Friday, February 24, 2012

The Well-known Asus Vw246h review - Can it be all that it's caught up to be?

By Thomas Evans


Whereas twenty four inch displays were once the preserve of well heeled enthusiasts, cheap 24 inch, 16:9 aspect TN based panels have made them less expensive and offered to regular consumers. Asus' VW246h monitor is the one other addition for this category, how about we see how it stands up.

Like most budget displays lately, the VW246H will come in two parts, the bottom and monitor-plus-stand, which simply click together. The style is actually the same as that regarding the Asus VW223B we reviewed not too long ago. Which means (as always) you have a glossy black bezel, although the display's back and base are matte, with all the latter sporting a ripple-texture surface.

Within a mere 16 mm thick, the bezel around the VW246H's is practically as thin as that from its smaller sibling - except at the bottom where it is 25 mm to add in the monitor's controls. Small icons across the controls make them super easy to discover and while the tiny blue LED within the power button cannot be switched off, it's unobtrusive enough to not matter.

Overall, the VW246H is often a functional but largely unimaginative bit of styling that will not offend but won't excite either. Whether it's a little panache you're after the, likes on the Samsung monitor range, or perhaps the BenQ V2400W, is going to be of more interest.

Triple video inputs are just about par-for-the-course these days and also the VW246H doesn't disappoint, offering HDMI, DVI and VGA. You will find there's rudimentary clip at the rear of the stand for cable management. Not as much of a given is often a 3.5mm stereo output along with the usual input, allowing you to hook up external speakers instead of making use of the monitor's ones. Asus also gets points for including both VGA and DVI cables, where a few other manufacturers still only supply VGA.

Getting onto the OSD, it's rather tiny and slightly morose, lacking video or graphic flair. Even though it feels a touch cramped, it's very usable thanks to among the finest layouts we've encountered. There aren't many sub-menus, so there is nothing buried, tags are readable and layout logical. Precisely the slightly awkward directional controls, which have been placed both sides of the 'menu' button, hinder navigation.

Continuing up with the OSD, Asus' 'Splendid' technology it's essentially just a couple of presets - albeit very flexible ones - and skin-tone adjustments. All the presets, which comprise Scenery, Standard, Theater, Game and Night View modes, are individually configurable, this means you may actually lead to using some of them. Certain restrictions do apply, however. In Theater mode, for instance, you simply can't adjust brightness, while Standard mode doesn't permit you to mess with the sharpness, saturation or dynamic contrast (which Asus calls ASCR) settings. Scenery and Game modes give a chance to access every adjustment, though.




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