Philips 220CW

At just $255, the Philips is the cheapest monitor on test this month, but sadly its attention-grabbing price is the most exciting thing about it.

The design is inoffensive and generally attractive, but by the same token it doesn’t stand out either. The stand is almost feature-free, with no way to adjust height or swivel. The 220CW has neither speakers nor, annoyingly, an included DVI cable. There is at least a USB port, but its location – hidden behind the panel – is rather irritating for devices you regularly unplug.

Our test results were just as uninspiring. While colour was vibrant, the dynamic contrast feature oversaturated images and made the brightness jump around distractingly during movies. Turning the dynamic contrast off solved the problem, but we noticed quite a bit of backlight bleeding from the top, so that didn’t win any points either.

The real-world image quality tests added more issues. We noticed stepping in our gradient ramps and the brightness dropped off or bloomed too early at the extreme ends of the ramps.

The OSD is intuitive but minimalistic. Apart from the basic settings there isn’t much control, with the exception of colour settings. As well as standard RGB controls there are a number of colour temperature profiles – we found the best colour matching was to be found with the 7500K profile.

The Philips’ practicality doesn’t go unrewarded: it’s functional and for most uses the colour issues won’t be a problem. It’s also superb value for money, and worth a look on the grounds of its price alone. However, home users in particular can do better for the price.

• - Recommended -
  Samsung SyncMaster 2232bw
• 
  Acer P223W
• 
  Dell SP2208WFP
• 
  Philips 240BW
• 
  Asus MK241H
• - Recommended -
  Samsung SyncMaster 2493HM
• 
  Viewsonic VP2250wb
• 
  BenQ G2200W
• 
  AG Neovo E-W22
• 
  LG W2252TQ
• 
  BenQ G2400W
• - Recommended -
  Dell Ultrasharp 2408WFP, superb big screen with DisplayPort and HDMI