Monitors

There’s something to be said for the increasing commoditisation of PC products. It seems like only yesterday that good-quality 27in LCD screens were a rare luxury, but now practically every vendor has a big monitor going cheap. That said, with prices plummeting all over, quality can be a bit hit and miss. The AOC E2752PHZ, however, is a 1080p 27in screen selling for around $400, though you’d be hard pressed to tell it's price, with even LED backlighting, bright colours and plenty of detail evident across our test gamut of games, media and productivity.

Samsung's SyncMaster TA950 aspires to being the upmarket screen for all users and we have to admit it does pretty well. A hybrid TV/monitor, this distinctive 27in display comes with a long list of additional features, including an inbuilt digital TV tuner, media streaming from a variety of devices, 3D conversion and some additional web functionality like social networking, YouTube playback and a variety of downloadable apps.

Given the price of monitors, there’s no longer any need to scrimp on screen size, with even some 27in models pushing down below A$400. Of course, you'll only get a budget TN panel at this end of the market and for around the same price you can a superior 24in IPS display, such as Dell's U2412M. Still, if you'd prefer a 27in screen, there are some quite reasonable options. Here we look at two of them: ViewSonic's VX2753MH-LED and Acer's HN274H.

With three HDMI inputs, built-in speakers, a 120Hz refresh rate and bundled Nvidia 3D Vision glasses, Acer’s 27in HN274H is clearly aimed at multimedia and gaming in particular. And in that regard, it’s a pretty well-focused monitor, with colours we’d consider too contrasty for general use (blacks tend towards crushed and whites blown out), but that works well with many 3D games, adding depth and the illusion of clarity.

Priced around A$370 on the street, Viewsonic's VX2753MH-LED is the cheaper of the two 27in monitors reviewed here. It's also the more balanaced, with richer (albeit slightly green-tinged) colours, less inky blacks and none of the issues with highlight washout exhibited by the Acer HN274H, making it a more pleasant screen overall for a range of uses. This is particularly true for media, where skintones appear closer to neutral, and productivity, where the whites of office applications are also less prone to induce eye strain, being less bright.

On paper, Dell’s new premium 24in LCD monitor seems perfect. Take the fantastic U2410 — a great IPS screen with brilliant colour balance, excellent build quality and a ton of inputs — add LED backlighting, nearly halve the price and surely you’ve got a must-buy monitor, right? Erm, kind of. Dell’s UltraSharp screens have historically tended to be professional-level products that happen to double as great multimedia monitors and while the U2412M still delivers image quality in spades, at best it’s only an adequate screen for less demanding graphics pros.

The BenQ BL2400PT is a good example of how far LCD monitors have come over the last couple of years. For under $400, you can now get a 24in screen with what was previously top-shelf technology: MVA panel, back-lit LED, DisplayPort input (as well as VGA and DVI-D) and a tilt/swivel adjustable stand. That panel and backlighting make for a screen with great viewing angles, a rich, natural colour range that shows heaps of detail in movies and affords a great sense of depth to 3D games, plus relatively good power efficiency. Indeed, at full brightness, the BL2400PT only draws 32W.

AOC isn’t kidding with the name of this monitor — it really is thin. Indeed, when we took it out of its packaging, one of our writers was brought to remark that they’d seen mobile phones thicker than the AOC Razor LED E2343F. At a maximum thickness of 1.3cm, they weren't talking about Patrick Bateman-style ’80s executive phones, either.

We haven’t been too impressed with many of Samsung’s monitors this year, but we have to admit that from a quality and innovation standpoint, the  BX2450 is hard to fault. This 24in back-lit LED TN screen goes somewhat against type by offering exceptionally rich, bright colours and plenty of static contrast — the latter being something that some other Samsung monitors have struggled with lately — while coming in a pleasing slim design and packing some interesting features.