It would be unfair to compare the Hyundai's 19" widescreen ImageQuest N91W too closely with our LCD monitor award-winners on the opposite page, as this is a no-frills budget model. As such, we didn't have high expectations, but we were pleasantly surprised.
The matt-black screen surround and stand are livened up a little with a silver trim. Its stand is broad and looks securely attached to the display. However, the screen wobbles worryingly when knocked slightly. The monitor's height can't be adjusted, although it does have a good amount of tilt. The screen elevation of 95mm may be too low for many people, but this is easily rectified by using a display stand.
There is a DVI connector and two VGA connectors, which will come in handy if you ever need to plug three PCs into your monitor at once. We ran our tests over both digital and analogue connections. If you have the choice, DVI is the better connection to use. The picture is always clearer and you don't need to use the monitor's automatic calibration. When using the VGA connection, a dedicated Auto button calibrates the screen's picture. As part of our monitor tests, we display solid blocks of colour across the screen to check for dead pixels and even illumination. The N91W showed a very slight darkening in the top left- and right-hand corners, but otherwise the screen was illuminated evenly.
The N91W did well in our monitor tests. Our greyscale test is particularly hard on displays, but the N91W handled it extremely well. It showed only minor banding at the dark and very light ends of the image. The quality showed in our photos, where it reproduced most of the details in the darker areas. Hyundai's monitor did a good job of displaying film clips, producing rich, vibrant colours with no smearing. Details in games were rendered sharply and there was no ghosting or blurring during gameplay, no matter how fast the action became.
A widescreen monitor such as this is great for watching movies. You'll probably have more than one person watching at a time, so viewing angles are important. The N91W has reasonably good viewing angles, but if you're too far over to either side the screen looks dark and it's hard to see what's going on.
If you're after a widescreen monitor, Hyundai's ImageQuest N91W doesn't quite provide the image quality or resolution of Philips' 200W6CS. Having said that, it's almost £100 cheaper so it's a great choice if you're on a tight budget.
System Specifications
19" LCD WIDESCREEN MONITOR 1,440x900 native resolution, 800:1 contrast ratio, 5ms response time, two VGA, DVI
Author: Lynley Oram
Computer Shopper Online