LCD MONITOR REVIEW ASUS PW191 19 INCH

LCD MONITOR REVIEW ASUS PW191 19 INCH
Posted:2006-07-08 By lcd monitor Number of View:83946
LCD MONITOR REVIEW ASUS PW191 19 INCH By :lcd monitor Posted:2006-07-08 xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source ASUS PW191 Like Acer’s AL1916Ws, this model employs a new-type widescreen matrix with a native resolution of 1440x900. But the AL1916Ws is a low-end model with an unassuming appearance whereas the PW191 looks spectacular even when turned off. The lcd monitor’s front panel is made of black glossy plastic. The matrix has a glossy coating, too. The photograph above shows how it reflects the daylight lamps hanging on the ceiling of our laboratory. This coating does look splendid on a shop shelf, but I’m inclined to put its usefulness in doubt. For example, you can’t work with this lcd monitor if you’ve got a light source behind your back – it will be distinctly reflected in the lcd monitor’s screen. The two speakers on the sides of the matrix make this widescreen lcd monitor even wider. The lcd monitor’s base resembles the stand of Samsung’s SyncMaster 193P. It consists of an aluminum disc and a leg with two hinges, one where the stand meets the lcd monitor and another where it is attached to the base. As a result, you can position the lcd monitor’s screen in any manner imaginable, even in parallel to the desk. The ASUS PW191 is quite a pretty thing, but I think the aluminum base looks somewhat bulky. I like Samsung’s color solution more: the base of the 193P is also painted black, except for a shiny polished edge, and this looks more elegant and concordant with the black color of the lcd monitor’s case. If you remove the decorative cover, you can see the fastening of the stand. You can replace it with any VESA-compatible mount. Unlike with Samsung’s lcd monitors, the lcd monitor’s connectors are in the case rather than in the base. The lcd monitor has analog and digital inputs, audio input and headphones output (the latter is unfortunately at the back, too). The power adapter is external. Well, the most original element of this lcd monitor is its controls. The lcd monitor even seems to lack them when turned off – you can see only one label painted on the Power button. But as soon as you press it, the button itself begins to shine in blue, and labels for four more buttons come to life in amber light on the left of it. The highlighting of the buttons is turned on and off automatically. It goes out if you don’t touch them, but lights up again at your press. It’s only the Power indicator that is shining all the time. The buttons are touch-sensitive, of course. That’s why they are not visible when the lcd monitor is turned off. They are ready to react to your presses, but not to foreign objects (if a strayed cable is drawn over them, for example). There is one thing you should get used to, though. You have to press on the buttons softly, with a short delay of your finger the moment you touch the lcd monitor’s panel. The lcd monitor will process the presses well then while short, quick touches may be disregarded as accidental. Quick access is provided to the sound volume and brightness settings, and to switching between the lcd monitor’s factory presets (the so-called Splendid feature). There are five presets available: Scenery Mode (100% brightness, 90% contrast, 43% saturation), Standard Mode (user-defined settings; by default it has 100% brightness, 70% contrast, 37% saturation), Theater Mode (90% brightness, 80% contrast, 37% saturation), Game Mode (90% brightness, 80% contrast, 48% saturation), and Night View Mode (90% brightness, 90% contrast, 37% saturation). So, not only image brightness, but color reproduction as well is varied in the presets. By the way, Night View Mode suits fine for use during the day, too. It increases the level of black, so dark scenes in games become lighter, making it easier to spot a lurking enemy even under bright external lighting. I personally prefer to have colors reproduced as closely as possible to natural ones. That’s why the Splendid feature with its adjustment of the color saturation parameter is no better for me than the ordinary browsing through brightness/contrast presets as implemented in a lot of today’s lcd monitors (LightView technology from LG, MagicBright from Samsung, ECO from Sony). I prefer Samsung’s approach which separates saturation and brightness adjustments which go under the names of MagicColor and MagicBright, respectively, and you can use one feature without touching the other. But after all, this all depends on your particular tastes and preferences, of course. Another interesting thing about this lcd monitor is the opportunity of fine-tuning color reproduction through the so-called Skin Tone parameter which can be set at Reddish, Natural and Yellowish. This setting affects some colors other than the color of the skin of movie characters – the lcd monitor is not as intelligent as to precisely distinguish the outline of each face in each frame. The menu itself has an ordinary design and its usability is average, too. The lcd monitor displays color gradients well enough, yet you can see color bands in them at some levels of contrast. The backlighting is not exactly uniform – there are light bands along the top and bottom edges of the screen. The matrix is TN+Film, so its vertical viewing angles aren’t very wide. The gamma curves are nearly ideal at the default settings (Standard Mode). At the reduced brightness and contrast settings the gamma value is for some reason reduced, too, resulting in a paler image Anyway, the lcd monitor doesn’t have any problems reproducing halftones. Unfortunately, the color temperature setup isn’t very accurate. The sRGB mode has the smallest difference between white and gray, but the temperature in this mode is about 500K lower than necessary. Strangely enough, the Warm mode turns to be colder than sRGB (and also has a big difference between the temperatures of white and gray). The Normal mode has a rather warm white color, but cold gray tones. In the Cool mode the temperature is as high as 15,000K. The lcd monitor can’t boast a good response time, either. Like the AL1916Ws, it has a rather slow matrix with a pixel rise time of over 30 milliseconds at the maximum. The response time graph of the PW191 lacks the sudden fall on the black-white transition which is characteristic of TN+Film matrixes, but I think this is only due to the fact that the signal coming to the matrix is not exactly pure white even when the highest contrast setting is selected in the menu. There is nothing wrong about that since no user is likely to work with the contrast slider set at the maximum, so the drop of speed in the right part of the graph doesn’t give you any real advantages. This is just a laboratory obtained result that allows matrix manufacturers to write down a low response time value in the specs. The contrast ratio is similar to that of the Acer AL1916Ws, but the max brightness is lower. On the other hand, 200 nits is still quite enough for movies and games even under daylight. Being a rather ordinary lcd monitor in terms of technical parameters (except for its native resolution of 1440x900), the ASUS PW191 features an extravagant appearance: touch-sensitive buttons with highlighting, functional design, a very stable and practical stand. This model is superior from this point of view, but the AL1916Ws makes up for its low-end looks with its better setup. The difference between the two doesn’t go beyond color reproduction, though. The response time, contrast and viewing angle parameters of these two models are in fact identical. xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source we would be happy to answer for your question . if you have suggestion or comment regarding this review our support would be glad to help just join our forum and ask u will get the best answer to discuss check our forum section :-) RATE THIS REVIEW 1 2 3 4 5    / 5   View Stat

computer news computer parts review Old Forum Downloads New Forum Login Join Articles terms Hardware blog Sitemap Get Freebies