was not actually ablaze and removed it from my desk to a safe spot. I replaced it with a 10 year old heavy NEC XV15+ CRT monitor which works as well as the day I bought it. This only goes to show that new technology does not necessarily equate with reliability. My VP171B is still well within its warranty period and so Viewsonic ought to replace it. I will talk to them today about it and I will let you know how the warranty service is.

Pros: fairly narrow edge, portrait mode w/ sw
Cons: high price; lacking portrait mode viewing angle; limited height adjustment

after buying dell 1703fp to dual with in portrait mode, i moved the viewsonic (digital connection) to the left to have somewhat proper view (turns dark if the angle from direct is more than 30 degrees). the dell, with slower specs and not having a second dvi input has an excellent portrait mode viewing angle and the white background seems brighter (but dell did not provide portrait pivot software!, used viewsonic's pivot sw). also the dell has a higher possible position adjustment. the color management setting in windows display control seems to allow the dell (using the analog connection with ati 8500 64mb) setting to dominate, so the vp171 may be better if it had control of the color settings. pcworld did mention that they saw "ruddy" white skin tones on the vp171, but they still gave it an outstanding graphics rating. the fonts on the vp171 do not seem to be getting the cleartype effect and look weak compared to the dell, but again, i am not sure if Win xp is treating the monitors equally. When will these monitors come down in price, say, less than $100...they are so much less in materials than the old crt.

Pros: Stable, nice footprint.
Cons: Image is too yellow and not sharp.

Long story, but I've got both the Viewsonic monitor and a Gateway FPD1765, which is good for a side-by-side comparison. The results of the comparison, the GW is distinctly clearer, sharper, and has much better color definition. The Viewsonic is signifigantly more yellow, especially when viewing anything with a lot of white. Text and images are blurry. Overall, I'd have to recommend against this monitor.

Pros: quality, Light-weight, elegant, response-time, field-of-view, bright
Cons: pricey, limited colors are bad for watching DVDs. Aging technologies.

I purchased this monitor 1.5 years ago on sale. It was at the dawn of the 16ms LCD monitors, which was essential for the 1st-person shooter. As such, it does a fabulous job at gaming. It is also feature rich with dual analog DVI selectable inputs (I have a server hooked up to an analog port, which is higher quality and cheaper than using a KVM). I've never had a problem with the monitor. It's light, elegant, and not too badly priced.

One of the trade-offs for 1st generation 16ms LCDs, however is reduced color depth.. This is noticeable when just watching a TV-tuner, and even more-so when watching a DVD. DO NOT get this monitor if you plan to heavily make use of multi-media. Note that it is high-rates-of-motion that reduce color depth, not still-frames. The LCD monitor allegedly dynamically reduces color depth when there is a lot of activity.

For work-environments, this monitor is excellent.

While the monitor has a high contrast/luminescence, blacks aren't as black as with other monitors. Again this only affects cinematic or photo-editing environments.