The Viewing Angle

Zero Degrees	Five Degrees

Twenty Degrees	Forty-Five Degrees

Check it out – you can look at the screen from a pretty gnarly angle, and still see what’s going on pretty well. The viewing angle isn’t as good as, say, a monitor with a “TrueLife” coating or something similar, but it’s one of the best I’ve seen that doesn’t have something like that. Those coatings suck anyway, unless you’re in a completely dark room, ’cause if there is ANY light hitting that monitor, you’re gonna be taking a trip to Glareville.

Pixel Size

Okay, you’re right, the pixel pitch isn’t amazing at 0.282mm. Despite that fact, the monitor is still really, really sharp. All text is crystal-clear and the picture quality is, as far as I’m concerned, perfect.

Brightness/Contrast

(11/24/2006 Update: A lot of people have asked me about the above picture, specifically about the backlight bleeding. I’ve just got to point out that this picture seems to make it look worse than it actually is. Yes, it is slightly annoying, but it’s only really noticeable when there is a completely black screen. Even if you’re playing dark games, you can’t see it too much. Don’t decide against purchasing this monitor because of the backlight bleeding. Yes, I know you can see it in other pictures that have stuff other than a black screen up on the screen, but you’ve got to realize that the pictures were taken in a completely dark room with a slow shutter speed. All LCDs have this to a certain degree, and this one is only slightly worse than most. I hope this helps clear things up.)

The screen on this monitor gets as bright as you’ll ever need. Taking a look at the picture, you’ll see that the backlight is pretty even. I read that some of the same monitors that were made a few months before this one had some screwed up, uneven backlighting, but it looks like they fixed it. My particular monitor was made in October of 2006, so anything from then and up should be good. The contrast ratio on this monitor is, truly, more than you’ll ever need. If you’re a freak about image quality, you might be a little disappointed to learn that this monitor has a 700:1 contrast ratio, but it looks just fine. I can’t really notice too much of a difference between 700:1 and 1000:1, and I have pretty decent eyesight. If you claim that you can see a huge difference, then I think you’re lying. Brightness and contrast on this monitor are A-OK.

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