ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED monitor

The ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED is a 27in LED edge-lit computer monitor with a recommended retail price of $599. This price puts it on par with similarly sized monitors from ASUS, Acer and Samsung, but the ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED claims a response time of 1ms, halving the best efforts of its competitors.

ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED: Design and connectivity

The ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED monitor encases its 27in Full HD 1920x1080pixel screen in a glossy black bezel. it’s thin on the top and sides but thickens at the base to conceal a pair of speakers. The finish is a little tacky and the design isn’t the most fashionable on the market (we’d look to Samsung for that), but we do like the thin aspect of the monitor. The screen is less than an inch thick at its edges and bulges to around two inches thick at the centre rear of the panel.

The VX2753mh-LED has two HDMI ports and an analog VGA connector for older devices. In addition there’s a 3.5mm headphone port for the audio that’s fed in via HDMI, and a 3.5mm analog audio input jack to accompany the VGA. Unless you have a strange, pressing need for component video we’d say the ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED monitor has a pretty comprehensive connectivity setup.

The on-screen interface of the ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED is navigated using four side-mounted buttons below the power button. These buttons also switch between video inputs when needed. The interface is simple, but has access to all the basic functions you’d expect — you can change brightness, contrast, colour temperature (through presets or a custom setting), and delve into more complicated features.

ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED: Picture quality and audio quality

The 27in 1080p panel of the ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED is impressive. It’s a matte finish and doesn’t pick up any annoying light reflections, making it an excellent choice for a bright room. Detail levels from the 1080p panel are generally good. The screen’s not too sharp in its default settings, and Blu-ray video looks good without being grainy or too well-defined.

We opted to keep the dynamic contrast setting turned off, purely because of the negative effects it had on overall screen brightness. Black levels were excellent with the dynamic contrast mode enabled, with deep and detailed shadowS, but highlights weren’t nearly as bright as we were hoping.

With dynamic contrast disabled and the brightness and contrast settings adjusted to suit the viewing environment — in a bright, fluorescent-lit room we opted for brightness at 35 and contrast at 65 — a much better compromise between black levels and highlights is possible. We thought the picture that the ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED monitor displayed was well saturated in both the 6500K daylight and sRBG presets, and we didn’t find a need to delve into custom colour settings.

There are three settings for the screen’s response rate — Standard, Advanced and Ultra Fast. We ran through a few Blu-ray movies, plenty of Web browSing and a bit of Xbox 360 gaming using the Ultra Fast setting and found it generally pretty good. There was no visible ghosting, and video was smooth and flicker-free. Gaming was excellent with no lag between inputs and on-screen movements.

Audio from the ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED’s inbuilt stereo speakers is clear, if a little tinny. There’s no bass to speak of but dialogue is clear, and our movie-watching sessions weren’t particularly painful. Volume is controlled through the side-mounted buttons but there’s no easy access — you need to navigate through a few menu settings each time.

The speakers of the ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED have a reasonably high minimum volume — that is, when the volume is set to its minimum increment of 1 out of 100, the speakers are still quite loud. There’s little difference between volume levels at the 1 and 20 settings, so you’ll need to control the volume on your PC rather than the monitor itself. Anyone using the ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED with a Blu-ray player (or other device without an inbuilt volume control) is out of luck.

ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED monitor: Conclusion

The ViewSonic VX2753mh-LED does a good job of displaying Full HD content. It’s also reasonably well priced — we saw it at one online store for $449 — and is thin and light. The design could be a little more fashionable and the speakers could be more versatile, but otherwise the VX2753mh-LED handles the responsibilities of a large-screen computer monitor well.