<Introduction><Setup and configuration><Usability><Pros & Cons><Conclusion><Rating>

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Introduction

Viewsonic and Adi are two common names for monitors in the PC market. From standard 15" end user monitors to 21" professional series, both manufacturers are known to carry a wide range of monitors. Not too long ago, with the advancement of technology and a boom in the field of semi-conductors, flat panel LCD monitors are gradually emerging into the market. Their existence threaten the monopoly of CRT monitors, which up to this point of time, has been the only mean to convert the digital signal from our display cards to viewable images on the screen. With flat panel LCDs offering a slim profile, taking up not more than any additional desk space that is required, all of a sudden, CRT monitors seem a whole lot more bulky and heavy.

Despite the fact of not using conventional CRTs to emit electrons, LCD monitors are still able to produce a distortion free display with crisp, sharp images. With so many goodies about LCDs, you can expect these futuristic monitors to come with a hefty price tag. In this review, I will be evaluating 2 LCD monitors together. One of them will be the VPA150, a 15" flat panel LCD from Viewsonic while the other 15" LCD is the Microscan 6L from ADI.

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The ViewSonic VPA150 offers a wide tilting angle.

Setup and configuration

The VPA150 came attached with a sculptured base that allows the screen to tilt. At the back of the base, apart from the power switch, AC and VGA input, you will also find an audio input alongside with a mic input. On the front, sandwiched between two fifty-cents sized perforated circular cutouts, are 4 push-buttons controls for function, plus, minus and recall. All screen adjustments, including the volume of the built-in speakers, are made via an on-screen menu using these four buttons.

The Microscan 6L on the other hand does not come attached with a base. This is because the 6L offers wall mounting and hence, the consumer is given the choice of whether to mount it on the wall or attach it to the base. The monitor does not take 230V of AC power supply directly; instead, a DC converter is needed to convert the 230V of AC to a regulated voltage supply. Similar to the VPA150, there are only 4 push-buttons controls on the front panel of the LCD. Three on the left hand side controlling menu, plus and minus while the last is the power switch which is located on the right.

The ADI MicroScan 6L offers wall mounting.

Setting up both the LCDs were easy. I simply connected them to the display adapter and under Windows 98, both monitors were detected as plug and play monitors. After updating with the appropriate drivers, both monitors gave me the correct options of refresh rates and colour resolutions. One useful feature that could be found on both flat panels is the Auto Center feature which really did save me a lot of time and hassle from adjusting the screen to the correct viewable position given a chosen resolution and refresh rate.

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Usability

With both LCDs featuring On Screen Display (OSD) Control, it does not require much effort to configure the screen settings. Basic settings like adjusting the contrast, brightness, H-size, H/V-position, color select, auto size, tuning, fine tune and auto-tune could be found in the OSD control. For the VPA150, the OSD also include volume control for the built-in speakers.

After using several screen resolutions and refresh rates to test out both LCDs, I realize that both flat panels have similar characteristics (Actually, it is typical to all LCDs). Both LCDs are capable of displaying excellent colour images with sharp text only at their highest true resolution and refresh rates. If you have a resolution of 640x480, what you will see is an ugly, jagged display on the screen. How jagged the display will be, depends on how much lower resolution you are using from the maximum of 1024x768. The reason for this is because for LCD displays, each pixel has a definite boundary and over the surface of the entire pixel, the colour or luminance level is the same. A conventional CRT however does not have restricted boundaries for each pixel and hence, colour and luminance level can change over the surface area of a pixel. In this way, the jaggedness does not exist in CRTs since adjacent pixels can blend together.

In addition to the resolution, refresh rates also affects the quality of the output. Both the VPA150 and the MicroScan 6L are able to produce sharp, crisp images with excellent vibrant colours at 75Hz refresh rate given the maximum resolution. However, once the refresh rate is forced to 60Hz, the vibrancy of the colour along with the sharpness of the output will decrease significantly.

Once set back at the maximum resolution and refresh rate, image quality is excellent. When I tried some fast moving graphics such as games and movie clips, there was no ghosting observed on either LCDs. One other thing I observed about the MicroScan 6L was that it effectively produced subtle shades of colour than compared with the VPA150.

Pictures of the MicroScan 6L (Click on to enlarge)
Text is sharp even from a distance	The OSD Menu	Offers sharp image at max. resolution and refresh rate

Look! That's the space that is required for a LCD!! Don't you feel claustrophobic with your conventional CRT??

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Pros and Cons

The VPA150 has a few features which the MicroScan 6L does not offer. Firstly, the VPA150 comes with a pair of built-in speakers. Though not the best speakers in its range, the 2x1W-integrated amplifier is able to produce a decent coherent sound without too much emphasis on the bass.

The other useful feature packaged with the VPA150 is the ability to rotate the display into a portrait mode, both physically as well as using the software, PerfectPortrait that comes with the LCD. After installing the software, the application will idle in your task tray until activated. When you feel that by changing into portrait mode, it will facilitate reading of your A4 sized documents, then simply click on the icon and you will see your screen display being rotated 90 degrees anti-clockwise (from 1024x768 to 768x1024). After which, you will rotate the screen physically into the portrait mode. The only drawback to the PerfectPortrait software is that once the application is loaded into memory, whether in use or not, DirectDraw support is automatically disabled. However, I foresee that the later versions of the software will rectify this problem. Another minor bad point is that the VPA150 only offers 18-bit colour (260,000 colours), which can be a limitation for the serious graphic designers who run photos and colour-intensive applications.

Changing the screen resolution at the click of a button

PerfectPortrait Software

The VPA150 offers a choice of landscape or portrait mode.

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Conclusion

The analog VPA150 offers more saturated colours than many LCDs. Packaged with the speakers and pivot capability, most corporate offices will find this flat panel a trendy as well as useful piece of office equipment. As for the MicroScan 6L, though it doesn't come packaged with as much punch as the VPA150, it will serve its purpose as a space saving monitor for most people. Unfortunately, as for now, these flat panels still come with a hefty price tag of approximately $2000 each, which leaves us end users hanging on to our good old, conventional CRT monitors.

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RATING