Asus MK241H

Asus’ premium MK241H is a monitor that wants to do it all. It comes with a decent set of 2W speakers, a 1.3-megapixel webcam integrated into the top of the bezel, along with a dual-mic setup for superior quality, a choice of HDMI or DVI inputs to suit your needs, and even a headphone port for gaming when everyone else is asleep.

It’s undoubtedly a gamer’s LCD, with ludicrously oversaturated colours that make Crysis look like nothing we’ve ever experienced. It has a strong red push, which makes brightly lit movies look stunningly warm – our HD clip of Cars really jumped out at us – and it’s certainly noticeable that its 450cd/m2 brightness rating is the highest in this Labs.

Darker scenes in movies don’t fare so well, though, with shadows becoming murky and people looking like they’re permanently blushing. The desert sand in one of our test photos appeared orange, and our greyscale gradient ramps showed purple and green tinges, as well as some banding.

That’s easy to fix, thanks to the simple and clear OSD, and for once we did actually see merit in a couple of the preset picture modes. The dynamic contrast (boosting it to 3000:1) is less intrusive than many we’ve experienced, and we got the best results by switching to User colour mode and tweaking things manually.

When we first saw the MK241H we were delighted by its strengths, but the launch of Samsung’s SyncMaster 2493HM at a similar price unfortunately steals a lot of Asus’ thunder. Gamers will love it, but for others the Samsung is a far more rounded LCD for only a little more cash.

• - Recommended -
  Samsung SyncMaster 2232bw
• 
  Acer P223W
• 
  Dell SP2208WFP
• 
  Philips 220CW
• 
  Philips 240BW
• - 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