Optiquest Q241wb 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor 1920x1200 6ms Tilt Black w/ Speakers

List Price: $551.37

Features:

• 400-nit brightness (typ) 800:1 contrast ratio (typ) 5ms video response (gtg) Viewing Angle: 160° hor., 160° vert. Integrated power supply VESA® 75mm wall-mount compliant Speakers: 2x2-watt Tilt Stand

Customer Reviews:

Panel downgraded to TN, and no backlight control [Posted on 2008-02-01]
Early units in this model were reported to use non-TN TFT panels. But in newer units, Viewsonic silently downgraded the panel to the far-inferior TN technology, keeping the model name and price. The typical TN artifacts, like color shifts and color inversion depending on view angle, are now clearly visible. Older reviews of this model do not reflect the currently sold product.

Also, this unit seems to lack an adjustable backlight. The brightness and contrast controls digitally change the LCD pixels, but the backlight level is constant. So if you you re in a dimly lit room and need dial down the brightness, you lose color resolution and TN s color resolution is poor to begin with .

Another small annoyance: the inner sides of the piano black bezel reflect the adjacent LCD screen image. This manifests as a thin glowing frame around the LCD which changes along with the screen s content. Moreover, when the cursor is for example at the lower left corner of the screen, you see *three* cursors: the real cursor on the LCD, its reflection on the bottom bezel and its reflection on the left bezel.

If you care about color accuracy, viewing angle, sound engineering or fair commercial conduct, then avoid this product.

Nice Monitor, but a few imperfections [Posted on 2008-02-29]

This is a nice monitor, and it has good image quality. It was a huge step up from the the 19" monitor I was using before it. As a previous reviewer noted, the reflection off of the edges of the screen can be annoying, as can trying to find a good balance between quality and brightness.

The monitor was a little thicker than I expected (it's about 4" at its deepest), due to the integrated power supply and speakers - but it's still much thinner than its base, so there is no protrusion. The integrated power supply is a nice feature, as it means the monitor uses the standard CPU power cord without having to deal with the annoying rectangular box in the middle.

Overall a good value for your money, but if you've got room in your budget to spend an extra $40, and aren't looking for the convenience of a built in power supply, I would recommend buying a different model.

If you received Nov 2007, you are lucky  [Posted on 2008-03-04]
I have received Nov 2007 product, I can confirm it is not TN.

finishing is not good, OSD buttons are not responding very well.

But hey, can you buy Non TN 24" LCD at this price?

Nice Quality / Price Ratio [Posted on 2008-05-19]
Recently i bought my 2nd Optiquest Q241wb 24" Widescreen Monitor; im using them on a Power Mac G5 i got exclusively for my home recording studio. I basically work with Pro Tools (Recording Software), and sometimes i also use one of the monitors on my Intel Mac 2.33 MacBook Pro (for the occasional bootcamp/windows gaming). truth is, these are not the amazingly-best quality ever-great image monitors in the planet, but if your display needs are not primarily graphic design or video editing, i.m.o., you will be more than pleased with the performance of this particular monitors.

PRO's:
- Great price.
- Viewsonic endorsement.
- Suprisingly Lightweight.
- Very Bright image.
- Huge desktop realstate (very comfortable for work / gaming purposes)

CON's:
- Cheap /stiff/ no-tilt (nor anything) Stand. Cheapest stand ever. Period

- The "On" LED is far too bright, had to cover it to prevent blindness :)

- Somehow i haven't been able to calibrate both monitors to produce the approximate same output, even using the same profile and / or calibrating them side-by-side; maybe it has something to do with the fact that one of them is about two moths older than the other... or maybe i just suck at calibrating monitors!! (?) as i said before, i'm not a video expert :)

- colors tend to (slightly) change when you move from your viewing angle (again, let's get realistic about this: for this price... don't expect to get the greatest monitor making has ever seen...)

Bottom line:

If you are an Image/ Animation / Photographer / Video Enthusiast or professional, maybe you can find a better monitor for you, yet this one is a very affordable 24" solution; but if you are just looking for a very big chunk of desktop real state to run several appz at the same time or a great "bang-per-buck" gaming monitor, this is definitely an option to consider. First i bought one, and within 2 months decided to get a second one. that's a testimonial that speaks for itself. Great Product, Great price, happy customer.

total waste [Posted on 2008-08-12]
I'll keep this simple.

If you do gaming, movie watching and general use you are fine.

If you do ANY form of photography where you want a remote chance of viewing "close" to accurate colors
even with hardware calibration, these lcd's simply don't do it.

I know that LCD's typically don't do well with photography and graphic arts but there are some that do
and this one IS NOT.

Just get the Apple Cinema Displays (stand alone) and with calibration they at least come close to being the top quality.

There are just a couple of other brands like LaCie and Formac but otherwise this lcd is purely over saturated eye candy even with the supplied adjustment controls. - lesson learnt and that's why it's cheap $

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