IT Pro Verdict

Verdict: Though LG’s 10,000:1 contrast ratio figure is rather fanciful details in darker areas are above average at this price and overall the Flatron W225TE delivers good image quality. In our tests it lives up to its claims as the monitor with the world’s lowest power consumption but while the picture will give sterling results for general office use, the styling is unlikely to sit well in a business environment.

By Benny Har-Even

published 28 July 2008

in Reviews

At the rear you'll find an HDCP compatible DVI port, but no HDMI, and analogue VGA port and the power cable and there's no cable management.

LG has equipped the display with a button rather ominously labelled Fun' on the left. Pressing this brings up a range of options, the first being EZ Zooming' intended to lower the resolution at the touch of a button. The next is 4:3 in wide, which will enable you to view 4:3 applications at the correct aspect ratio without it stretching to fill the screen and thus have it looking correct. This would in the main apply to gaming content but equally could prove useful for specific line-of-business applications that aren't flexibly designed.

The Photo Effect' option is possibly the most frivolous feature I've ever seen on a display and gives the whole screen a Gaussian blur effect, a Sepia effect or monochrome. Pointless.

Finally, you get a choice of sounds that chime when you turn the power button on or off, or thankfully, the ability to turn the sound off completely.

Fortunately, LG's F-Engine button is rather more useful, taking users through a range of preset brightness and contrast options for Movie, Internet, User, and Normal. With the first two, the screen splits in half, so you can see the effects of your change.

There's a good range of options available from the display. In picture you can adjust brightness, contrast and gamma, and in Color' you can fine tune the red, green and blue channels as you see fit. Tracking lets you adjust the sharpness in DVI mode, and this is where you adjust Clock and Phase if attached over analogue VGA.

For image quality, the display was set up too bright out of the box- but turning it down to around 85 per cent put my eyes at ease. That done, it proved to be plenty bright enough, despite its 250cd/m2 figure, lower than the non eco-models.

Browsing the internet, editing documents and dealing with email were all a real pleasure on the W225TE and if that's the main use it'll be put to, it will do a good job.

Page 2 Next

Benny Har-Even is a twenty-year stalwart of technology journalism who is passionate about all areas of the industry, but telecoms and mobile and home entertainment are among his chief interests. He has written for many of the leading tech publications in the UK, such as PC Pro and Wired, and previously held the position of technology editor at ITPro before regularly contributing as a freelancer.

Known affectionately as a ‘geek’ to his friends, his passion has seen him land opportunities to speak about technology on BBC television broadcasts, as well as a number of speaking engagements at industry events.