Acer 2223w

By default, this 22in monitor is very bright, but it has a black level that is set too low. It takes a little bit of fiddling with the luminance controls to come up with a picture that doesn't compromise subtle colours, but even then, it isn't perfect.

Indeed, this is one of the only monitors we've tested in recent times that hasn't been able to display more than 10 dark levels of grey on a black background in DisplayMate's black level test. We weren't able to fix this by adjusting the brightness, so many movies, such as The Matrix, lacked definition in darker areas.

This was also shown in DisplayMate's extreme greyscale test, where not all levels of dark grey were visible on a black background. Likewise, we had to adjust the contrast control in order to see light grey colours on a white background, which also made light colours look a little less intense. The monitor's overall colour reproduction, however, was rich and we didn't notice any hints of discolouration in the greyscale. Photos looked good for the most part, but, like movies, dark areas did suffer from a lack of detail.

Physically, the Acer is basic. Its stand can only tilt and it's very stiff, which makes it difficult to manipulate. The bezel around the screen is fairly thin with the exception of the bottom, which houses the on-screen controls. The controls allow for luminance and colour changes to be made, and quick mode changes can also be made by pressing one button (these include text, standard, graphics and movie modes) where they all shift the intensity of the screen. D-sub and DVI ports are present on this model, but the input can only be switched by venturing into the on-screen menu.

Motion blur wasn't an issue when playing games, nor when watching movies, and scrolling long documents didn't induce headaches. Viewing from the sides resulted in only a slight change in luminance, but text was still clearly readable.