ViewSonic PF77

...awards and I knew that ViewSonic was a very respectable brand. It cost me £220 at the time, which as I recall was not that bad at the time.

Starting with it's looks I have to say that it is ok to look at but nothing I would call special, but then in my opinion very few CRT monitors actually look good! It does have a rather large bit of plastic at the base of the screen where the menu buttons are found, however the buttons are actually ...
...If it wasn't for the ViewSonic name in the bottom left hand corner, the ViewSonic logo (the 3 love birds sat together, something which also appealed to the missus) in the top left and model number in the top right this monitor would look very plain. It terms of it's size I would say it standard for a 17-inch monitor, it does look a little smaller, something probably down to the flat screen. I just quickly mention the on screen menu controls via the ... more

I was looking for a 17-inch monitor that was good on the eyes when sat in front of for long periods of time. Not that I would advise anyone to do that, but my girlfriend was just starting her Computer Animation course at university in September 2000.

After looking around for what was available I decided to buy the 'ViewSonic OptiSync PF77'. It had received a number awards and I knew that ViewSonic was a very respectable brand. It cost me £220 at the time, which as I recall was not that bad at the time.

Starting with it's looks I have to say that it is ok to look at but nothing I would call special, but then in my opinion very few CRT monitors actually look good! It does have a rather large bit of plastic at the base of the screen where the menu buttons are found, however the buttons are actually the same level as the casing and don't stand out that much. This is the main reason I feel why the bottom bit seems a little large (however it is actually the same size a most other 17-inch CRT at 8cm) and stand out more. If it wasn't for the ViewSonic name in the bottom left hand corner, the ViewSonic logo (the 3 love birds sat together, something which also appealed to the missus) in the top left and model number in the top right this monitor would look very plain. It terms of it's size I would say it standard for a 17-inch monitor, it does look a little smaller, something probably down to the flat screen. I just quickly mention the on screen menu controls via the buttons on the front which include just about every possible way for you to twist, skew, stretch and squash your image.

So lets move on to a few of the common details. It has a perfectly flat 17-inch (16-inch viewable) CRT screen with a 0.25mm dpi aperture. This allows it to produce a sharp definition and clear images, even at high resolution. This is backed up by a perfectly flat screen, which helps prevent image reflection and eyestrain, something I must say it does very well. It offers a refresh rate of 118Hz at a resolution of 1024x768, naturally this drops the higher you go but still offers decent rates. You get 104Hz at 1152x870, 89Hz at 1280x1024 and 77Hz at 1600x1200. These rates may not seem overly impressive today but I thought they were quite good for the time I bought it. These rates make gaming easy on the eyes, especially when playing first person shooters or driving games.

When this monitor was originally released it was one of the first 'affordable' monitors to allow input from both digital and analogue signals. Hence where the name 'OptiSync' comes from. This is what ViewSonic claims to be a future proof and precise synchronization between the two. This monitor has been connected via the digital connection for about 3 years now. Although I can't say that I remember much difference when I changed it over to digital, but that could be something to do with the graphics card. That's providing you can actually tell the difference!

One last thing to mention would be the ARAG (Anti Reflection, Anti Glare) screen treatment, which apparently uses a multi layer process to eliminate reflection. Now I have used a number of different monitors over the years and many have claimed to have some form of treatment on the screen. I have found very few that actually work and I have found many that seem to do the opposite and make it possibly worse. However with this monitor it really does work very well. Light reflection is minimal and it is really very good to your eyes after long periods of time.

I have been very impressed with this monitor since I bought it. It has given great performance and durability for 5 years now. I would recommend ViewSonic to anyone looking for a new monitor and will personally look at them again when I need to next upgrade.
 

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