ViewSonic VX2435wm

For under £500 (inc. VAT), you could do a lot worse than this massive 24in. diagonal wide-screen LCD monitor. And the ViewSonic VX2435wm is just as suited to serious business work as it is to video and gaming.

The box includes everything you need — just park the stand on the desk and the screen slots straight into it. The piano-black surround, silvery finish to the stand and the curved menu buttons provide the style, while around the back you'll find VGA and HDMI inputs, along with audio and video component RCA sockets. There's an S-Video socket too, and a 3.5mm mini-jack. Power comes from a standard mains lead that plugs directly into the unit — there's no separate power adapter. The whole thing weighs only 8kg, so it's fairly easy to set up.

The screen offers a native resolution of 1,920 by 1,200 pixels at 60Hz, and a display area of 51.7cm (horizontal) by 32.3cm (vertical) — 61cm diagonal. It has a creditable 8-millisecond response time and is claimed to consume 90W in use and under 1W in standby mode.

The pair of built-in 3W speakers make a convincing sound, although inevitably they're not as good as a dedicated system. And we'd quibble with the lack of adjustment: the bottom of the display area sits about 16.5cm off the desktop and you can neither raise nor lower it, although it does tilt. We'd prefer the ability to lower it just a centimetre or two. It can also be a little tricky to see the inlaid legends for the input sockets — although most are self-evident.

Other than that, we found nothing to fault the VX2435wm. The anti-glare screen coating works well and there's very little smearing when playing back fast-paced video. The menus use Viewsonic's standard layout and are easy to operate.

Although the overall look-and-feel may be a little plasticky for some tastes, you do get great value for money. If you need a big wide-screen display, this is a great choice.

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