Author: Eric van Ballegoie
Widescreen is hot property. Not just TVs, but also an ever-growing amount of PC monitors is being released in this format. We've already established that this is particularly useful for larger monitors, but is that also the case for the relatively pint-sized 19 inch range where the amount of pixels is not exactly overwhelming?
Common or garden televisions and tube-based monitors have a height/width ratio of 4:3. The first TFT monitors followed that trend with resolutions ranging from 640x480 to 1024x768. When the size of these displays reached 17 and 19 inches, a curious move was made by the industry. These 1280x1024 pixeled monitors have a noticably more square ratio of 5:4. The difference between the height and the width of the screen was therefore decreased when compared to the traditional format.
Television sets have been making the transition to widescreen for years, and the screens in notebooks have made the step to wide quite a way back. The desktop monitor market has recently shifted to widescreen as well. First the larger 22 to 24 inch models started to show up in widescreen, and recently the popular 19 inch format has become available to consumers.
What's different with these monitors compared to widescreen TVs is that the precise aspect ratio is 16:10 as opposed to 16:9. This has to do with the fact that PCs pump out resolutions in multitudes of 8 pixels. This is not always favourable to the 16:9 format, and using 16:10 increases the chances of success. An example of this conundrum is finding the widescreen equivalent of the standard 1600x1200 pixels. With a height of 1200 pixels, the width would turn out to be 2133 1/3 pixels. Aside from the fact that there is no such thing as a third of a pixel, 2133 is not divisible by 8, and can therefore not be addressed by a videocard anyway. Using the 16:10 resolution gives a better result: we end up with 1920 pixels, a round number that's also divisible by eight. Another factor that speaks in favour of 16:10 is that it roughly corresponds to two pages of US Letter side by side, allowing for optimal displaying on a widescreen monitor.
Top: regular 19", bottom: widescreen 19"
Whatever the case may be, widescreen monitors have a 16:10 ratio, and that's significantly wider than the 5:4 ratio that we're used to from 17 and 19 inch monitors. If two screens have an equal diagonal, the widescreen is much less tall, but a lot wider. Traditional 19 inch models have a 1280x1024 resolution, but in widescreen format, 19 inch translates to 1440 by 900 pixels. The total amount of pixels is slightly less with a widescreen than a regular monitor: 1,296,000 compared to 1,300,720 pixels. A widescreen monitor therefore does not have a larger surface area than a conventional model. Even though the 19 inch widescreen models are selling like hotcakes, there doesn't seem to be any credible advantage over the old format. In theory it should be possible to display two pages of text side by side, but considering the low resolution that's used by these 19 inch monitors it's not a suitable solution. With standard applications like surfing the web or word processing, a wide aspect ratio has no advantage. The regular width of 1280 pixels is more than enough for almost every website, and because widescreen monitors are less tall, more scrolling is needed to navigate.
Only in the field of gaming can 19 inch monitors show their pros. More and more games are offering support for widescreen resolutions, and in most circumstances it's more pleasant to have more information width-wise than height-wise. For regular office work, we can not recommend 19 inch widescreen monitors above the standard 19 inch models, especially if you already own a conventional 17 or 19 inch LCD monitor.
Testing
For this comparatative review we used a wide range of the currently available 19 inch widescreen crop, ranging in price from 209 to 399 euros. In all cases, we encountered TN TFT panels, with a resolution of 1440x900 pixels. All monitors have a manufacturer's specification of 300 Candella per square meter, and the contrast ranges from 500:1 to 850:1. In all cases, we are dealing with "fast" monitors with response times ranging between 2 and 8 ms. It should be noted that half of the monitors is equipped only with a D-Sub (VGA) connection, and that DVI is absent in these cases. None of the monitors is suitable for use in a portrait layout, and just one model has a USB hub on board. All in all, we can safely say that most manufacturers opted for a low-cost approach and therefore saved on functionality. This shouldn't necessarily be a drawback. It means that, for a relatively low price, you get a decent monitor. If you want more functionality and you have a bigger budget, you'd end up looking at larger screen sizes.
Acer AL1916WAsAcer offers its AL196W in two flavours, the AL196Ws and the AL1916WAs. The WAs benefits from a higher contrast compared to the Ws (700:1 instead of 500:1) and a faster response time, being 5 ms instead of 8 ms. Apart from that, these two monitors are identical- in fact they are outwardly identical. For this review, we inspected the silver version of the WAs. It's quite a basic monitor, with no inbuilt speakers or DVI port. The performance is generally good, although out of the box the monitor's display is a bit too blueish. The brightness is fine, and so is the response time with a measured 12 ms. With a recommended retail price of just 219 euros, the AL1916WAs is the second cheapest monitor in this test, making it an attractive choice.
AOC, which is still relatively unknown in The Netherlands, provided us with a monitor with the lowest retail price of all we tested: the 193SW can be bought for a mere 209 euros. Its appearance can be considered tidy. The monitor has a thin, silver frame, supported by a thin, darker silver base. In terms of performance, this monitor reflects its price, coming last in this test. This is mainly due to the poor contrast: an average of 116:1 and a complete on/off score of 402:1 leaves this monitor in the dark. The display of colour is reasonable, although it hints of green. The response time is fair with 13 ms.
Belinea's 1925 S1W is a similarly sleek and good-looking device with a thin frame around the screen. The monitor is similarly specced to the other monitors in the test, although Belinea is the only manufacturerr to claim a 850:1 contrast. In practice, this value is never reached, with our measurements indicating a real life maximum of 570:1. The display of colour is fine and the brightness is decent. The horizontal viewing angle of this monitor is slightly worse than that of the other monitors in this test, but this shouldn't be a practical issue. The screen's uniformity (the spread of the brightness) is a bit low compared to the rest, with 73 percent in the corners, where more than 80 percent is ideal. The response time is fine at 13 ms, making it suitable for gaming.
HP is the only manufacturer in this test that chose to equip its 19 inch widescreen monitor with a "glare" panel. This kind of TFT panel forfeits the antireflective coating to create higher optical contrast, with a higher amount of reflection as a downside. The monitor has both VGA and DVI connections, and has built-in speakers. The screen is a good performer, although it tends to the blue side of the spectrum and the lighter parts of the screen seem a bit over-lit and "harsh" compared to the other monitors of this test. Brightness, contrast, uniformity and response time are all good, so if you're taken with glare monitors this is an interesting choice.
Iiyama is back with a vengeance and is gaining momentum with a nice monitor line-up. In the 19 inch widescreen market, it offers the E1900WS-B3, a base model with built-in speakers. We received the black version of the monitor, though a gray version is also available. The presence of the speakers means that this monitor is not as sleek as some other monitors in this test, but due to their diminutive size, the screen is still quite pleasant-looking. This screen's performance is excellent, with a near-perfect colour balance and an excellent brightness, uniformity and response time. With a recommended retail price of 239 euros, the E1900WS-B3 is a good choice in terms of price/performance.
Mirai is a relatively new brand that's sold in Holland mainly through the MyCom chain. Mirai is a full daughter company of the panel factory CMO, which means that it's close to the source in terms of screen technology. The DML-519W100 doesn't look quite as fetching as the majority of the other monitors due to the relatively thick silver frame around the screen. The comparatively tiny base adds to this effect. The monitor manages to compensate for its looks by performing well on all fronts. Although the standard colour settings are a bit too warm for our tastes, the range is excellent, and in displaying black and white images it holds its own. Brightness, contrast and uniformity are good, and a measured response time of 12 ms should prove useful for gaming.
It should come as no surprise that Samsung is doing an excellent job in the field of monitors. Almost every test we did in the past few years included a Samsung monitor in the higher end of our results. And in this review, it's no different: Samsung's SyncMaster 931BW has a piano-black finish that not everyone should be fond of, although there's no denying it would look good in a classily designed interior. Samsung claims a 2 ms response time, which is naturally not achieved in practice: we achieved a more realistic 12 ms. In terms of performace, the 931BW clearly comes out on top. The colours are -especially considering it's a TN panel- outstanding, with a neutral tone and an almost perfect colour transition. In terms of brightness and contrast, the Samsung performs best of all the monitors. What's the catch? The price... The recommended retail price of 285 euros is relatively high, meaning the price/performance ratio is disappointing. If you absolutely want a 19 inch monitor and you don't mind splashing out, this is the screen to plump for.
While most of the monitors that we tested are relatively plainly equipped, ViewSonic went feature overload for its Viewdock VX1945WM. The monitor has VGA as well as DVI, built-in speakers and a USB hub. The base of the screen is furthermore equipped with a multi cardreader and an iPod dock. Sadly this dock is not suitable for directly displaying movie content from your iPod: it's a passive dock that used USB and iTunes to link up with the PC. It's a missed opportunity, but maybe something that will be implemented further down the line. In terms of performance, the VX1945WM doesn't impress. At the default settings, its colours are way too green, and the transition in colour leaves a lot to be desired. The brightness is OK, and the overal brightness uniformity is good. The recommended retail price of 399 euros is much too high to compete with these other monitors.
19 inch widescreen monitors are selling like hotcakes. This is no wonder considering the low prices and decent performance. Still, the question of an advantage over a regular 19 inch monitor has to be raised. Especially for normal office work and internet browsing we prefer the conventional format.
Widescreen really only comes in handy with larger monitors and at higher resolutions. If you do want to enter the market for a 19 inch monitor, the Iiyama E1900WS-B3 is the best choice if you care about the price as well as the quality. Samsung has a better product with its SyncMaster 931BW, but it's also more expensive.
