Acer AL1714sm

Having just built myself a quite high-spec computer system from the ground up, I was becoming a little tired of viewing all that I had created on an ancient, tiny 14" monitor, salvaged from the computer breaking yard that is our loft!
As the set-up was located in my bedroom, space was at an absolute premium, so a large flat-screen LCD monitor was at the top of my list. "But aren't they hideously expensive?" I hear you ask. Well, yes actually they are! At least to a tightwad like me…. Looking in Maplin, PC World and several online retailers it looked as though I was going to have to part with something like two hundred of my hard-earned pounds!
Salvation came from a most unlikely quarter however. Whilst shopping with my mum in the local Tesco, I noticed a display of flat screen monitors, of various shapes, sizes and prices, tucked behind the fruit and veg! The one that particularly caught my eye was a 17" slim and sexy offering from Acer, marked up at an incredibly tempting £149.95. Well that was it, I was smitten and we proceeded to the checkout with our milk, sugar, eggs and computer screen!

Getting it home, and whipping open the box, I was greeted with a bundle of cabling, a black plastic oval thing, which turned out to be the base for the screen, an instruction book and CD containing the user manual, and of course, the screen itself. As I said this is a 17" monitor, so it's quite a noticeable presence on your desktop! The casing and housing of the monitor is pretty minimalistic, with maybe an inch of silver plastic surrounding the screen on three sides. The fourth, bottom, edge is about twice the thickness, as it houses the power, menu and adjustment buttons as well as the integral speakers.
Looking at the screen from the side on, I was amazed at how "shallow" it was. It measures maybe two inches thick, with a thicker section in the centre, where the power, audio and VGA cables plug into.
Setting the monitor up could not have been easier. Clip the base onto the bottom of the screen, connect up the power leads, and plug it into the PC. If you want the integrated speakers to work, you must also connect the audio cable provided to the computer…I already have speakers so would not be using this option. I did try them out though and they work well enough for system beeps and Windows chimes, but you won't be blown away by the sound quality if playing music on your PC.
The screen is adjustable to an extent - you can tilt it up and down to suit your seating position, but it does not turn from side to side, other than by moving the whole base and cannot be rotated from "landscape" to "portrait" as can higher spec models.

With everything connected, it's time to boot up and see how things look….turning the monitor on brings up the Acer logo before the usual "No Signal" box appears to tell you your PC is not turned on.
Booting the PC up and I'm already surprised at how much bigger everything is, and I'm only looking at the black BIOS screen! When Windows does it's thing I am greeted with the picture of my car on my desktop as usual...but wait! Something is different…my car has grown and my icons look a little out of proportion. There is a sticker on the screen telling you the optimum resolution for this screen is 1280 x 1024 pixels, so I dutifully amend this from the 800 x 600 I had been used to. The difference is immediately noticeable, my icons seem tiny, but in proportion, and are no longer arranged round the edge of the screen as they were previously, they are now floating around in the middle - where the edge would have been before! This was easily fixed by dragging the icons back to the edge of the screen.
Opening Internet Explorer, I was delighted to find that my Ciao home screen now fits neatly on the screen, without me having to scroll down to see new reviews etc…much better! Picture quality and clarity are superb - no more fuzzy words or dodgy looking pictures - this is like having a new PC all over again!
I decided to give the monitor a real test and opened Google Earth (for those not familiar with it, Google Earth is a superb free download that allows you to view the entire world via aerial photographs. You start by looking at the Earth from space and are able to zoom into street level) On my old screen, I could only view half of the program, the rest lay beyond the viewing area, but now I was able to see it all, and in such vibrant colour! In fact, the monitor is so good it shows up the weakest link in my PC - the puny graphics card which is next on the list to be replaced!

So the Acer took everything I could throw at it and still asked for more! It really is a fantastic bit of kit for the money, and as it's an LCD screen, I now have loads more space on my computer table! Thank you Acer!

Technical Specifications & Dimensions (for those that may understand them!)

Pixel Pitch - 0.264mm
Maximum Resolution - 1280x1024
Contrast ratio - 350:1
Brightness - 370cd/m2
Input Signal - Analog VGA
Response Time - 14ms
Viewing Angle - 160o Horizontal / 120o Vertical
Speaker - 2.5W x 2
Power Consumption - 51W
Power Adapter - External
Kensington Lock - Supported
Weight - 3.5 kg
Dimensions - 384(W) x 391(H) x 204(D) mm