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Asus PW191 LCD Review
Tom's Hardware has quite the flattering review of one of the latest LCDs coming from Asus, the Asus PW191. From the review: "I won't mince words. The PW191 is the handsomest monitor I've ever seen. It's true that people's tastes vary, but no one can deny that the Asus designers have talent. While a lot of their competitors are using a white Macintosh look for lack of better ideas, Asus is innovating, offering designs that are both personal and novel. And they've applied that know-how to good effect in designing the PW191. The monitor's lines are superb, and the choice of colors is elegant and restrained."
to paste the subtitle of the article "Looks can deceive", the tag: "Unfortunately, its performance is not always on par with its design." and the performance section, then slam slashdot and Tom's Hardware for shameless advertisement, and watch the karma arc from +5 informative to -1 troll.
But I'm lazy. So I'll just point out that they laud the design, but not the performance, and the review is not quite as gushing as the slashdot summary suggests.
Weird...
- Andrew
The fat borders around the screen are really not nice, IMO. I wait for the day when somebody makes a monitor with zero border. I just bought a Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleoview C19-1W, same design as the W19-1 in the picture, and it only has a 1.5cm border.
I have a ViewSonic monitor in front of me from a couple of years ago, it is mixed black and silver ... Personally I find the look of this large CRT monitor to be superior to that thin acer one.
The black plastic, beyond looking cheap, also has sharp edges which is very old fashioned... As is the polished base... The thing looks like a late 80's television...
I wouldn't buy that monitor just because of the way it looks. Dell, Apple and some of ViewSonic's range look far more attractive. As do some of the other monitors in Acer's range.
I can't believe people are sat around discussing the aesthetics of a monitor that looks just like every other flat screen monitor on the market. It looks like a monitor. It has all the bits a monitor typically has in the same place that a monitor typically has them. That's it.
What an ugly monitor, inch thick bevel, eighties shiny brushed base. It has a semi-retro "lampstand" feel that could have really worked (especially if it had a wall attachment or desk clamp) but is poorly executed looking a cheap childs toy.
Here are a few more selected quotes:
Asus has decided to follow the trend and use a panel with an optical filter. That was a mistake. Despite the manufacturer's claims on its Website that the reflectivity of the optical filter is especially low, when viewing a dark picture, the LCD panel is as reflective as the gloss-finished shell.
As always with panels that use filters, the colours are showy. They're well saturated, but imprecise, as our calibrator test shows...
The colour rendering was far from being ideal. Frankly, I can't understand why LCD manufacturers insist on using these filters when the results are always so mediocre...
Asus didn't use overdrive technology for this panel. The result is that it's not really a contender as far as responsiveness is concerned... It's no catastrophe, but this kind of latency takes us back a year or so...
I was waiting to see how the PW191 would perform screening movies. And sad to say, video noise was still much too evident. A lot of sparkling was visible. Note that Asus offers a sharpness adjustment (which is rare on an LCD monitor) that lets you soften the focus slightly. That helped a little, but the sparkling didn't disappear completely... We hate to harp on this issue, but the optical filter means that you'll have to watch your movies in total darkness, especially if the film tends to be dark (e.g. Sin City or The Matrix).
And finally, from the conclusion:
The finish is exceptional. It's probably the best-looking monitor available on the market today. And beyond the good looks, the picture is very sharp and the colours are very good in video games. In itself, the PW191 is a good product, but it's obvious that the panel was poorly chosen. It's slower than its competitors, yet doesn't solve the video-noise problems that plague them.
So, it's a good monitor, apart from the LCD panel. Forgive me if I don't rush out to get one... (Or am I completely out of touch and all LCD monitors are this bad?)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Slashdot is a site that should be praising developments in technical ability, not slightly overdesigned monitors that suck in actual usage.
ScuttleMonkey, you can get away with this shit, but that doesn't mean we are going to eat it. I gradually get to the point of almost subscribing, and then another stunt like this comes along.
Wow, that must have been the most [next page]
interesting and informative [next page]
review I have ever read on [next page]
any site!
Posting a story whose link bounces off an intermediate website is dishonest without an explanation as to why. The assumption is that someone is exploiting Slashdot readers to score referral dollars. It is really no different from a journalist who buys shares in a company the day before he writes an article saying how wonderful it is. The next day he sells the shares. I hope I am wrong about this and look forward to ScuttleMonkey adding a note of explanation to the summary.
I'd already seen this article. It is a minor piece of no great interest and pretty well tells the reader not to buy the monitor anyway because Asus have put a crap screen inside a very nice case.
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