ViewSonic VX924 Liverpool

Everyone knows that looks aren't everything, except perhaps the characters on 'Nip/Tuck' and most under-fire pop stars. Whether we like it or not, though, looks do sell and people will quite happily spend thousands to achieve perfection.

This is a fact that computer manufacturers have had to come to terms with over the past few years, although fortunately, PC technology tends to be less expensive than a nose job or a tummy tuck. Once every component was colour-coded Alan Partridge beige, but the entire industry has now had a facelift and, like the ViewSonic VX924, each piece of hardware competes for our discerning attention.

Unfortunately, unless you employ good doctors, surgery can have a tendency to go wrong and while the VX924 is a long way from being in Michael Jackson territory, the prognosis isn't great.

The black and silver bezel looks smart enough from a distance, but when you get up close, the quality of the plastic is disappointing - it's more like the creaky dashboard of an old Vauxhall Astra than the solid quality of an Audi A6.

Coaxing the screen into position is a bit like trying to persuade your battered body out of bed the day after playing tennis for the first time in five years - everything's a bit on the stiff side. There's no way of adjusting the height of the screen, no swivel base, and the cover that clips onto the back of the unit is so loosely fitted that it looks like it's going to ping off if you so much as sneeze anywhere near it.

This is really all a bit of a shame, because underneath, the VX924 has a lovely personality, technologically speaking, and the controls are straightforward to use.

A quick look at the specifications reveals that the VX924 truly could be the panel that gamers across the world have been waiting for. It's a 19in screen, so it's limited to a top resolution of 1,280 x 1,024, the same as that of a 17in panel. While this means the pixels are bigger, and therefore images are less crisp, DVDs and games can benefit from the bigger physical size.

A less debatable advantage is the VX924's typical response time - it's quoted at a quite astonishing 5ms black to white to black. However, ViewSonic also quotes a speed of 4ms for grey to white transitions, which is actually a more accurate indicator of performance, and should mean the VX924 is an unbeatable gaming TFT.

Specifications and numbers mean nothing if you can't see a difference, though, but the VX924 is as good as its spec suggests. The speed of games such as TrackMania Sunrise can push some monitors to the point of no return. Not so with the VX924, which keeps up without breaking sweat. As the landscape and crash barriers rush by, there's a complete absence of any blurring and ghosting.

Colour performance isn't too bad either. The VX924's brightness rating of 270cd/m2 helps to keep images bright, while colours are rich, vivid and well-balanced. Cheaper panels have a tendency to merge together reds, greens and blues of similar intensities but the VX924 avoids this pitfall with aplomb; it renders the dark jungle greens and grasses of Delta Force Xtreme perfectly, and shows up details from the shadowy corners of SWAT 4 that just aren't present on other panels. The screen also remains bright and readable when viewed from a reasonably oblique angle.

Watching DVD movies on the VX924 is a pleasurable experience too, with the vibrant colours in 'The Incredibles' reproduced crisply, cleanly and faithfully. The contrast ratio of 550:1 helps out when things get dark and murky. Although a little of the white peaking that affects so many TFT screens can be seen when things get really bright, to criticise the monitor for this would be churlish in the extreme.

CONCLUSION

The VX924 may not be the greatest-looking monitor ever seen. It doesn't tick all of the boxes ergonomically and the build quality isn't brilliant. At £350, it isn't the cheapest 19in panel in the world either. Fortunately, external appearances aren't everything. If it's the ultimate gaming performance you're after, as well as the sheer physical size of a 19in panel, then there's nothing else we've seen that can match the VX924 for response speed. On that front at least, you won't regret spending the extra cash.

Author: Jonathan Bray

ViewSonic VX924