BIOS: Technology Means Business

Acer's latest LCD monitor, the AL1751W, comes in an eye-catching silver slimline bezel and offers a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, making it at an attractive offering for those who need to view multi-page layouts and additional toolbars on-screen, as well as play games and watch DVD-Movies on their PC. The monitor's not designed exclusively for PC use though, and its S-Video and component video inputs let you connect an external A/V device, such as a DVD player, videogames console or satellite receiver, making it a very versatile offering. Specifications of the AL1751W are respectable, including a contrast ratio of 600:1 and brightness of 450cd/m2, but its response time of 25ms is too slow for gamers. The screen's not up to scratch when it comes to display quality either, with poor greyscale and focus levels. If you're in the market for a consumer-orientated widescreen display that can connect to external A/V devices, the AL1751W is a solid choice. If image quality for PC use is more important, there are better quality screens with higher resolutions available.

Pros: Integrated speakers; dual video inputs; bright screen
Cons: No USB hub, SCART connection or remote control; no TV tuner

The AL1751W is relatively slim (518x198x333mm) and light (5kg), so you shouldn't have any problems integrating it into your living area or working environment. Its rounded base holds the display steady, although you can only tilt the screen - swivelling isn't supported. Acer has given the AL1751W a minimalistic design, hiding its control buttons out of view at the top of the screen's bezel and placing all the connectors at the rear of the screen. While these design options add a certain chic to the screen, having to turn the whole unit around to connect external devices soon becomes a bane. Likewise, having to fumble for the power button and control buttons while seated is also an oversight.

The 17in. screen (370x222mm viewable area) is designed for computer as well as general use, which is why Acer has provided a few more connectivity options than you'd normally find on a regular LCD monitor. Located at the rear of the screen, the AL1751W provides both analogue (15-pin VGA) and digital (DVD-I) connectors, 2-channel audio inputs (RCA), as well as both S-Video and composite video inputs. There's only two 1-Watt per-channel speakers on the screen (1.8 metre audio cable with 3.5mm stereo audio jack supplied), and no sub-woofer, so there's little point offering digital audio inputs.

The AL1751W's specifications are relatively impressive, although its most salient feature is its 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio that offers a native resolution of 1280x768 pixels (75Hz). An image brightness of 450cd/m2 also caters well for those working with graphics and video applications, and a contrast ratio of 600:1 means that colours are relatively deep and rich. A response time of 25ms is standard with most mid-range monitors, but gamers and DVD-Movie buffs will probably notice slight ghosting and streaking. Considering the display's target market, we're surprised that Acer doesn't supply a remote control, allowing you to control audio volume levels from the comfort of your seat. The screen lacks a USB hub, too, so you'll have to continue to connect USB peripherals to your computer system.

The screen's horizontal and vertical viewing angles of 170-degrees are impressive on paper, although in testing there was slight contrast and colour reversal when viewed at wide angles, which will be noticeable in business meetings or if you intend to use the screen as a main display in your living room. However, unlike less proficient LCD monitors, its relatively wide viewing angles mean you don't have to sit too close or head-on to the screen to get the best results. The fact that you can't swivel the base could cause you an inconvenience if you intend to put the screen on book shelf or other narrow surface, however, because you have to turn the whole display in order to angle to screen at the required position. Thankfully, it's VESA wall-mountable (ISO 13406-2), so all's not lost.

The monitor's on-screen menu is neatly presented and altering settings is intuitive. Options available are relatively accommodating, comprising brightness and contrast levels, horizontal and vertical positions, phase and clock settings. You can also select pre-set colour temperatures (cool, natural or warm), or alter red, green and blue levels manually. There's also the option to change the screen's sharpness, as well as alter the speakers' bass, treble and balance levels. We also like the way you can make the on-screen display transparent (see your workspace behind), change its position on the screen, and choose from nine languages.

LCD monitors generally have difficulty producing black and very dark greys. The AL1751W was no exception and its black levels looked more like washed-out greys. Its reproduction of greyscales was also poor, with intensity levels increasing raggedly through the 256 levels from black up to peak white. The bright-end of the LCD overloaded too (maximum brightness occurs before reaching the peak of the greyscale), which lead to slight saturation and compression.

Intensity levels of the AL1751W were also poor, with mid-range greys appearing almost purple rather than grey. The screen displayed distinct grey levels towards its greyscale levels near black, but failed to handle near peak white levels. Brightness and contrast levels were consistent across the whole screen, with fine lines appearing focussed at all four corners of the screen. Pixel tracking and timing locks were even across the whole screen, which means that the AL1751W can accurately map image pixels using an analogue signal input. We did have to adjust the screen's phase and clock settings though, in order to reduce digital noise (beat patterns that modulate the intensity or colour of uniformity) caused by electric and magnetic interference (other electical devices in close proximity).

Those working with graphics will not like the way the AL1751W over saturates colours and suffers from high levels of misconvergence, which is similar to an out-of-focus image, except that you can see thin coloured fringes around the edges of image detail. In our test samples, red, green and blue elements of a single line failed to join accurately. Colour registration, or convergence, was also quite bad.

Screen geometry, framing and aspect ratio were much more impressive. Using our test images, the AL1751W effectively displayed outer frames that fitted the whole screen, with little evidence of geometric distortion, such as pincushion, keystone, tilt or rotation. This is also a good thing because the AL1751W only offers controls to alter horizontal and vertical size/positions, which is very restrictive for high-end users working with intensive graphics applications.

A slow image response time and scan rate conversion can result in motion artifacts and image degradation with moving or rapidly changing images. While the AL1751W's response time of 25ms is far from market leading, we encountered minimal motion artifacts when playing back DVD-Videos and games. There were also no noticeable changes in patterns when objects moved, such as blurring, darkening, fluttering and disappearing elements, or variations in colour.

Links:
Acer AL1751W Web site

About our tests:
To test imaging devices BIOS uses DisplayMate Technologies' DisplayMate, a software utility for adjusting, setting up, calibrating, tuning, testing, evaluating and improving image and picture quality on displays. It's designed to help us achieve the highest possible image and picture quality on any type of computer monitor, projector, TV or HDTV, with support for analogue and digital CRT, LCD, DLP, LCoS and plasma technologies. BIOS uses the software to check every aspect of a display's performance, including sharpness and contrast, colour and greyscale accuracy, as well as screen geometry. Where possible, we always use a digital connection for image quality purposes.