Chimei is a new brand to PC Authority. Also new is a 22-inch LCD. Protac, is responsible for bringing this Taiwanese manufacturer to Australia and it arrives amid unconfirmed reports that Dell will soon be buying 100,000 units of this panel per month.

But it’s the combination of electronics with a panel that make for an LCD monitor and we were very interested to see how it performed. Its build quality is solid enough, but it looks very cheap and plasticy. The base is sturdy but at 340 x 250mm (WxH) it’s very large and only offers tilt manipulation. The OSD is more easily accessible than the rear-mounted 19-inch model that comes with the newly A-Listed Pacstar PC (page 36). Flicking between pre-programmed ‘Picture’ and the increasingly less-bright ‘Text’ and ‘Economy’ modes is simple and adjusting brightness and contrast is a breeze. Colour temperature is user-customisable, adjustable using three ‘Kelvin’ presets or via sRGB. It’s basic but the important adjustments are there. There are no speakers but both DVI and D-Sub connectors are included.

In our DisplayMate technical tests there was a minor pixel jitter on one of the fine timing lock tests (which shouldn’t happen with a DVI connection). Colour combinations were all fine and we could distinguish a decent 253 out of 255 shades of light-grey. However, our dark grey squares turned black a trifle too early meaning some detail could be lost in shadows. Our 256-intensity colour ramp sorts good LCDs from bad and Chimei’s was one of the best we’ve seen - very little banding across white, red, green and blue ramps, though they did bottom out early in the darker shades. It passed our tricky colour spectrum blending test with aplomb.

Our Windows Desktop was clear and well-lit. Horizontal viewing angles weren’t bad but couldn’t reach 180 degrees and only vertical viewing angles were mediocre. A 5ms response time is claimed but some colour changes clearly lag when playing games and watching HD video. That said, it’s better than most 20+-inch LCDs and we enjoyed watching with so much display in front of us.

There’s also an excellent 30-day pixel defect-free guarantee and three-year RTB warranty meaning, all in all, we’re incredibly impressed. Protac’s RRP of $599 is a steal and we’ve already seen it for under $550. It might not suit professional users, but enthusiasts who want a big screen for a pittance just had their wish granted.