NEC MultiSync LCD1970NXp

The background to this review..

A while back I was writing a lot of reviews about CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors, for those of you who remember these are the big bulky things that take up a lot of desk space and weigh a lot.
The company that employ me have now started to upgrade the monitors we use, so at work we have an assortment of LCD (liquid crystal display) monitors. These are often called TFT, which stands for thin film transistor. Ooer look at me, getting all technical, wow you would think I knew what I was writing about.
With that in mind and this being my first LCD review, I thought it would be prudent to not only review this product but to also put in my feelings of the differences between CRT and LCD, the result should be a review of this product and it should help those who are considering upgrading from CRT to LCD.

What is in front of me..

I have a "NEC MultiSync LCD1970NXp" that I am looking at, it has a flat screen, and the surrounding frame appears to be a brushed alloy that encompasses the screen. When switched off the screen is black and only bursts into life upon switching on.

Talking of switches, below the centre of the screen are the control buttons.
Looking from the right to the left you have..

The power button (when on this has a small green LED (light emitting diode), and when off with the power connected has an orange one.).

The Reset button (this selects between DV modes 1,2,3 and off for those that understand such things).

Select ½, this selects between inputs, basically you can have choose between two inputs say computer one and two and toggle the display depending on what you want.

Then my favourite (will tell you in a moment)

The last button is the Menu/Exit button, select once to enter the menu display, then select again to exit.

Now heading back to my favourite button, it is in between the Select and Menu and is not really a button, it is a little joystick, very similar to those found on laptop computers. After clicking on the menu button, you use this to navigate around the monitor's settings. I am not going to bore you with too many details here, take it from me; the settings and the adjustments appear to be endless. From the simple things (brightness, contrast, centralising etc) through to such things as language selection and things you need the manual to understand such as Hot Key and OSM Left/Right Up/Down (I discovered that this is just a way of moving the menu display's position.).

In The Box..

As well as the monitor the following were included

A stand for the monitor, this has a round base that comes out from under the front of the monitor, it is quite heavy, as it has to be to support the fairly light monitor.
It is very easy to adjust from the comfort of your chair, tilt back and forth as well as raise and lower the height to suit.

A Power cable, complete with transformer.

A lead to connect the PC to the monitor (for the more technical among you it is Video Signal Cable 15-pin D-SUB male to 15-pin D-SUB male, if that makes sense).

A Cable cover, well really I would consider it part of the stand, although you fit it once you have connected the relevant cables to the monitor as it hides them from view and keeps them tidy.

It also has a user manual that looks at first quite daunting until you realise that it is in eleven different languages.

Last but not least comes the CD; on this you will find a complete use manual in a PDF format.

How I find it,

The picture is clear and crisp; it does not appear to have any wobble (unlike some old CRT monitors).

It powers up very quickly, much faster than the old CRT monitors that I am used to, although this makes little difference to me as the computers tend to take much longer to start up anyway.

Overall it is much lighter than the CRT monitors and a very positive result of this is it makes it much easier to adjust the height and tilt to suit the individual user. It also has the distinct advantage of taking up a lot less desktop space; this is great for me as it means I have more places to leave my junk lying around.

A little (not all) information to keep the technically minded happy

Diagonal size 19"
Weight 7.5kg
Width 41.3cm
Height 38.7cm
Depth 22cm
Max resolution 1280 x 1024 / 60 Hz
A lot more details can be found on sites such as dooyoo or ciao.

I am not sure if this is true of all new monitors but this particular monitor really does seem to be a lot easier on my eye.

With a retail price of between £230 and up to £330 it is not the cheapest available, but it does seem well made and so far has proved to be reliable.