User Review of Viewsonic VX1932wm 2 ms 19 inch WS TFT

User Review of Viewsonic 2 ms (GTG) 19 inch Widescreen TFT monitor - VX1932wm

Updated on 18th Nov. 2007

WARNING

There have been quite a few complaints about problems with VX1932wm.

[Following problem descriptions are picked up from post of anonymous user]
Problem 1: Can be seen with http://www.friendster.com/. the site has a light-brown to white gradient background with thin, light gray diagonal lines. when scrolling down by dragging the vertical scrollbar, the lower portion flickers and sometimes shows a purplish tint. it's more apparent when you drag the bar up and down very quickly.

Problem 2: http://shopping.msn.com/. it has gray gradient from dark to light. but this time when dragging the scrollbar, the dark gray top portion shows some 'tearing' or 'streaking' of sorts, with bands of horizontal lines in different tints flashing across that area.

These two problems are seen on my monitor as well. Though such problems do not affect me and in fact, I would not have known about these problems if I had not come across Internet posts mentioning this problem.

To get more info about these problems, Google "VX1932wm problem site:thinkdigit.com" to get links to a digit forum which gives lots of details about this problem (and spews a lot of vitriol on Viewsonic as well :-)).

AnandTech, a reputed review site, has mentioned that VX1932wm has RTC problems (don't know technical details but know that the VX1932wm is alleged to have RTC problems) but that Viewsonic has refused to acknowledge them. My perception now, is that there seems to be a problem with VX1932wm and the company, Viewsonic, has not said anything which clears up the problem. While I still am very happy with my monitor as I have not yet come across any movie where I faced a display problem which I could notice, I think it is better to steer clear of this monitor (especially for gaming and serious movie watching).

Now I do not know whether other LCD monitors do not have the display problems that VX1932wm, but as quite a few people have raised the issue for VX1932wm and seem to be happy with replacement monitors from HP etc., I think it would be wise NOT to buy VX1932wm.

I would also like to say that I am not going to replace my VX1932wm as it does a great job for my tasks (S/w development, browsing, Word, Excel etc. and watching movies but no gaming at all).

I am still retaining the rest of the original review. But I have just changed the conclusion to refer back to this warning.

End Update

Note: Folks in a hurry can read the Quick Review and skip the rest.

Quick Review

Bought a Viewsonic VX1932wm monitor about a week ago (beginning Aug. 2007) and I am very satisfied with it. Excellent text display, lovely image display and ghost free rendering of video. Could not make out any dead pixels. My eye strain problem has significantly reduced after switching to this monitor from a CRT. All in all, this baby is a beautiful window to the digital world. [BTW the monitor was officially released in India only a few days ago - around July end this year]

Key specifications are:
Response time: 2 ms (Gray to Gray) and 5 ms (Black-White-Black) [Viewsonic India site mentions only the 2 ms time but Viewsonic US site mentions both the GTG and Black-White-Black response times]

Connectivity: Analog and DVI-D (DVI-D cable also was provided in the package)

Widescreen, 19 inch, 1440x900 native resolution
Contrast Ratio: 700:1 [Dynamic Contrast Ratio: 2000:1]
Brightness: 300 cd/m2


I unhesitatingly recommend it for Text, Image and Video viewing usage. I think it will do OK for gaming as well but I am not a gamer and so I cannot comment on it.


I got it for Rs. 10,800 + Rs 432 (Tax) = Rs. 11,232/- in Bangalore (India). That seems to be an excellent price for a DVI 2 ms (GTG) 19 in Widescreen TFT.AOC has an equivalent (with some additional features like 90 degree tilt) but 1 month ago it was priced at around Rs. 18000/-. Samsung has an equivalent (906BW) which it has not released in India. Seems like Samsung feels that India market is not good enough for those models and have introduced only the 940NW non DVI widescreen 5 ms, 700:1 CR monitor. (BTW 940BW which has DVI is an older model with CR of 500:1 and response of 4/5 ms, and seems to have been discontinued in India (Samsung India website no longer lists it). However it seems that old stock is being sold in the market and sometimes at a premium.)

I congratulate Viewsonic for introducing VX1932wm in India within around three months (if I recall correctly) of its release in Taiwan. And I think US/UK release was just around a month ago. It feels so nice to be able to get one of the latest worldwide models of Viewsonic for a decent price in India!!! Great work, Viewsonic!! Keep it up!!


End of Quick Review; Start of Detailed Review

Having set resolution to 1440x900 I used the DVI connection to check out video playback using some HD (High-Definition) videos from BBC. They played wonderfully on this beauty. No ghosting whatsoever. Standard VCDs/DVDs (Indian movies) played well with their normal size but the video window looked a little small due to high res of monitor (1440x900). Zooming the window to full screen resulted in the video losing its crispness and detail when viewed from about 1.5 to 2 feet distance. Viewing from about 8 feet back the zoomed to full screen video looked quite good. So I feel this monitor can also be used for multiple people viewing non High-Definition movies from a distance of around 8 feet. The viewing angle seems to be good as the display was still quite viewable 30 degrees off on either side horizontally. Of course HD movies look great close up as well as at about 8 feet distance.

[Changing the resolution to 800x600 and then viewing Indian movie VCDs/DVDs gave larger video windows (for the normal size of the video).]

I had checked the BBC HD videos on a 5 ms Viewsonic VG1930wm monitor. I did not detect any ghosting on it either. This leads me to believe that 2 ms or 5 ms may not make much difference to typical movie watching. Perhaps it may make a difference in gaming. [BTW Viewsonic VX922 non Widescreen 19 inch TFT has 2ms GTG and 2ms Black-White-Black specs and has got consistently good reviews (see newegg.com user reviews) and is supposed to be a great gaming monitor.]

On this LCD (VX1932wm) still pictures look very crisp and colours come alive. Perhaps that is because the brightness of the monitor is good. However a CRT seems to be displaying the colours a wee bit better. May make a difference to a graphics professional but most of us will find still picture display on this LCD to be vibrant, crisp and vivid.

Text display (with ClearType) is crisp and easy on the eyes. Comfortable Text (HTML, Word, txt files) viewing is a very important criterion for me and this baby does a great job on this count. Even without ClearType the text display is good.

The Widescreen aspect allows for comfortable vertical tiling of windows and makes it significantly easier to operate on multiple windows.

As it is 19 inch with 1440x900 res. (instead of 17 inch with 1440x900) the standard Windows font sizes are quite readable. Changing DPI to Large Size (120 DPI) increases all sizes (Menu text, icon size etc.) making reading/viewing even more comfortable.

I also used the VGA port (instead of the DVI port) and found that display quality was as good (at least to my eyes) for video, image and text viewing. I had read on some technical review that digital to analog conversion technology is so good nowadays that loss due to this conversion is very slight. Perhaps that's why I could not spot any difference between VGA and DVI connectivity display quality. My mobo is Asus M2NPV-VM which has Integrated Graphics with DVI and VGA ports. Don't know whether a dedicated Graphics card with DVI port would give better display quality using DVI port.

An additional feature of this monitor's dual DVI and VGA ports is that you can connect two different computers to this display (one using DVI port and the other using VGA port) and switch the display from DVI to VGA (i.e. from one computer to another) using the monitor controls. I did not test this but the documentation clearly mentions this capability. However I do not know how many people will find this feature useful.

The Monitor controls are conveniently located at the bottom centre. The black buttons blend into the display frame and overall the display has a very pleasing appearance.

It has speakers of quite ordinary quality. But then they are an option you would use only if you do not have a good set of speakers. If you don't want to use its speakers just don't connect the audio cord. I have seen a lot of reviews (of other Viewsonic models) mention the poor quality speakers as a negative point but I think presence of speakers is a positive point as you can listen to alarms and speech using this speaker in the absence of a better speaker. Expecting a decently priced monitor's in-built speakers to be good for music is, in my humble opinion, asking for the moon.

The stand is quite stable. The base, stand and frame seem to have a lot of plastic but it still appears to be quite sturdy. The monitor can be tilted forward a little (perhaps 5 degrees) and tilted back some (perhaps 20 degrees). The base does not have a smooth swivel movement like the Viewsonic VG1930wm. So turning the monitor requires using a little force or it requires to be lifted. But as the monitor is quite light that is also easy to do.

The height (43.4 cm) is a little more than 19 inch TFTs from other vendors like Samsung 940BW (36 cm) or Dell se198wfp (33.6 cm). Further there is no height adjustment. Increasing the height can be achieved easily by placing the base on a book (or set of books). But decreasing the height is not possible except by lowering the height of the table on which it is placed. As I use bifocals I prefer to have the display slightly below eye level so that I can comfortable view the display throught the lower part of my bifocal lens. I am achieving that now by raising the height of my chair!!! Another solution that I am considering is to make a pair of reading spectacles.

A little bit more about reading TFT monitor displays comfortably. Though I have read that many doctors recommend keeping the eyes at the level of the top of the monitor I feel we should be able to view TFT monitors like we read a book (or laptop displays). We usually don't keep our eyes at the level of the top of the book. Instead we look down at the book with it being tilted at maybe 30 degrees to 60 degrees from the horizontal. Now I have been given to understand that AOC offers a dual hinge stand for about Rs. 1200/- which can be used with any of their LCD monitors. This dual hinge stand allows you to tilt the monitor at any angle from a flat horizontal to the upright vertical!!!. It would be really great if similar dual hinge stands (at comparable prices) were available which could be used for Viewsonic (and other) monitors so that one could look down at the display from a comfortable angle (like a laptop). I felt very tempted to buy an AOC monitor due to its dual hinge stand. But its 2 ms monitor was just too expensive.

The VX1932wm does not seem to have HDCP which may be required to play copyright protected High Definition Movies in future. [Samsung 906BW and Dell SE198WFP have HDCP].

Power cable has a flat pin and so cannot be used without an adapter. I was advised by the seller to buy/use a round pin power cord instead of buying a flat pin to round pin adapter, and I followed his advice. I think Viewsonic should provide this adapter or provide a power cable with round pins for monitors it sells in India.

Conclusion

Though VX1932wm has done a great job for me, it seems it has some problems with displaying certain graphics. For details see the WARNING at the beginning of this review. Therefore it is better NOT to buy VX1932wm.



Hope this review has been useful. I am indebted to many, many user and technical reviews of LCD monitors that educated and informed me of the issues related to them. That has helped me to make a pretty well informed purchase decision. Thought I should do my bit for the community by posting this user review.

Gabbar

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My Rig:

AMD 3000 AM2 1.8 GHz, ASUS M2NPV-VM Mobo
2x256 MB DDR2 533 Kingston RAM
160 GB Seagate SATA2, Sony 16x DVD Writer
Viewsonic VX1932wm 19 in 2 ms (GTG) DVI TFT monitor
Microsoft ComfortCurve 2000 Keyboard
Microsoft Optical Mouse
Logitech X-230 Speakers
Zebronics Cabinet+SMPS, APC 650KVA UPS