LCD 1550V -- great monitor, reasonably priced

Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta, zatni@cbn.net.id

Has your cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor gone out of focus and caused you a lot of eye fatigue? Or have you simply lost your patience and want to move to a liquid-crystal display (LCD) monitor right away? Have you been deterred by the high prices that LCD monitors generally command? Well, relief has arrived.

The NEC MultiSync LCD1550V will definitely meet the needs of those who want an LCD monitor but have a rather limited budget. Up front, I would like to remind you that this is not a high-end LCD monitor. I have not been able to find any official information on why NEC has chosen the suffix "V" for the model name, but I can easily conclude that it means "value". In the parlance of marketing people, "value" is usually used to mean "budget".

* Easy to set up

When I took this monitor out of its box, the first thing that impressed me was its narrow bezels -- the frame that surrounds the glass screen. The top and bottom edges were rounded, and this gave the monitor a fresh and stylish look. It appeared to be smaller than most of the other 15-inch LCD monitors on the market, but actually it had the same viewable image size.

The data and power cables had to be installed, and at first I could not figure out where the plugs should go. Everything was neatly covered.

I took out the 11-language manual and found out that there was a cover on the back of the panel and another on the back of the leg of the stand that I had to open to get to the video and power jacks. NEC has carefully designed the route for the cables, and has thoughtfully prepared two plastic clips to hold the cables in place. Once the cables were plugged and properly routed, the unit looked very tidy. The plastic covers felt a little bit flimsy, though.

The monitor can only accommodate an analog input. The recommended mode is 1024x768 at 75 Hz. It so happened that I had been using my old Sony monitor with this mode before I tested the LCD1550V, so no adjustment on my display driver was necessary for the test drive. The space-saving monitor worked flawlessly.

As a matter of fact, it did not matter whether the refresh rate was set at 75 Hz or the standard 60 Hz, as an LCD monitor does not really refresh the screen the way a CRT monitor or a TV tube does. What matters in an LCD monitor is its response time. It determines how well video is displayed on the screen. This monitor has a 30 ms response time, and video playback has no ghosting. Just for comparison, the Compaq TFT5030, which I reviewed a long time ago, has a shorter response time of 20 ms.

The NEC LCD1550V does not come with speakers, and that is another plus point for me. Great sounding speakers are not very expensive these days, and you can always hang them on the wall so they will not take up any desktop space. Meanwhile, the integrated speakers in an LCD monitor usually provide only limited audio quality. If you still insist on an LCD monitor with built-in speakers, you can choose the NEC LCD1550M.

Although it is a budget monitor, it has a respectably sharp focus with a 0.30 dot pitch. Needless to say, we always expect good quality monitors from NEC, especially since it joined forces with another top monitor maker, Mitsubishi (remember Mitsubishi's gorgeous Diamond Scan Series monitors?).

In addition to the On/Off button, the unit has seven other buttons to adjust the display settings. It did not take me very long to learn how to use these buttons and the straightforward on-screen menu. The buttons required a little bit of effort to press, though. If you are not going to use the monitor for an extended period of time, you can press the Vacation Switch on the right side of the panel, which will cut off the power entirely.

* The downsides

For sure, all the downsides I encountered with this monitor were typical of a low-cost LCD monitor. For example, with the 200 cd/m2 white luminance, the display panel produces barely enough brightness for today's standard. Most users will want to set the brightness level to the max. In fact, that will be the factory setting if you press the Reset button. At 300:1, the contrast ratio is also rather low, and therefore the text is not so easy to read despite the sharp focus. The color saturation is nothing to write home about either.

These shortcomings may be attributed to the use of analog interface. An analog input means that the monitor has to convert the video signals twice -- from digital to analog and from analog back to digital, because the PC produces digital signals and the LCD monitor actually uses the same digital signals. Display quality deteriorates with each of these conversions.

However, since most PCs still have analog interface because they are meant to be connected to a CRT monitor, which accepts analog signals, an analog LCD will not require an investment in a new digital graphics card. But if you want a very good color reproduction, your best bet will be a monitor and a graphics card that use digital video interface (DVI).

The viewing angle of the 1550V is rather limited, as well. The maximum horizontal viewing angle is 120 degrees and the vertical viewing angle is 90 degrees. For someone like me, who has to bring his eyes very close to the monitor to read the text, the low viewing angles will pose a problem. When I read the text at the bottom of the screen, for example, I am not able to see the menu bar on top. This will not mean much for people with normal vision, as they usually look at the screen right at the center. Yet, if they look at it from a larger angle, there will be what is called "color shifting", which is the change of the displayed colors when you look at the screen from the side.

The unit itself is very light, which has its own pluses and minuses. The stand is a little bit too small for an LCD monitor, so you will need to be careful not to tip the monitor over. It does not have a handle or a dent on the back that will enable you to grip it more firmly if you want to tote it around. Also, while you can tilt the display to get the best viewing angle, it does not have a swivel base. You can use a wall-mounted arm if you need to push the monitor around frequently, and the lighter weight of 3.8 kilograms is definitely a plus.

* The final word

Despite its limitations, this monitor is a great deal for a price of less than US$400. After tinkering with the controls for some time, I did find the right settings that I was very comfortable with. I definitely like the sleek design, the simplicity of setup and, because I do not like bright screens anyway, I did not have real problem with its low luminance. It was the viewing angles that made this monitor unsuitable for me personally.

You can certainly find LCD monitors with better features and more capability, but they will certainly cost much more than this one.