I've owned the LG W2252TE monitor now for around 6 months and it still makes me smile to look at it. I upgraded to this from a 17" Philips that I'd had for around 4 years and was slowly dying - the cable connection was dodgy, thunderflies had crawled inside and died - so the time was ripe for a new monitor. As with their TV range, LG manage to produce some fantastic value screens that don't compromise on the quality, all with beautiful design, and this monitor is no exception to that rule.
Looks
The screen as a whole is simply gorgeous to look at. The bevel around the edge is a smooth, deep black, that doesn't suffer too badly from greasy fingerprints, remarkably. The screen itself does a great job of diffusing any glare in the room. The power button is stylish and understated, with different coloured LEDs glowing behind it when it's on. The other control buttons are tucked away at the bottom of the screen with subtle symbols on the front indicating the different functions.
Installation
Plugging the monitor in is as simple as you'd expect - plug the standard power cable in and the video cable of your choice (I'm using DVI but VGA is also available) and you're away. The stand is just as straightforward to clip to the monitor and feels sturdy.
The monitor is quick to start up once you click the power button, only around 2 or 3 seconds from off to running. Perfectly acceptable to me.
Once you are up and running the 1680x1050 native resolution is beautiful to behold - widescreen is a genuine blessing, not a gimmick - and you can access a decent range of settings from the buttons on the screen, setting the colour balance to sRGB standard if that sort of thing is important to you (or other presets to suit if it isn't).
A WORD OF WARNING - do not, under any circumstances, install the provided software. It does nothing that the onscreen buttons can't do, except it also likes to take up 99% of your CPU from time to time. It is absolutely NOT essential as it provides no additional functionality, and having your PC stop responding from time to time is frustrating and pointless. SO, I repeat - DO NOT EVER PUT THE LG CD IN YOUR COMPUTER.
Image Quality
As mentioned, the resolution is astounding - especially going from a 5:4 ratio on a 17" screen, the 16:10 ratio is liberating. The psychological sense of room is bizarre and refreshing.
Images are sharp, colours are strong and the contrast is generally good. However, the dynamic contrast (that allows them to claim such ridiculous figures as 10,000:1 contrast ratio) is painfully obvious at times, particularly when a film or episode fades to black and you can see the screen dimming down. Whilst you're watching a moving picture or playing a game you won't notice it, but as soon as there is one of these fade to blacks you will spot it a mile off. It's a minor thing but for some reason it does annoy me.
Summary
Overall, I can't fault the monitor, apart from that damnable system tray software. Avoid installing that and you won't have any issues, the image quality is superb. My only problem is that my computer can't handle the new resolution for some games now, time to upgrade methinks!
*N.B.: I've rated manufacturer support and the manual as Good (4/5) simply because I've never had to use either. Not really a problem as far as I'm concerned! :D
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