Viewsonic VX2025 20" Widescreen

[otispunkmeyer]

any thoughts on this monitor, specs look ok, but im sure ive heard people again going on about back light bleeding

- 1680 x 1050 (WSXGA) Optimum Resolution
- 16.7 Million Colours
- 800:1 Contrast Ratio
- 8ms Response Time
- 300 cd/m2 Brightness
- One Analogue Input
- One DVI Input
- Built-In Rear Speakers
- VESA mounting compatible

i like the viewsonic models because of all the adjustments you can make physically....rotation, tilt, height etc.

 

[xtknight]

It actually looks fairly decent for the price. Probably nothing like the NEC, but again, it has a much lower price. Looks like it's an 8-bit panel according to ViewSonic Deutschland's specs. I'm not sure how the response time would be, but my VP930b (ViewSonic) is rated as 8 ms / 20 bwb and I think it's just fine. If it's coming from the same manufacturer, then the faster specs probably mean the monitor is faster.

 

[Zebo]

I never seen a good Viewsonic and that includes CRTs way back when. And built in speakers just screems "low end office" monitor. Personally id get for a better price you can get the Dell 2005FPW or upcoming Dell 2007FPW.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

i looked at the dells, but 1) i dont like the bezel and 2) that awesome NEC is just £20 more than the 2005....so its a no brainer.

 

[nullshark]

I just bought one from where I work (currently testing on day 3 of a 15 day return policy)...

This is my first LCD, coming from a 19" CRT at 1600x1200 (Viewsonic GS790), and I'm still getting used to it. I experienced extreme eye-strain for the first half an hour from what I thought was high brightness and contrast. Wow, it is really bright at factory settings... I adjusted those (and the colour - through ATI Tray Tools) and then I got down to testing photos, videos and games. The colour was a little washed out compared to my CRT, not as rich, until I adjusted them using Tray Tools to my liking. At the default settings I found everything to be a little bland.

I tried the VX2025 on the DVI first and then on the VGA port (ATI X700 XL) to see if there was a difference and honestly couldn't notice any. I seem to have no signal degredation on the VGA port.

I kept my CRT hooked up on the other port and was able to compare my "test subjects" side by side... First thing I noticed was the screen door effect. It isn't a glossy or xbrite-type screen, so it seems to have a layer of granularity in front of what you are viewing. This is what I eventually figured out what was causing my eye-strain - My eyes were trying to focus back and forth between this "layer?" in front of the images/videos and the actual content I was viewing. This is how I interpret the "screen door" effect (Please correct me if I'm wrong).

Text: I was simply amazed at how sharp everything was (native resolution of 1680x1050). Web browsing and desktop work is a joy compared to my GS790 at 16x12 (I now realize that the CRT was a little blurry for small text - I'd just been used to it).

Videos: I keep running videos and movies on both monitors and I find that the only thing that gets me is that screen-door effect but only during medium-fast movement. If it's fast movement or the scene is static, I don't notice. Also, videos that have artifacts in them (i.e. anything from the 'Net) grates on me, as this monitor shows the imperfections so clearly. I used to think that some of the videos/movies I had downloaded were pretty good quality until I watched them on the VX2025. I'm noticing a whole lot of imperfections in a lot of saved content, heh: compression artifacts and halo layers of colour where it should be one smooth gradient. With modern, sharp DVD movies, this monitor outperforms my CRT (unless I'm sitting in front of it at about two feet and I notice that screen door - it's almost as if there's a glass panel, about 2mm in front of what I'm looking at, that has specks of dust on it - which I have to look through to see the content.

When I'm sitting at my usual 'movie-watching' distance, however (about five feet), I don't notice that layer at all.

Gaming: This involved some hacks and cracks to set the games to a widescreen resolution (Need For Speed Underground 2 involved a 3rd party hack to set a widescreen resolution, for example - thanks to Widescreen Gaming Forum. Older games with no hack or ones that don't support widescreen, will simply be stretched, with fatter characters or wider cars and spaceships or what have you. I did notice some blurring of the scenery in FarCry when panning around very quickly. I haven't tested that side-by-side on my CRT, yet but it was something I don't think happened on the GS790.

Pictures: I'm not 100% convinced that this is an 8-bit panel. I'm noticing some extra gradiation on images (mostly with skin tone and lip colours) and I'm not sure if it's from a degraded picture looking okay on my CRT because of its blurriness, or if it's from the 2025 being a 6-bit screen. I'm leaning towards the theory that it was my CRT covering up the imperfections of lower-quality images than this LCD being 6-bit, as the pics from my 3 Megapixel camera seem to match up pretty well (it's mostly 'net images that I notice this in).

I'm getting used to the screen-door (and I've read that others, over time, start to do the same thing and eventually lose sight of it altogether, as their eyes learn to look past it) but it still distracts me about once every 15 minutes.

On a personal note, on the third day, I am still missing the extra 150 vertical pixels that 1600x1200 gave. I can run this monitor at that res, but I have to scroll the desktop, so not a solution - Maybe I can fix that in drivers or 3rd party apps - but I have remedied that a little by being able to use a smaller font because this panel is so sharp for text.

Oh, I haven't hooked the speakers up (and probably never will) so I can't comment on that.

Hope that helped

 

[darkswordsman17]

nullshark, the screen door effect is when you're close enough to the screen that you can see the lines separating the individual pixels. It looks like you're looking at the image through a screen because of this. Depending on what you're looking at (for instance it's much more apparent on a projector throwing 480 vertical pixels at 100" than a comparitively little LCD monitor).

This isn't what you've noticed, but that doesn't mean what you're seeing is any less of an annoyance. I personally very much like the glossy screens, it just looks so much clearer to me. Glare can be an issue, but its never bad enough for me to be a problem. Fortunately, most of the LCDs I've used much are decent enough screens that they still look great (in my opinion).

Nice review. The one thing that is somewhat difficult to figure out is if you're one of the people who just aren't suited for LCDs, and CRTs just look a lot better, or else its possible that this Viewsonic is just not a very impressive monitor. Have you had any experience at all with the Dell LCDs or other brands (Apple perhaps)? I'm curious to see if we could determine this. From your review it sounds like Zebo's thoughts might be correct. I have to say I'm not a big Viewsonic fan (my roomate has a 19" non-flast screen CRT that I can't believe he has no problem looking at, especially considering he knows I can get him a great deal on something nicer, and he has plenty of money he could splurge for something nice for once).

Oh, about you missing the extra vertical pixels. Does the monitor rotate? If so that might solve your problem (although, personally, I find it gets too tall for my liking).

 

[bongsteen]

looks good to me, my second lcd. yes, the door effect, but i haven't notice now. king kong the game was awesome. i will test it with world of warcraft this weekend.

 

[nullshark]

Ahh, thanks for the clarification, darkswordsman17. No screen door effect on this monitor, then (outside of about 2" viewing distance). I guess what I'm seeing is just the surface of the monitor. It's a very fine grain layer which everything sits behind. To tell the truth, I've stopped being aware of it while doing desktop work and even in movies.

Regarding the Vx2025's physical adjustments: It only tilts. No height, swivel or rotation.

The LCDs I've used on a regular basis (at work) are old no-name panels with a glass front, and they're okay for text; I can't run videos or games on them.

Unfortunately, all I carry at work is LG, Samsung, Sony & Viewsonic, so I haven't been able to view many high-end panels other than the Sony HS75PS and HS95PS (absolutely beautiful screens). I've never even seen a Dell or stand-alone Apple monitor, though.

After extensively studying the ones I have hooked up at work, today, I did notice that the "surface effect" I've mentioned is least noticeable to me on the Vx2025, compared to all the non-glossy panels I've seen. I ran DVDs and some game demos and can say that this one is quite good compared to the other current models I have available (LG 1930SQ, Samsung 713N & 940B & 970P, Viewsonic VA712B & Vx922 - The older panels we still carry are, to put it mildly, crappy). I'd never noticed it before because we keep them fairly high up (about a foot above eye level, so the viewing distance is greater) - I had to get up on a step-ladder to look at a photo on each of them, that I'd studied at home, earlier.

Doing further tests here at home (using a gradient in Photoshop) it looks like this is indeed an 8-bit panel. I don't see extra banding in the colours when looking at the gradient on the LCD as opposed to the CRT.

Knowing that this was a budget 20 incher going in ($560 CAD after taxes - $480 USD), I was expecting some deficiencies but I wanted to test it extensively to make sure. Like your roommate, I'd adjusted to the blurriness of my CRT so LCD is a bit of a shock to my system but I have over a week and a half left to get used to it. I've already acclimatized to the granular surface with regular desktop usage (I simply look past it, no more trying to focus on it... I also moved the monitor further back on my desk and I don't notice it as much in brightly lit scenes in movies with movement as I did before (and can still read the text fine at this distance: 6 inches further back from where my CRT's screen sat).

All in all, I think it's a good monitor. Not great but good. It doesn't compare to the glossy Sony monitors that I've seen for their vivid colours but those are really expensive here (The Apple screens integrated into the Macs are similarly impressive - I haven't seen the Apple Cinema displays but they are above what I wanted to spend, anyway). The backlight on this Vx2025 has some slight leakage that is noticeable in the corners on a black background but the colour is accurate to what I expect, after adjusting with software - Was too pale even after extensive monitor settings adjustment. Text is razor-sharp and there's no ghosting during gaming or fast-motion video... I'm definitely warming up to this budget monitor.

As an aside, my computer is my only source of video entertainment (having never had a TV larger than 20 inches and finally just canceling my cable years ago). I do watch a fair amount of DVDs on the computer, though, so I wanted something widethat included high resolution for desktop, with a good viewing angle (which the 2025 has). I knew I'd have to accept the loss of vertical pixels with the 20" widescreen aspect - I just miss them, like an old friend The monitor looks great at sRGB setting for movies when sitting at my normal DVD viewing distance: ~five feet but I have to set a user mode for close up, as sRGB is just too bright.