TFT Monitors

CRT monitors are so yesterday. To make sure you don't get left behind, we test the best 17in TFTs around

LG Flatron L1720B

Manufacturer:	Price:
LG	£351 inc VAT
Reviewer:	Review Date:
	Jan 2004

	OVERALL RATING

SCORE

4/6

Verdict: Chic styling and solid performance

Appearances can deceive. Of all the TFTs here, the L1720B is arguably the best looking - it's even got a backlit blue power button any Mac user would be proud to press. But this Flatron, along with the AOC LM720A, is the most basic screen here, with just an analog D-SUB input hidden away round the back.

In terms of image quality, this doesn't make a huge difference. Once you've got it set up correctly, Windows looks lovely, sharp, and super-bright. But, as it's an analog rather than digital screen, you have to play around with the settings to reach this utopian state - fortunately, LG supplies the excellent Colorific software to help with this task.

But even Colorific couldn't improve the panel's less than impressive showing in our tough DisplayMate tests, as the L1720B is decidedly poor when it comes to colour blending. Fortunately, this makes no difference in everyday use, so photos still look natural. It's helped by respectable viewing angles too, and although these do drop off noticeably if you move around in your seat, it's not enough to detract from the image.

Of course, what we really cared about was responsiveness, and - as we've come to expect from panels boasting a 16ms response time - the LG passed with flying colours (or should it be 'not flying colours'? Oh, you know what we mean). There's even a gamma control in the OSD should you need to make any in-game tweaks to see what's lurking in the shadows.

As with all these screens, we'd hesitate to outright recommend the Flatron for watching DVD movies, although it was as good as any of its rivals and, providing you're looking at it from a distance, you probably won't notice problems anyway.

It all adds up to a decent showing from an analog-only screen, but there's a significant problem for the L1720B: its price. When there are plenty of other TFTs in this test that have superior image quality, there's really little reason to choose the Flatron L1720B.

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