Viewsonic ThinEdge 17-inch LCD gets the picture

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Manufacturer: Viewsonic
Price: $549 (click here to compare prices)
Requirements: PC, Macintosh
Web Site: WWW.VIEWSONIC.COM

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ALL THE DISPLAY pundits are telling us how cathode ray monitors are fast going the way of the hula hoop [What's that? Ed.] and prices of LCD monitors are continuing to drop.

And last month Viewsonic introduced its range of ThinEdge Pro monitors - in a range of sizes from 17-inch to 22.2-inch.

We've taken delivery of a 17-inch model for a few days and put it through its paces here.

The monitor includes both digital and analogue inputs and comes in a black casing and a stand which allows you to alter its height, and to tilt and swivel the unit.

The display is also 720P HDTV (high definition TV) ready, Viewsonic says.

The sockets are fitted vertically into the back of the screen, and the bezel is pretty slim at around 3/4 of an inch. That's attached to a tripod stand which lets you raise and lower the monitor to the height you want - not a problem this, you just pull up or push down the screen to the required height - the movement's very smooth and doesn't require Incredible Hulk strength. The forward/backward tilt angle isn't great, but you can also rotate the screen, which might be useful. But watch you don't lose power and that the analogue or digital (DVI-D) cable doesn't come flying out when you attempt this.

Provided you've the right drivers for your software, that means that you can rotate the screen 90 degrees and give a reasonable impression of viewing a page the way it's meant to be looked at.

The power supply is integrated into the back of the monitor - which we like - the floor here is cluttered up with enough power supplies as it is.

You can also mount the monitor on a wall, if that's your bag.

There's five tiny buttons at the base of the screen these let you perform operations like shifting between the two digital inputs and the analogue input. The button at the far left brings up a menu on the screen which lets you adjust the image's contrast and brightness, colour, change the input selects, and gives you access to the setup menu.

The buttons aren't marked and we just pressed them to see what they did - not a big problem as mostly you won't need to adjust the settings.

The black plastic casing that holds the screen is only about 1/4 of an inch - this gives the monitor a clean and unclunky look.

The 17-inch 1280 by 1024 resolution screen is clear and bright viewed head on - like all LCD screens as you move to the left or the right, the image begins to disappear. Viewsonic claims 140 degrees for this - we think that it's less than that. It claims the response time for the monitor is 16ms.

This is an attractive looking unit, with a bright, clear display and no duff pixels, but we think it's still a little bit pricey at a recommended price of $550 or so for the resolution.

Still - prices are coming down as competition and production of LCD monitor speeds up, and you may well be able to get at considerably less than the recommended price. µ

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