Viewsonic VX2835WM

Big is in! This seems to be the mantra, which monitor manufacturers have adopted. 24-inch monitors, which we had thought would hold the tag of “King of LCD Monitors for End-Users” for at least sometime have now been overhauled. Viewsonic recently launched a new 28” LCD panel with a 3ms response time, a host of connectivity options and a true HD resolution of 1920x1200. How does this monitor fare? Let’s find out.

One big grouse we have against Viewsonic is their singular lack of imagination, when it comes to product design. The VX2835WM maybe big but in its looks it’s no different than any of its predecessors i.e. the VX2235WM. The body still sports the piano black finish on its bezel and is lined with a muted silver edge that gives it a decent appearance. While the overall appearance of the monitor is sleek, the piano black finish is a fingerprint magnet and can get smudged very easily. We would have preferred a more laidback or traditional matte finish on the bezel, as this would have prevented smudging and would have weathered better.

In a good move forward, Viewsonic has reverted to having standard recessed plastic buttons on the front of the monitor for controlling the OSD. These are nice and chunky and make accessing or scrolling through the OSD an easy job. This is a good departure from the VG2230WM model, which had silver buttons on the side of the monitor that were guaranteed to give RSI to anyone attempting to use them. The bottom of the monitor sports a very large and extensive multimedia speaker grill, which is again a design carry over from previous models.

The back of the monitor is where things really begin to heat up. Keeping in mind the size of the screen, Viewsonic has equipped the VX2835WM with every possible video input method. The monitor supports D-Sub, HDMI, Composite, Component and S-Video. In case you are wondering why there is no DVI present, it’s because Viewsonic in a curious but excellent move, has provided a DVI to HDMI cable. This way they have eliminated the need, for a DVI-D slot on the monitor and one extra cable. It also solves an HDCP related problem. HDCP only allows you to have one digitally trusted source for next generation content such as Blu-Ray. If DVI-D had been present natively and connected, HDCP would have kicked in and bumped the video down back to the horrible 480p format. By utilizing HDMI for both PC display and video playback, the HDCP related problem has been eliminated.

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Moving onto the physical customization of the monitor, we find that there is nothing much on offer. The base of the VX2835WM is a solid and well constructed piece, which offers a limited degree of movement. The base also cannot be height adjusted. The only thing that is present in terms of viewing angle customization on this monitor is the normal tilt, which allows you to set the appropriate angle you need.

The VX2835WM as we have already mentioned before, has a native resolution of 1920X1200. This makes the monitor fully 1080p compliant and made the whole act of testing the monitor’s performance a real pleasure. We divided our tests into 2 different sections. In the first section we used Displaymate to gauge the color, contrast levels, sharpness and customization options. Displaymate, as our readers know is a comprehensive tool designed to test every aspect of a monitor. If there is a problem with a monitor… be rest assured Displaymate will expose it. The results we got were as follows. Please note all our tests were conducted on Windows Vista Ultimate.

The VX2835WM gave us impressive results. On the sharpness tests, the Viewsonic was spot on. The graphical and text was clear and crisp. This was apparent especially on Windows Vista, which boasts of DPI scaling. On the grayscale tests, there were no surprises. The performance was again indeed impressive, with the monitor achieving near perfect scores. The monitor did falter on the color tests. In some areas there were slight bleed-ins, which given the size of the monitor became glaringly apparent. However this problem was limited to a few older games like Oblivion. On newer games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R, the problem was conspicuous in its absence.

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The black levels of this monitor were a revelation. The depth of the black output was far more than one can expect of an LCD, approaching virtually CRT levels. This of course enhanced the color and overall picture put out by a great margin. The contrast ratio of 800:1 however in comparison was a disappointment. While we do understand that this is a PC monitor, it is being billed as a complete solution which can be used with next-gen consoles which are designed to work with HDTVs. The average contrast ratio resulted in visible graphical “glitching” in games like Prey on the Xbox 360. When we compared it to the smaller BenQ FP241W which has a slightly higher contrast ration of 1000:1, we found that the same graphical glitches had disappeared. On our PC related game tests, however, we found no problems. The monitor boasts of a 3ms response time (Grey to Grey) which made any form of ghosting or artifacts impossible to detect.

In our second round of tests, we simply checked out how well the monitor works with its various connectivity options. Our first step was run with an Xbox360. Here as we have mentioned before, a few games presented us a problem due to the average contrast ratios. It was not all that bad as we easily scaled 1080p, using the provided component cables. For our final tests, we simply played back some 1080p samples and a Blu-Ray movie (Underworld Evolution). The movies were sharp as expected and general playback quality was easily comparable to a lower end HDTV.

The Viewsonic VX2835WM at the end of the day, priced at Rs. 45,000 may simply seem to be overkill for most consumers. However when you consider its vast array of connectivity options, brilliant performance and excellent pricing (BenQ offers its 24-inch monitor at Rs. 49,000!), we recommend you just pick up this product… without a second thought.