Verdict: It doesn't quite live up to the reputation of its predecessors

Our love affair with the Sharp LL-172G was never a secret. Surpassing its predecessor, the award-winning LL-171G, the LL-172G excelled, with its rich contrast and superb clarity, leading us to give it a Premium Grade Approved award and a spot on the CPC Elite.

Sadly, the Sharp LL-173G has us pining for our now discontinued objet d'amour. It isn't its looks; the LL-173G has a sleek black style similar to that of the old model, and the flat black base could even be an improvement. It's the most adjustable 17in display on test, with 70mm of height adjustment and a good range of tilt and swivel options. Sharp has also been sensible enough to put the headphone socket on the front -and you'll need it, as the built-in speakers are pitifully weak.

The controls remain fiddly, but the only ones of any practical use are the brightness control and a mode switch that selects between four presets: standard, vivid, office and sRGB. Vivid is the best option for games and movies, increasing contrast and brightness for greater impact. Meanwhile, sRGB offers a colour-managed approach for digital imaging.

In most respects, the LL-173G is an excellent performer. For definition, it's still the best monitor on test, and it showed no sign of banding in our colour and greyscale tests.

However, the LL-173G isn't as bright as the old model - luminance has dropped from 300cd/m2 to 280cd/m2, and something has gone wrong with the overall contrast. Blacks are rich and dark, but the LL-173G has trouble distinguishing dark grey tones from black, and light grey tones from white.

These deficiencies make surviving the gloom of Doom 3 a struggle at times, and while the fine definition and high response time made the bleached, high-detail car chase scenes of 'Bad Boys 2' impossibly thrilling, it was difficult to make out detail in darker scenes. It's still a great display - it delivers a lovely clear desktop and the best 17in representation of our holiday snaps - but it doesn't quite live up to the reputation of its predecessors.

• Cases - 21st November 2008
• Motherboards - 24th October 2008
• Gaming Headsets - 26th September 2008
• Dream PCs - 24th September 2008
• Headphones - 12th September 2008
• Media PC components - 22nd August 2008
• PSUs - 14th July 2008

• Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - Hard disks / storage
• Asus EAH4870 TOP - Graphics cards
• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro - Sound cards
• Multiwinia - Games
• Zotac GeForce GTX 260² - Graphics cards
• Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 - Graphics cards
• Scan 3XS X58 Core i7 - Desktop PCs