New Benq 22″ 2200HD widescreen for me!
Here’s a mini review for my new 22″ Benq E2200HD LCD monitor I bought from umart.com.au http://tinyurl.com/5jlkqo
I’ve been looking to get a 22″ screen for a while now, but I wanted HDMI (for the xbox) and I really wanted more resolution than the std 1680×1050. Then boom! I see this baby at a fantastic price and at full HD of 1920×1080!!!
So I use DVI for the Macbook Pro and it’s beautiful and sharp, and needless to say nice and widescreen (the wider aspect is awesome) Note: it comes with a DVI & RGB cable, so don’t buy an extra DVI like I did (doh).
Then on the HDMI connection I have the xbox 360 and it looks great. I played Gears of War 1 for about 20 minutes last night and it looks great. My only complaint is that the blacks aren’t very black, but playing with the contrast setting got it a lot better. The speakers aren’t wonderful for gaming, but they do me just fine.
The viewing angles appear to be nice and wide, but not super wide. I wish the blacks were blacker, and the whites whiter. But the screen is big, colourful, with a good array of connectors RGB/DVI/HDMI/3.5mm sound jack.
Telling the screen to switch between the DVI & HDMI can at times be slow, but not impossible.
It displays vista/osx/xbox360 just beautifully and at this perfect price I can’t recommend it enough.
Update 15 December 2008:
After using the screen some more I’m still really impressed and very happy with the purchase. The screen is ultra bright and have to turn the brightness down of a night time, but makes day-time usage just fantastic.
Also being able to plug a headset into the 3.5″ jack (easily found on the left of the screen) is a big win, as xbox 360 playing has to be quiet as my office is surrounded by bedrooms.
I still wish that the blacks were blacker.
When switching between the 15″ Macbook Pro and the 22″ Benq I find the text on the 22″ not as sharp as the 15″. I’m guessing the Macbook Pro panel is higher-quality. That being said, the 22″ sharpness with text is just fine.
Update 13 Jan 2009:
I just used the OS X colour calibration tool (in expert mode) and the colours now pop. The whites are nice and white, photos look great and the text looks a lot better. Totally recommend you try it from: System Preferences > Displays > Color.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
OMG, that really is amazingly cheap. I bought a 23″ Apple Cinema display back in 2003 with the same resolution and it cost $2500.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
While it is cheap, the ACD 23″ would absolutely trounce all over the Benq! Now that I’ve had it for a while I really have to confess to not liking the blacks, and also there’s a slight flicker when connecting to the xbox 360 (rarely noticeable). But the price was right, the size was right, the rez was right so I can’t complain.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Can you go into greater detail about the pros/cons of playing Xbox 360 on your benQ 2200hd? I’m looking into purchasing one for the holidays, and pretty much solely for playing Xbox 360…but I’m curious as to what is good/bad about it, since you own one. I assume you have yours hooked up using VGA, what resolution do you use on the system?
December 11th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
@Jorge, I am currently using HDMI to hook up the x360 and running at 1080p. While I’ve not tried the VGA cable I did buy one when bought the xbox, so I will give the VGA a try soon. Also I will pad out the original article with more information at the same time.
May 24th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
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