Goodday,

This is gonna be my first review ever, so pls dont take it to seriously as im ,no pro in reviewing..

Type: Belinea widescreen 20.1inch 10 20 35w
(height equals a 17inch tft )
response time : 8ms gtg
max resolution : 1680 x 1050 (native resolution) also resolution which doesnt deform the picture.
Order : Pixmania
Delivered: dpd
Price :+/- 500€ in februari 2006 (online shop)


Delivery status

Box wrapped:


The package arrived quite fast once it got into the stock of the company. They had a small problem getting it on stock as fast as they said cause ordering numbers were high on the monitor type.
It arrived decently packed and without a scratch.


Inside the box


Included:
VGA cable, NO DVI !!!! cable included
Power cable
Cable to utilize the usb ports (hub cable i guess)
Cable for the speakers
Install disk with the instructions how to set up etc etc...



Essembled

First opinion : " THE SCREEN BLOWS U AWAY"


Back of the panel

connections :
VGA, DVI
Speakers
USB
I didnt even trie the speakers out as they r tiny and of no use to me since i use 5.1 speaker set.
I didnt tried the usb ports as they are located at a clumsy place, and i use the ones in front of my pc. (they might be however handy if u install the modem right next to your screen and have secondary devices on your desk)

The foot is very decent, not just some crappy plastic thing.So is the frame and overall look and feel of the tft. Its robust decently made and its a real slim design (that of course is personal, but i like the way it looks)



Dead pixel count


I didnt use a program , but i used different colored full backgrounds on windows, with the taskbar dragged down and the icons moved from position.
The pictures dont do the screen justice as i needed to flash to get them kinda right looking.

Black screen

I couldnt see any backlight bleed, not even before i lowered the contrast settings.
If its there its tiny and it doesnt bother at all
(I use pc for gaming, ps work etc etc, and i DO know when it is annoying or not, and as i couldnt detect one, it of course isnt annoying )

white screen


red screen


blue screen


I couldnt see any dead or colored out pixel so far, so thats a big plus, since the return policy AINT as many companies do. U cant return if less than 3pixels are dead. (u can check that out on other siites, theres a return policy rule about where and how the pixel count is taken into consideration)



Installed on the desk




The screen immediately popped into my eye, it looks crisp,sharp, colors are good (had to lower the factory contrast a LOT and the brightness a little). As differently read on reviews, the colors R GOOD !!! dont let u tell otherwise, they arent a minus for me they r a plus.


Gaming (**updated**)


1- Ghost recon


YES GR fans, indeed it already supported widescreen 5years ago !!! YIPPIE


The game blows u even more away........

gaming conclusion:
* Fast response , i didnt notice any lag at all, and gr is a fast paced FPS.
* Only kinda dissadvantage u might have is your rig, im running a 9600xt and 512ram on a 2000+athlon xp processor, and i had to lower the details to ge the game kinda flowing on the native resolution (50-60fps).
* Widescreen effect is amazing in gameplay !!! it take syour gaming to a different level.


2 - R6 : Lockdown demo





Same conclusion as gr : smooth gameplay , no ghosting or blurring whatsoever but had to again lower graphics settings, which is normal, since i increased my resolution (+/- x1.5 against my 17inch)


more gaming screenshots will be up later, as im typing this review real fast after the tft arrived, but i wanted u guys to know there are other brands than samsung,benq,etc etc etc



Monitor test

I used this program and didnt notice any problem, except the cpu couldnt keep up with the moving blocks, making the borders not follow 100% right.
This however WAS NOT ghosting or blurring!!! there were no effects of those during the test.
All screens looked good to excellent to me

download it here
http://www.serialdownloads.com/download ... rTest.html







Other info

* Its a charm for PS, colors are vivid and u have all the place u need to open up your picture and still have room to place your toolbars
* Windows explorer is kinda become handy at last as u can see a lot of picture previews at the same time without having to scroll up or down.
* Watched a DVD on it and it plays like a TV, so no problems on that front too. (**update**)



review by
-M-

Really cool review. I think pictures say more than a thousand words and therefore this exactly shows me what i want to see.

This monitor was actualy the big competitor of my Benq FP202W.
I had to choose between that and this monitor and decided to go for the Benq just because it had a lower pricetag on it.

I'll add some thoughts about this monitor and possibly some pics later on.

Out Of The Box

Everything is in the box apart from a DVI lead. DSub is fine for me anyway as the monitor is on a KVM switch which only accepts DSUBS anyway. But a nice touch was that both a UK 3 pin and Euro 2 pin plug was supplied! Hooking everything up was simple enough, though when straightening out that stand for the first time you are really scared you might break it! I eventually did it by rocking it progressively harder until it extended fully. Probably would be wise to do this before attaching the monitor (unlike me!). The cable cover at the back is a bit flimsy and barely goes back on again once the cables are in position... but its sufficient for something you wont see anyway in most cases.

Configuration

Once everything is hooked up, booting up your PC and choosing the native 1680x1050 res I would say the the brightness was definitely way too high, and the contrast too low. Of course your mileage may vary! I read someone, somewhere, saying that this monitor works best on the sRGB setting? I am not sure... I have it on now and using the 1 button-press autoconfiguration I have a decent display... but I am having a real hard time calibrating it. Maybe I am used to CRT's (this is my 1st LCD), but I have used a few different programs to try and get a perfect brightness/contrast/gamma settings but they never come out right. It also seems to me that the OSD menu is a bit awkward to use due to the buttons positions just under the bezel, and the layout. But my biggest gripe here is that nothing seems to be effected too much no matter what you select. If I set contrast and brightness to 0, and then both to 100.... there isn't that much difference! For now I am living with the autoconfig settings until I can find something to calibrate it truly...
One other gripe... my image is slighlty sloped horizontally. I.e. top left of the screen is maybe 5-10 pixels lower than the top right hand side. Normally on a CRT I would rotate a couple of degrees to correct this... but I can't find any option to do such a thing on this monitor. It's not major or really noticeable... just annoying to know its there after spending £340 on it.


In Use

Windows/Web/Office

Pretty damn good all round, text is very sharp and scrolling text IS readable and sharp. The geometry etc seems good. Love the extra room on the desktop and working with multiple apps such as following a guide on the web whilst actually doing whatever it is guiding me on in another fully visible window is awesome!

Gaming

The REAL test as far as I am concerned. The reason this is my 1st LCD is that I have not wanted any ghosting and for the image to be as good as my CRT. I am delighted to say that there is no ghosting anywhere that I have noticed even when really looking for it! This I am really pleased about and was tested in slower gamers such as Eve-Online, and faster ones such as BF2. Again love the extra FOV (In eve's case) and really adds immersion to have your fov envoloped by the screen
However, what I am concerned about is the image quality. There just isnt the depth of a CRT. To give an example I on Masthuur City in BF2 there is a sort of sandy fog effect all over that level that looks awesome in CRT world. On the old CRT I could still make out players through the mist quite clearly and pop a cap in them if required . But on this screen it's bloody hard to pick out anyone more than about 30 metres away as they just dissolve into the mist like a perfect camo-suit! If they don't move... I can't see them and in any FPS THAT'S BAD!!! I have to hope they move and I catch their blur in the sandstorm and aim very vaguely in that direction.

It's annoying... I might not be calibrated well enough but this is a big big problem for me... one I am not sure I can overlook

Overall Marks

Setup/Configuration 7/10 Fairly simple but not completely intuitive or optimised
Office/Windows/Web 9.5/10 No real complaints
Gaming 6/10 Lack of ghosting is great... image quality sucks.

Yeah I concur, for the price this monitor is top value for features to price ratio, I paid 328 pounds inc VAT.

I was in position that my CRT decided to smoke and I needed another monitor fast, I had to goto the library to use the internet to do some research. Until now, I was unwilling to buy a TFT because I was concerned they were too slow and had angle issues, but not now. I went to PCworld and Comet and Dixons and was suprised at the high price of the 19 inch and the old tech they were trying to sell, really most of the stuff had much lower contrast and higher response times, and I was resigned to getting a 19 inch on my budget. Then I read a favourable review in a magazine and just decided to buy. Really being on welfare the 328 pounds was like my maximum, but I was suprised I could get a higher spec monitor and 20 inch, for just a little bit more than the low tech stuff in PCWORLD, and between 100 and 300 pounds cheaper than other 20 inch TFTs.

Look to be honest, I really cannot compare this against another TFT because I do not have one to compare against except my old CRT. Where my old Illayma Sony tube was quite dull and dark, this monitor is much brighter and has a really steady image and colour spectrum.

When I played some games I noticed no ghosting or blurring, even running MAME games, which I expect to see that the most.

However the default contrast and brightness levels are WAAAY too high, and reading black against white appears like your reading text on a lamp until you turn it down. But you can always turn it down a bit, but leave it up for games.

One thing is that I noticed more errors and artifacts on Divx and avi movies, and I am unsure if it is because these were masked out naturally by a CRT tube, or whether I was sitting closer because it was a smaller screen previously. I did find that turning the contrast down a little removed these artifacts a lot, so I am unsure whether this is TFT technology in general. But anyway AVI's and DVDs still look great.

There is just a little afterbleed sometimes on the darkestt of blacks at the corners, but it is only noticeable if you turn your head a little and does not stand out or anything. Also I have no dead pixels at all which is great, as I had a dead green pixel on a Thinkpad 10 years ago, I was prepared to rant and stamp my feet.

Playing BF1942 and BF2 actually looked better, I could actually see more colours and more shading effects in both games than I could on my CRT, probably because this monitor is so much more brighter.

The only downer (and with most 20 inches) I have is that I cannot rotate the monitor 90 degrees, so I am going to buy a stand sometime in the future for 30 pounds extra so I can play MAME games and read some docs. I was going to consider the fancy Samsung with the nice stand but I heard it had colour dithering issues.

I cannot find any options in the OSD for aspect ratio, so if I give it 1280 X 1024 it simply stretches it. I find that I can solve this with a DVI cable (not included ggrrrr) and some driver options. Actually I was suprised with the stretching because it is pretty good looking for games, though you wouldnt really want to use it all the time for normal use and would remain in the TFTs native use.

Installation was easy enough except I was afraid I was going to smash the stand at first, because you have to flip part of the stand mechanism around and it is not clear in the poor printed docs what to do, this requires some force.

No HDCP support, but then again neither did had all the other monitors I looked at either, so its a bummer for HDCP, but then again I dont expect massive adoption or movies for another 3 years.

Never bothered to try the speakers, I have a 5:1 system already connected.

Really this TFT is cheapo but it is not cheapo quality, with high contrast ratio and low 8ms speed, and really nice colours. My Mac buddy said it was better than his apple display.

Bye.
Dorian Gray.

After 1.5month of use, the tft still rocks.
I dont agree with the statement that 'image quality sux'...thats strange, maybe its your settings or your GPU that cant handle the screens resolution......
If they seemed camo'd maybe thats the idea of the game..................


-M-

Mordred, it is purely the fact the monitor is so poorly setup on both it's auto and default settings

Check this http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/fo ... php?t=3510

Hmm I can't understand your problem Seer, since my monitor is working great. It looks much better than my old CRT and the colours are livid and alive. Wallpaper looks really great, more like looking at a picture than a monitor.

As for games, i've had no problems with BF2, BF1942 and mame. Really, something must be bad with your TFT if you have problems.

My only gripe is no aspect ratio control, except at the driver level with DVI. If I plug in a xbo 360 or my Dreamcast, I have no control.

DG.

Hmm yeah I can understand why Seer wants to colour profile but isnt that a little expensive ? He may as well bought a more premium monitor.

The only stupid thing about his monitor is that the default brightness and contrast are set waaaay too high. If I was writing this now on the defaults, it would be hard on my eyes. The defaults are like looking at text floating on a bright lamp.

DG.

That's why the first thing I did when I bought this monitor was to reduce the brightness to zero and contrast to 50% and then increased them until I felt comfortable...

Of course I coulda bought a more expensive monitor, but after paying a restocking fee and buying a new one woulda been even more expensive!

Back to the point though, the problem was more to do with the levels of rgb and/or the contrast ratio. Basically almost brown and brown being indistinguishuable with the defaults and like I say in the spyder review, I always have a problem trying to calibrate these things visually.

Though with a CRT I definitely found it easier as there was more variation in the image using the controls. I still stand by the fact that 0 brightness/contrast should mean you have a black screen (as with most CRTs) and 100 contrast/brightness it should be super washed out.

Thats not the case with this monitor, the difference between 0 and 100 is obvious but certainly not vast. Fannying around for literally days with various test cards and programs wasn't yielding any results, so I went for hardware! I am a perfectionist to be honest, and I found the contrast at the darker end of the scale to be impossible to get right. Thus where before (CRT) if someone was walking next to me in the shadows I could see them (in a realistic way... not standing out like a sore thumb obviously!), but with the belinea even if I set it to 100 contrast/brightness I would not.

The colour profile has produced perfection like I could achieve on the CRT, so for that the spyder was worth the money. I can see tthe subtlest of shades and everything is as vibrant and and ghostless as my old iiyama.

Could you please post a link to your color profile? I know they slightly differ because of the graphics card etc. but I'm willing to try

I can when I get home (and will post the link here) but I am not sure how well it would turn out for you for many factors.

1. Your screen will be slightly different in terms of backlight luminosity and other slight manufacturing variations

2. Your environment will be different in terms of light sources that intrude the room etc (My profile was done in pitch black at night time though so should be fairly good)

3. You will need to reset your monitor back to factory defaults as that is the baseline that the profile is created from.

4. You may have a different graphics card and / or drivers (Mine was done on a 7800GTX with latest nvidia drivers)

5. Insert some other variations here.

I know, but it's worth a try. My monitor is on factory defaults anyway (apart from brightness and contrast).

here ya go

http://erzz.com/downloads/SYPDER1.icm

I reset my monitor to its factory defaults and applied your .icm profile using microsoft's color applet and wow, colours are so much more accurate and richer!

Thanks very much seer!