It’s been 12 years since I got my first PC. Back then, it came with a 14″ 800×600 CRT monitor. But times change. Now, for just $250 you can get a 22″ LCD monitor with a 1680×1050 resolution! Geeks.com were very kind to send us one of their LCD monitors, the Viewsonic VX2235wm, for a review. We tested the monitor under Windows, Linux and the Mac and here is what we found.The 22″ Viewsonic VX2235wm is a refurbished model, but we found no blemishes or dead/stuck pixels whatsoever — it felt brand new. It arrived with a DVI-D cable, a VGA cable, a power cable, an audio cable and a software CD that also contained the manual in it in PDF format. We tested the monitor under VGA and DVI with ATi graphics cards. The cables are long-enough, but as long as my previous monitor, a Dell. The monitor also has 4 screws to add a VESA stand, although you can’t remove the existing stand.
One thing that really surprised me while I was setting it up was the fact that it was so light — for a 22″ monitor. The monitor it replaced, a DELL 19″ 1280×1024, was much heavier in comparison. Setting up the right cables was piece of cake and soon we were up and running in our dual-monitor setup under XP Pro. Windows automatically adjusted itself to the new resolution, 1680×1050@60Hz, just enough to give us another surprise.
The monitor is ultra bright! I ran it next to my (2-year old) vertical 21″ Samsung 1200×1600 and brightness was 2x. In fact, because my eyes were used to less bright LCD monitors, I had to move the VX2235wm’s brightness down to 60% to get them at the same level as in the Samsung. My office/lab is very dark (I call it “the dungeon”), so I don’t need all the extra juice, but users in brighter rooms will really appreciate the contrast (700:1) and brightness that the VX2235wm offers. The viewing angle is as good as my other LCD monitors in the lab, there is anti-glare support, and the colors are vibrant and accurate. Response time seems to visibly be a tiny bit worse than my Samsung LCD.
The OSD controls are a bit difficult to understand at first, confusing. But after a while you get used to how everything works via just 4 buttons. There is an auto-image adjust, an audio menu to control volume, color adjustments, manual image adjustments, language options and more. Contrast/Brightness are disabled by default, you have to run the “memory recall” option to enable the item.
Under Ubuntu, the monitor was autodected the correct way. The Hsync values are 30-82 and Vsync are 50-85, but Xorg did a good job at autodetecting the values, so we never had to edit anything. More over, the Mac also autodected the monitor perfectly.
Sound quality of the integrated speakers is so-so, as you would expect from such small speakers. I still prefer to use my big subwoofer-assisted speaker system over the monitor’s, although they can be handy for some users. One thing that’s really missing from this model is USB ports. The newer Viewsonic models offer both USB ports and an iPod dock, but their prices are still prohibiting compared to this model’s low price — which is the lowest we have seen in the market for a good 22″ monitor. So, if you are looking for large resolutions — and especially if you want to playback or edit video with it — this LCD monitor is a great opportunity.
Rating: 8/10
I’m just starting the process of looking for an LCD monitor for my wife, and this gets me thinking in the right direction. Thanks!
Looks great. I am also in the market for a 22″, however I really need height adjustment :/
The VX2235wm can be tilted quite a lot (forwards, backwards), but unfortunately you can’t adjust the height. I would have preferred it to be a bit lower, as I am a short person.
Eugenia, thanks for this. Did you do anything by way of color calibration? Did the monitor come with icc profiles and did you import them into Windows and set one up as default? Did you set up and adjust a gamma program at all? Do you know what color space and temperature you’re running at? Does the Viewsonic come with own-brand software that does all this and if so what’s it like?
These are just questions out of interest and in no way critical. I recently got a Belinea monitor. It’s very nice indeed, after it’s been calibrated. But out of the box, it was glaringly bright and the colors were way off. Turning the contrast down, as you did with the VX2235wm, helped with the glare but didn’t do much for the colors.
I have a feeling that many monitor makers are just knocking the stuff out these days, with the result that users suffer a degraded experience unless they take some time to set their monitor up properly. Of course, this may not apply to Viewsonic which is a premium brand I’d imagine.
Hmmn, the makings of an OSAlert articlelet begin to stir. A couple of utilities mean it’s even quite easy to do this on Linux these days, which at one time it certainly wasn’t.
On Windows, I downloaded the latest driver version for this monitor from Viewsonic website and installed it. After it was done, the default monitor profile was changed by the driver, and it’s now using the Viewsonic-recommended one. The only adjustments I had to make *before* I installed the driver was to just “auto calibrate” and this fixed the screen that was a tiny bit off (the colors were as accurate though). The monitor is at 6500k btw.
On Windows, I downloaded the latest driver version for this monitor from Viewsonic website and installed it. After it was done, the default monitor profile was changed by the driver, and it’s now using the Viewsonic-recommended one. The only adjustments I had to make *before* I installed the driver was to just “auto calibrate” and this fixed the screen that was a tiny bit off (the colors were as accurate though). The monitor is at 6500k btw.
Ah nice, so with this brand a lot is done for you. If only that were true of all of them.
Please observe the price is for a used (refurbished) copy.
Reasons to replace a monitor would among others be it is not good enough. I would take care not to jump in here buying unless there is a return guarantee.
Edited 2007-04-27 08:30
There is a 90-day return policy at Geeks, yes. As I said in my article, this unit had no problems at all. Even my 21″ Samsung monitor, which I bought brand new for $600, came out of the factory with TWO stuck pixels! This Viewsonic had no such problems.
just an aside, but I love the vertical monitor – never ever thought of trying to do that with a monitor. But what a superb idea.
Yes, my Samsung monitor supports both vertical and horizontal, which was the reason I shed $600 for it.
It is absolutely amazing using a web browser with it, pages just fit! Office documents, programming, also much more efficient to use than in widescreen!
This is why I use one widescreen monitor for movies and normal apps, and a vertical monitor for documents. Bliss!
How does sub-pixel font rendering look on the vertical monitor? Does the vertical rgb pixel component arrangement make the text a bit fuzzier than in horizontal mode or is there no visible difference in your experience?
With LCD panels, each pixel stacks the RGB shutters so there is no equivilent issue to the variation of RGB arrangments with CRT phosphors.
Are your sure? The reason I asked about the vertical oriented LCD was because of this page:
http://www.grc.com/ctwhat.htm
And I can tell you for sure that both the Thinkpad I’m typing this on and my MacBook at home have that same pixel component arrangement.
Other how it works sites corroborate your link that RGB structures are indeed adjacent, so I stand corrected.
http://www.teac.com.au/pages/howdoesanlcdwork
http://www.howstuffworks.com/lcd5.htm
The reason I presumed they were stacked was because my first LCD purchase had enough close dead pixels R,G & B which appeared to fully occupy a pixel grid rather than a 1/3 stripe of a full pixel grid.
I suppose the front polariser layer diffuses each RGB stripe to fill their pixel grid so they appear stacked.
Thanks.
Admit that you gave your work area a quick clean before taking the photos. It’s too tidy.
My office is always a mess. It’s part of the experience.
mine looks pretty much like her… a mess but clean
Why this monitor costs 249$ in US, and in an online shop in my country is 439€? which is more than 500$?
Why europeans have always to pay more to get the same technology? Why at best we have the weird conversion of 1$ = 1€, while in reality 1€ more than 1.3$?
Sometimes being an european sucks, and buying latest technology sucks quite a lot.
Short answer: European prices often includes taxes, US prices don’t
I did a comparison myself once and that is not true.
On many occasions it would be cheaper to buy the stuff online and ship it to Europe even including tariffs, additional payments … would still be cheaper.
Yet this still was no option for me, as it would overcomplicate warranty claims.
Imo companies know that they can exhaust us, maybe once higher prices were due to shippment costs etc., but imo now they only remain because people still buy the overprized stuff. Look at the PS3, in Europe it is stripped down, yet we still pay more.
PS3 on Amazon.de:
599 Euro
599 / 1.19 = 503.36 Euro (without VAT)
503.36 * 1.364 = 686.58 US Dollar
PS3 on Amazon.com:
599.99 US Dollar
Germans pay 14.4% more just for the sake of it.
VX2235wm on Amazon.de
483.56 Euro
483.56 / 1.19 = 406.35 Euro (without VAT)
406.35 * 1.364 = 554.27 US Dollar
VX2235wm on Amazon.com
346.29 US Dollar
60.1% more, for what?
A difference of 10%-20% is normal, you can’t do a comparison on a single product on a single shop.
Distribution costs in Europe are terrific, and the need of translation.
And don’t forget marketing
In fact I can compare a single product on a single shop. I never said this example is representative – and in fact it is not – it just outlines what I experienced on many occasions.
The costs of translation are negligible in the case of the PS3 or a LCD compared to the total costs of production, R & D etc.
Additionally did the EU lowered the distribution costs a lot. So there remains marketing as main inflater. Yet I doubt they invest so much in marketing that you could legitimate a 60% higher price.
I mean “marketing” as “they could spend more on this product, let’s take more money from them”, not as “advertising”
And you can’t make a comparation on a single product, on a single shop, and in a precise moment, period. It’s nonsense.
Edited 2007-04-27 18:14
I mean “marketing” as “they could spend more on this product, let’s take more money from them”, not as “advertising”
Ok, misunderstood you there.
And you can’t make a comparation on a single product, on a single shop, and in a precise moment, period. It’s nonsense.
If I decide (!) to buy a certain product I don’t wait months and compare hundreds of prices on different homepages and other locations I’d rather compare the prices on a day and buy the thing, otherwise I’d never buy something.
So that’s the way I do it – after the decision to buy something now (!) – and for me it works.
As I said before, these figures are not representative (and light years away of a scientific search), as I don’t want to make studies on that topic.
The translation argument is a dead end, I’m afraid as we pay more in the UK too.
As for taxes not being included in the US price, most US states “require” that you pay tax on items that you’ve ordered online. My local sales tax is 9%, which would bring the $599 PS3 price up to $652.91.
You still pay more, I’ll admit, and what’s more, the taxes (on the online orders) are more of an “honor system” than anything, so I don’t know anyone who pays them.
[edit] If you buy locally, you have to pay the tax.
Edited 2007-04-27 15:25
That is why I subtracted the VAT in my example, so that you can easily compare prices without VAT.
So I divided the price of Amazon.de by 1,19 as this is the German VAT.
Edited 2007-04-27 17:21
Dustin.se sold this monitor for 3000 sek for a while I think, so that’s like 330 euro or so, including swedish vat (if I remember correctly), so it’s not that much more expencive here, use buggy.nu, pricerunner or prisjakt.nu to find good swedish prices.
Almost a year ago now I bought a 19″ wide screen lcd from viewsonic and im still impressed every time I look at it, the brightness is phenomenal, the quality is just unmatched for the price. In fact a couple people who just came over to surf around on this computer ended up buying the monitor a couple days after. I don’t ever see it advertised around, the side by side I got at officemax with the likes of Sony, Princeton, Samsung in the mix and this is the one I saw first. Better than the rest, and hundreds of dollars less… I’ll take it!
That’s not so much a “review” as an opinion. At least compared to other sites (Ars, we love you!
). I think this is the LCD I recommended to someone. I’ll be visiting them soon so I’m looking forward to trying it out. It’ll probably blow my 19″ monitor away.
Can someone explain to me why in the world they don’t standardize resolution on 1080? It’s production 101 idiocy to make so many variations.
Because 1920×1080 is way too small for a computer screen to be readable if it’s less than 24″. And still many people uses a lower resolution than the panel’s native.
It is useless to have 1080 vertically on a monitor that’s 1680 horizontally and not 1920. So, no, it is not a problem to be 1050. You are looking at the 24″ range where the resolution is usually 1920×1200.
Is a mess! And, I don’t think you have enough computers either.
Buyer beware
In the disclosure at bottom, I see dead pixels are now called Bright or Dark Dots in refurbish speak. Huh?
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VS11446-R&cpc=SCH
I had the misfortune to pay full price for another LCD model at another well known online site T.D. and it had 12 dead pixels defects. It took 2mths to get a replacement.
I suspect refurbished in LCD panel speak only means it has higher threshold of dead pixels but less than worst allowed. Can’t see much other reason for LCDs to be reburbished.
Brian
And that is supposed to be high resolution? it doesent cut it. My 15″ laptop has 1400×1050, and i could easily use higher resolution, my brothers laptop is 14.1″, and it too runs 1400×1050, now THATS the perfect resolution.
though im gonna go with a samsung 30″ with 2560×1600, it has the resolution i need, allthough the DPI isnt as high as some might want, i think its okay cause its so big it needs to be further away.
You sit closer to a 14.1″ laptop screen than 22″ wide desktop one.
I’d expected more from you Eugenia
I’ve read about the monitor earlier on better reviews so I don’t see what this one adds, also it could atleast have covered the panel type used and compared it to say a new TN-panel of whatever brand and something like the NEC (I don’t remember what the panel type is called or what the modell is, but it’s quite a bit more expensive than the viewsonic
)
>it could atleast have covered the panel type used and >compared it to say a new TN-panel of whatever brand
Sorry, but you ask for too much. The panel was not sent to me from ViewSonic, but from a retailer. I have no way or knowing what kind of panel that is, neither I can’t compare it to another TN-whatever-the-hell that is panel because, well, I don’t have access to that stuff.
My review was a user’s review. While I do have an extensive lab, most of the hardware comes from retailers, not from the manufacturers (unlike sites like Engadget and Gizmodo). And therefore, I have limited contacts towards more internal specs.