Great PC Monitor, Very good gaming solution, high contrast ratio
Disadvantages:
VGA only, 16 : 10 resolutions not yet supported by consoles
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
===Goodbye to a trusted companion===
The day had finally come. The behemoth would be finally moved. It took a lot of effort but the 21inch CRT PC monitor was finally lifted off the computer desk last year, and hauled into the dark, lonely underworld known as the cellar, where it quietly spends its retirement, bothered no more by my tortuous rituals of gaming on it. Farewell old buddy.
In its place now rests the younger, sleeker, less imposing Fujitsu Siemens SCALEOVIEW L22W-6SA and I have not looked back since!
The Reason
When I decided that it was time to send the old giant CRT monitor for peaceful retirement (read: chuck it out), I made my decision very carefully. He was a faithful companion for many years, but the time had come to go widescreen. I had both my gaming consoles and PC competing for the use of the PC monitor and now that gaming has gone very much widescreen, that was my main reason. The standard 4:3 CRT monitor just couldn't handle widescreen images without either stretching them, or letter-boxing them, and frankly, it was getting on my nerves.
Rather than buying an expensive LCD TV to play just games, and a monitor just to use the PC, I decided that I would get a decent widescreen LCD monitor that I could use with both. And since the Xbox 360 also allowed VGA output I had no problems there.
For this review, then, I will be looking at the performance of the Fujitsu Siemens SCALEOVIEW L22W-6SA from both a computer user and gamer point of view, and I will look at how it meets the criteria for both these purposes.
The Specs
I will begin with some basic specs of the monitor:
My monitor is the cheaper VGA only option, but I know there is also a variant which supports both DVI and VGA inputs should you require DVI or both VGA and DVI. Its probably much handier if you are sharing your screen between games console and PC like I am.
Gaming Use
For gaming use I was very pleased with this monitor. My Xbox 360 games now appear in crisp High Definition and the brightness and contrast here are spot on. It takes a little bit of fiddling with the factory settings to get it to the perfect gaming setup, but once done the games will look amazing!
The super speedy response time of 5ms is more than adequate for fast paced gaming use and the very high contrast ratio of 1000:1 makes sure that games look nice and clean and not washed out and the blacks look, well, black, as opposed to some monitors where the blacks look a bit charcoal like.
The only gripe I have with this monitor for gaming use is due to the fact that this is a 16:10 aspect ratio monitor, which is an aspect ratio that is not yet supported by the Xbox 360 in its available resolutions. So the problem is that as the monitor is slightly larger in height than standard 16:9 monitors and TVs, and as a result I find the problem of the screen being very slightly stretched vertically. It's not very noticeable, but is still not 100% perfect! Also, as the Xbox 360 does not support the monitor's native resolution of 1680 x 1050 the monitor is not running at its optimum resolution and quality slightly suffers as a result. It is rumoured though that the Xbox 360 will soon support 16:10 resolutions in a future update, so that will fix this problem. I will have to be patient until then!
The Wii setup is a lot less ideal and a lot trickier however, although through no fault of the monitor itself here. As Nintendo have yet to get round to releasing their own VGA cable, I decided to order one from a third party company, and it works quite well. (If you're interested the cable is basically a component cable wired in such a way that it works as a VGA cable). I can only play games that are in 480p though, but that's ok, since most Wii games and a lot of the best Gamecube games are 480p anyway. (The monitor of course can't display an interlaced signal, so won't work with the 480i Gamecube games). Again though, it's less ideal than using a standard LCD TV with the component cable, but you will be saving yourself a lot of money until you can afford one of those TVs. The monitor performs very well here despite the fact that it really wasn't designed for this kind of malarkey.
Overall, I'm happy with the performance from a gaming point of view, and despite the small problems mentioned above, which many people will, in all likelihood, not even notice, it is a very solid gaming screen.
PC Use
As my desktop on my computer is usually covered with millions of icons, I find the extra space afforded to me by this widescreen monitor to be quite useful, although I'm quite sure within a matter of weeks the other half of the screen will be covered with icons too!
But seriously, the extra space on the screen is very useful, particularly if you like to have a few programs open at once. As I use a lot of graphics programs from time to time, it is especially useful! Although for everyday use I can for example have Google Desktop running on the right hand side of the screen whilst having my browser open, so I can keep an eye on both. I could probably have two browser windows open simultaneously too should I choose. In this age of widgets and other desktop applications, it really is very handy to have more space on the screen.
Photos and DVDs displayed on the screen look very clear and bright and the colours are vibrant, which is everything I want really.
Its also worth noting here that if you are playing games on your PC, then you will not have any problems with the aforementioned 1680 x 1050 resolution as most games nowadays support this resolution astandard, if your computer is good enough to run that resolution, of course!
The only problem with the monitor is the fact I share it with my games console, which means that the settings for brightness, contrast and black level require some tweaking so as not to sear my retinas whilst surfing the net. I suppose I could find a happy medium between PC use and gaming use in the settings, but if you are a gamer like me then you will understand when I say that there is no such thing as a happy medium when it comes to having your games look their best on your screen! So, I'm happy enough tinkering with the settings when I switch over from gaming to using the PC, but I understand that others may not be.
That does raise another problem for me, using the same screen for both PC and console gaming: the need to switch the cables over every time! It can be a hassle, but if you buy a VGA switchbox, that will sort this problem out. Just to make it clear though, this is not a criticism of the monitor itself, rather my application of it. The poor thing is really put through its paces at my house! This is not an issue with the DVI/VGA model, which is a little more expensive though.
If you don't happen to have speakers for your PC then you may be interested to know that this monitor also has speakers built in, so you simply just plug your audio cable into the stereo 3.5mm audio line in socket on the monitor. The sound, as you may have rightly guessed, is quite tinny and weak, but if you're not planning on watching DVDs or something similar using the monitor's speakers, then it's fine for basic computer use. Most people will have some type of PC speakers already though I'm sure, but, on the off chance you don't, it is here for you!
Conclusion
OK, so it may not perform quite as good as an expensive LCD TV, or have all the same inputs, but for a budget or stopgap solution, you can't really go too wrong with this. Its negative points are not too bad, and you will still get to experience the joy of high definition gaming. I will buy an LCD TV probably in the few years, but until then, I have no problems using this one, and I consider myself to be somewhat picky with how my games look. Also, support for 16:10 monitors such as this may well be added to the Xbox 360 long pretty soon. It certainly has been demanded by a large number of Xbox 360 users.
From a PC monitor point of view, however, it is basically flawless and I couldn't recommend it higher! So if you are in the market for a new PC monitor and the gaming is a bonus to you, then you will have a very good time with this.
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