Whether you’re a longtime power user or a nimble Mac newbie, you can never have too much screen space. A bigger screen saves you from pulling your hair out as you try to move through your open windows—Leopard’s Spaces can help corral a bunch of windows, but it’s only a partial solution. And what about all those pictures you shot with your camera, the videos you made in iMovie, and the movie you bought from the iTunes Store? They’re all meant to shine on a big screen. It’s time to run free, friend.
We’ll be up front with you. If you’re still working on a standard 15-inch display, it’s time to upgrade. Sure you can go to 17 inches, but to really watch movies as they were intended, go widescreen, where the display is more like a movie-screen orientation than a square, TV-shaped one.
But 17-inch widescreen displays can feel small too. To feel like you’re truly upgrading your screen size, a 19-inch widescreen display floats our boats. Even better, you can easily find a 19-inch widescreen for under $300. To help you choose, we look at six of them here—three with glossy screens and three with matte screens. We put them through the paces in our lab to find out which offers the best performance for your dollar. And if you already have a big display or an iMac, don’t feel left out. Read on, and you might convince yourself to finally set up two displays on your Mac so you can have more room to work
Like matte? You’ll like the VX1940w.
Of the three matte displays in our roundup, the ViewSonic VX1940w came out on top. It had the best image quality of the matte group, though it fell a tad short of being the overall image quality winner out of the six displays. The VX1940w’s color reproduction is smooth and accurate, although when we looked at photos, the skin tones were a little on the red side—but not enough to make our friends and family look like they forgot to put on sunscreen. When it came to gradients in black-and-white photos, it was smooth sailing. We found a little bit of blurring when reading large and small text, but it didn’t fool us into thinking we needed new glasses. We noticed that the brightness was a little uneven around the edges of the display, but this doesn’t hinder the overall performance.
The VX1940w only has tilt adjustments so you can move the screen backward and forward, and unfortunately, adjusting the height means stacking the display on an old encyclopedia you found in the attic (we’re partial to volume M—it seems to be just the right thickness). It’s about 4.5 inches from a desktop to the bottom of the display. The onscreen controls are easy to use, though the seemingly helpful Auto Image Adjust option in the control panel isn’t available when you’re using a DVI connection, because ViewSonic says the display self-adjusts when in digital mode. And if cable mess drives you crazy, then you’ll absolutely love the cable clips on the display’s neck.
We didn’t see any streaking while watching our test DVDs of Transformers and Lawrence of Arabia. We had very infrequent screen stutter while playing first-person shooter games. According to ViewSonic, the VX1940w has a 2-millisecond response time. It’s also the only display in our roundup that had a native 1,680-by-1,050-pixel resolution (the other five are 1,440 by 900 pixels).
COMPANY: ViewSonic
CONTACT: www.viewsonic.com
PRICE: $285
REQUIREMENTS: DVI
Great overall image quality. Easy-to-use onscreen controls. 1,680-by-1,050-pixel native resolution.
Some blurring on small text. Some uneven brightness along
Works fine as a secondary display
Company logos don’t usually influence our ratings (unless the logo plays a major role in the design of a product), and Westinghouse’s outdated logo doesn’t affect this display’s rating. But in one of our testing setups, we connected the L1975NW to an iMac, and Westinghouse’s bubble-serif W logo looked outdated next to the iMac’s black, glossy Apple logo.
The matte L1975NW’s mediocre image quality means we wouldn’t use it as a primary display, but it’s good enough as a second display on an Mac Pro or iMac where you can place palettes for Photoshop or other apps, or even email and iChat windows. Skin tones in the photos we looked at on the display lacked the smoothness and consistency we saw in the VX1940w. Gradients in black-and-white photos had some obvious banding, but business charts and graphs looked nice. Text wasn’t as sharp as we would have liked, but it wasn’t bad to look at, either.
The L1975NW only has tilt adjustments, and the bottom of the screen is about 4 inches from the desktop. Six hidden buttons at the bottom of the display are the controls. One button lets you quickly switch between Picture, Text, and Economy modes, which adjust the brightness and contrast for the appropriate type of screen images.
We were a bit surprised when we watched Lawrence of Arabia and Transformers on the L1975NW. Both movies looked nice in general, and shadow detail was quite good. That darn problem with skin tones appeared again, though. When we played games, we didn’t have any stuttering—a good thing. The L1975NW has a 5-millisecond response time and a 1,440-by-900-pixel native resolution.
The LCD has built-in downward-firing speakers at the bottom. You won’t get good bass response and warmth, but the sound is powerful enough if you’re sitting in front of the display. Unfortunately, there’s no instant access to the display’s volume controls.
COMPANY: Westinghouse
CONTACT: www.westinghousedigital.com
PRICE: $279
REQUIREMENTS: DVI
Handles movies well. Quick switching of picture modes.
Unimpressive image quality. Text lacks crispness.
If price is all that matters to you, then you’ll be happy with the DYLM1986.
We really, really wanted to like the Soyo DYLM1986, because you can pick it up for well below its list price—we found it online for under $200. But in the end, you’ll make some significant sacrifices to save some money.
The DYLM1986’s image quality finished at the bottom of all the displays. The matte screen looked washed out, colors lacked punch, and the splotchy skin tones in photos disappointed. Black-and-white photos actually looked fine, and we didn’t notice much banding. Text quality also finished last, and DVD playback looked too light. We didn’t notice any screen stutter in our games.
The display has tilt adjustment (forward/backward) only, and the bottom of the screen is about 3.5 inches from the desk. We found the button layout for the controls awkward—we frustratingly kept pushing the power button by mistake, which would shut off the display and reset the controls, forcing us to start all over again.
The side-firing speakers built into the DYLM1986 sound like a cheap AM transistor radio. Turn the volume up to full blast and you’ll get an earful of distortion.
COMPANY: Soyo
CONTACT: www.soyousa.com
PRICE: $249
REQUIREMENTS:DVI
Cheap.
Awkward button placement for controls. Ho-hum image quality.
We liked almost everything about the Samsung SyncMaster 932GW’s image quality. We liked how the glossy display produced smooth, consistent skin tones in photographs. We liked how it beautifully handled black-and-white photos. We also liked the clean text, at any font size. The only thing we didn’t like was the shadow detail—we found the SyncMaster 932GW’s shadows to be too dark and sometimes muddy.
The bottom of the display is about 3.5 inches from the desktop, and the neck
has tilt adjustment. The controls are complete and easy to use, but you should download the Mac version of Samsung’s MagicTune software (the bundled MagicTune CD has Windows software only) instead of using the hardware controls. Not only does MagicTune let you make screen adjustments with your mouse, but it also has calibration tools that are similar to the Display Calibrator Assistant in OS X. Then there’s the MagicBright tool within MagicTune, which provides 5 preset brightness settings that you select based on what’s on your screen. For example, a Text setting sets the brightness for reading text, and there’s a Cinema setting for watching movies.
Speaking of movies, the 932GW handled movies without any streaking. We saw consistent colors while watching Transformers and Lawrence of Arabia, but sometimes the picture was too dark. Our gameplay wasn’t interrupted by any stutter, either.
COMPANY: Samsung
CONTACT: www.samsung.com
PRICE: $269.99
REQUIREMENTS:DVI
Good overall image quality. Excellent text. Great MagicTune software.
Dark movie playback. Dark shadow detail in photos.
Images have extra pop on the AccuSync 19WMGX’s glossy screen.
The dazzling image quality of the NEC AccuSync LCD 19WMGX makes it a top performer in this roundup. Its color accuracy is very good, though it tends to lean a little bit on the oversaturated side. Photos and text look crisp and clean. Gradients in black-and-white pictures were smooth. And of all the displays, the glossy 19WMGX had the best movie clarity, which helped us enjoy Lawrence of Arabia and Transformers even more. We did notice some screen stutter while playing games, but not enough to affect gameplay. The native resolution is 1,440 by 900 pixels.
Like most of the displays in this roundup, the display stand has only tilt adjustment. The one drawback we found with the 19WMGX was the controls—they’re sparse. The only image adjustments are for brightness, contrast, and color temperature. But that’s OK, because the picture looks pretty good right out of the box.
The 19WMGX has a pair of forward-firing speakers at the bottom of the display. They sound clear, but they don’t have a lot of audio depth—the bass and highs are weak. But the sound is loud enough to fill a small office.
COMPANY:NEC
CONTACT: www.necdisplay.com
PRICE: $249.99
REQUIREMENTS:DVI
Great overall image quality. Best movie clarity of the group.
Sparse onscreen controls.
The w1907’s aluminum stand isn’t as elegant as an iMac’s or Cinema Display’s, but it does swivel and tilt.
Of all the displays in our roundup, the glossy HP w1907 strikes us as the most PC-looking—and considering that it’s from HP, that’s not a surprise. Its metal stand certainly lacks a Mac sensibility as it props the display 3.25 inches from the desktop, but at least it swivels and tilts. The odd gap between the bezel and the top of the screen makes us wonder how we’ll clean out the dust that collects in there. And the power button atop the display seems misplaced, or at least goes against tradition.
However, the w1907’s design doesn’t heavily influence our thoughts on the display. Image is almost everything, and the w1907 has nice, lively color. Our photos looked good, but we preferred the skin tone reproduction from the other two glossy displays. We also saw noticeable banding in our black-and-white photo test. Text looked good at large sizes, but at a 12-point size, we noticed some blurring.
While we heavily favor Samsung’s MagicTune display software, HP’s built-in display controls should be the model for the LCD industry. HP’s control interface looks like a well-designed separate application, not like the BIOS-like controls common on LCDs. You breeze through the settings effortlessly, and there are quick image presets for text, photos, and gaming.
COMPANY: HP
CONTACT: www.hp.com
PRICE: $230
REQUIREMENTS: DVI
A model for display controls. Lively color.
Small text looked jaggy.
