AG Neovo E-W22

Verdict:

[+] TOUGH

Tough TFT panel; good response time

[-] WUSS

Unwanted reflections; low stand; expensive

We've all suffered from gaming-related rage at some time or another - those maddening occasions when a teammate does something inexplicably stupid on the brink of victory, or your PC crashes at a critical point in a five-hour World of Warcraft raid.

During these far too frequent experiences, objects tend to get thrown around, often in the direction of your TFT's fragile surface.

TOUGH GLASS SURFACE

In these situations, the E-W22's tough glass front panel comes in very handy. It's made of high-quality optical glass, which is (according to AG Neovo) harder than a tooth or knife, and therefore shouldn't suffer from scratches. We tried hurling all kinds of desktop detritus at it, from empty coke cans to a fully weighted gaming mouse, and they all bounced off without leaving a mark on the screen.

IMAGE QUALITY

The glossy finish of the glass panel improves the image quality, boosting contrast and colour saturation, as you see on the conventional glossy screens from NEC and Samsung. However, like any other screen that has a glossy finish, the E-W22 suffers from unwanted reflections.

This is particularly evident where the glass panel overlaps the black bezel. The coating also easily picks up greasy marks, so you'll need to clean it thoroughlyon a regular basis - not just after you've hurled an open packet of crisps at it.

The pair of 2W speakers sound better than those that generally accompany monitors, but you still wouldn't want to use them for anything other than the odd YouTube clip. A convenient headphone socket is provided, however, so you can run your headphones from the screen, but not a microphone. We were disappointed by the external power adaptor though - this is just another chunk of plastic to tidy behind the desk.

INPUTS

The E-W22 has only D-SUB, DVI and the 3.5mm audio inputs. There's no USB hub or HDMI input. Nor are there any adjustment options in the stand beyond the usual front-to-back tilt - the squat stand means that the screen sits too low to be comfortable for some people.

COLOUR REPRODUCTION

Out of the box, the E-W22 displayed a yellow tinge but, using DisplayMate and the OSD, we quickly tweaked the colour balance to our liking. After a little more fiddling with the OSD, we saw realistic skin tones in our test images.

Although the OSD control buttons are neatly arranged on the lower right-hand side of the screen, the unintuitive icons and constant scrolling through options made the OSD awkward to use.

The other DisplayMate tests showed that the E-W22 is a decent but certainly not outstanding display. Colours appeared vibrant, with punchy primary shades. However, while overall contrast was good, greyscales looked banded, showing a lack of subtlety in finely graduated shades

3,000:1 CONTRAST RATIO?

This is slightly surprising, given the quoted and impressive-sounding 3,000:1 contrast range, which is a lot higher than many displays on the market. However, this figure is for dynamic contrast, where the monitor dims the backlight when it's asked to display a dark scene in order to improve the amount of perceivable detail in the image.

However, if there are very dark and very bright elements contained in the same scene, the monitor must compromise the backlight level between them. The actual contrast figure is far lower than the figure claimed, although it's still a respectable 1,000:1.

GAME TESTING

Using dynamic contrast helped in some of our gaming tests, with night fighting in Call of Duty 4 benefiting from fine detail in dark areas. A better test of contrast came from Crysis, in which the bright sunshine created vibrant colours next to dark shadows. Our tweaked colour settings led to vibrant green vegetation. However, we've seen more realistic shades on other monitors. The 3ms response time meant that there was a crisp edge to moving objects, rather than a laggy blur.

BLU-RAY PLAYBACK

We also tested the display using the recently released 'I Am Legend' on Blu-ray - the DVI input is HDCP-compatible, so playing back protected content such as this isn't a problem. The screen did a fine job of displaying fine detail - pores and hairs on close-ups of faces were clearly visible. It also handled the frenetic action scenes well. The E-W22 supports the 1080p HD format, downscaling the image internally to fit its native resolution of 1,680 x 1,050. On a display of this size you probably won't miss those extra pixels when watching a movie, as HD only comes into its own on very large displays.

CONCLUSION

You can buy a basic 22in monitor for around half the price of the E-W22. This monitor certainly has better display quality than many budget models, thanks to its dynamic contrast, but our favourite ViewSonic VX2255wmb looks more natural and realistic, and now costs less than £200.

This means that there's a saving of £100 for a monitor with a height-adjustable base, plus a built-in microphone and camera for video chat sessions. The VX2255wmb certainly won't survive the same abuse that the E-W22 can take, but for those who can keep their cool in difficult circumstances (or just remember to throw their mouse elsewhere), the ViewSonic is far better value for money.

You can buy the AGNEovo E-W22 at Lamda-Tek for £274.68 in VAT now

For more information on the E-W22, visit AGNeovo's website

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