ViewSonic VX922

...I then came across the Viewsonic VX922 - quite by co-incidence after receiving an eMail from an online store that I use quite a lot for components etc, and my luck was in, they were having a sale on TFT screens.

After reading a couple of reviews on the screen, I decided to give it a blast. I phoned, and ordered the screen, and was actually told that I was lucky, they had just that day received in a new shipment, and they were selling ...
...for last year, and this ViewSonic really kicks that screen into touch. The DVD quality was a clear and crisp as the gameplay. there was no shadowing on the images, or ghosting. there was also no pixelation. For me - I couldnt see anything wrong.

As you can probably already tell, I am really impressed by this screen. I also had a bargain, in that I was able to purchase it for £186.00 inc vat and delivery, which I thought was good, looking ... more

Well, being a geek, I recently decided it was time for a 'PC Upgrade'

Ok, well the people that know me, know that this basically means, not just upgrading a particular component in my PC, or maybe a few, but basically rebuilding a complete new one.

After ordering all of the components I wanted, which came to around £1,100 I then looked at my poor old 15" TFT. It had really seen better days. I then thought, well you know, im spending a lot of money on a new PC, mostly to be used for gaming, but to take full advantage of it - I could really do with a new screen ( thats basically the way i convinced myself of buying a new one, and justifying the additional cost :-) )

I was looking around the internet, and in a couple of electrical stores.

There was one thing which stood out. Price.

If I wanted a 'decent' screen, then I was going to have to pay for it. It was looking like it was going to cost me the best part of £300.

This was actually a little over the budget that I had set for a new screen. I found a couple of 'decent' screens, which were in budget but they were either 15" or 17". I really wanted a 19" screen.

I then came across the Viewsonic VX922 - quite by co-incidence after receiving an eMail from an online store that I use quite a lot for components etc, and my luck was in, they were having a sale on TFT screens.

After reading a couple of reviews on the screen, I decided to give it a blast. I phoned, and ordered the screen, and was actually told that I was lucky, they had just that day received in a new shipment, and they were selling fast. Apparently their last shipment lasted 3 days, they sold nearly 1000 of them !!!!

I waited for the screen to arrive, and had already built my new gaming PC....... It was a Saturday morning, and the doorbell rang. I opened the door, and the guy from Citylink was there, 'another parcel mate' - I have a few deliveries, as the guy is getting to know :-)

The box that the screen comes in is a good size, its easy enough to carry with handles into the size of the box to be able to lift it easily ( wouldnt want to drop it after spending out a lot of money would you )

I got the screen inside, and opened the box. The screen itself is held tightly in place with the foam packaging, not the polystyrene that you usually find ( and dont you find that stuff annoying, it just gets everywhere when you try and unpackage something with that - although the kids love it, and think its snow if you start breaking it all to bits :- )

Along with the screen was the power adaptor, and the ac power cord, along with a user manual, and installation 'Perfect View' CD ( which helps calibrate your monitors settings for the best performance )

The screen itself had a sheet of plastic covering it - to avoid it getting scratched during transport - which again was something that told me they had really thought about the transporting of this item, rather than just chucking it in a box, and shipping them out.

The screen was put on my desk, and turned around so I could access the rear of the panel. There is a plastic covering that you need to remove, to be able to access the ports on the back. To the base of the rear of the unit, there is a lead clip. I connected the VGA cable ( that was supplied with the screen ) to my graphics card on my PC, and then ran the cable to the DVI input on the monitor ( with the supplied VGA - DVI adaptor ) I then connected the ac power cord to the power supply, and ran the cord to the screen and plugged it in. Once this was done, you can then clip the wires into the wire gripper, which keeps them all nice - neat and tidy. Putting the plastic cover back on the rear of the screen, and in my set up - I cant even see the wires coming out of the back of it. Very neat and tidy, which I love, seeing as these days we appear to have a mass of cables behind every PC or TV set up.

After powering the monitor up i inserted the supplied CD, and ran through the set up of the monitor, which was really straight forward. It just helps you to adjust the brightness / contrast so that the screen is performing at its optimum.

Once this was done, I decided to really check the screen for any dead or stuck pixels.

Dead pixels are basically pixels within the screen that display no colour at all, so would show as a small black spec on your screen. Stuck pixels are ones that are stuck displaying only ever one colour, either being red / green / blue. I was quite shocked - but happily surprised. There were no dead pixels. This is something that is quite a gamble on TFT screens. Basically the manufacturers are actually allowed to sell screens, with a certain amount of dead / stuck pixels in a specific amount of space. This is because if they had to disguard any screens made that had a single or a couple of dead pixels, then the manufacturing cost would be massive, and in turn the price of a screen would almost certainly triple if not more, to cover the additional manufacturing cost.

I was so pleased, basically so far, I had a perfect screen.

I decided to fire up a game, as the first test.

I started playing one of my favourite games, Unreal Tournament G.O.T.Y

It was amazing, due to the 2ms response time of the screen, I had no 'lag' at all from the images being displayed. I was really impressed.

I had heard that some people were not that impressed by the video / dvd quality of the picture on the screen. i decided to chuck in a dvd. Well to be honest with you, I think they might not of calibrated the screen properly. I actually have a Sony 17" TFT, which I paid about £450 for last year, and this ViewSonic really kicks that screen into touch. The DVD quality was a clear and crisp as the gameplay. there was no shadowing on the images, or ghosting. there was also no pixelation. For me - I couldnt see anything wrong.

As you can probably already tell, I am really impressed by this screen. I also had a bargain, in that I was able to purchase it for £186.00 inc vat and delivery, which I thought was good, looking at the prices of it at other places. In fact, I liked this screen so much, 2 days later, I phoned and ordered a second one. The company I was buying it from told me they only had a few left, and were waiting for another shipment, but I had secured one. They told me that it was £235.00 inc vat and delivery, but after a bit of a conversation, they looked at my previous order, and even agreed to sell the screen to me for the same as the first one.

Im now sitting here on my PC, with 2 of these screens running side by side, and they look amazing. I am really pleased with them. ( and I was lucky, the quality of the second screen was the same as the first, so I would really have to put it down to the manufacturing of ViewSonic products, they have it down to a tee )

Very impressed, if your after your first TFT, or an upgrade to an existing one, then I would definately recommend this to anyone.

Dont do what I did, and look around at well known brands such as Sony etc, and think your going to have to pay £400 - £500 and only getting a 17". When you get this you will be glad you did, and believe me - the extra 2" makes all the difference ( oohhhh eerrrr Miss's )

Thanks for reading. 

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