ViewSonic VP2030b 20.1-inch LCD Monitor-Black

List Price: $495.00

Features:

• 20.1 color TFT active matrix UXGA LCD
• Display Area - 16.1 horizontal x 12.1 vertical; 20.1 diagonal
• Optimum Resolution - 1600x1200
• Contrast Ratio - 1000 - 1 (typ)
• Viewing Angle - 170 degrees, vertical & horizontal @ contrast ratio > 10 - 1

Accessories:

3-Year Extended Service Plan - Covers Electronic Items $501-$1000 - Repair

Customer Reviews:

Very solid monitor [Posted on 2006-07-14]
This monitor is absolutely great. There are a couple of minor issues I encountered, but for its quality and price this is a good buy.

Bad:
1.) 1 dead pixel for mine, although there isn't much to be done about that except lower yields and raise prices. The good thing is it is in the upper corner and isn't visible while sitting in the center.(I suppose due to refraction or something) It is quite small.
2.) Included calibrating software stopped working. The included software directly controls the monitor settings (although you can manually change the settings using the front buttons). It seems to be a good piece of software but it enables some hot buttons to pivot the image, and when I accidientally hit one while playing Starcraft, the software broke and uninstalling/reinstalling didn't help. I suspect some bad registry issue with the program. The monitor is still useful.
3.) If the contrast is set over about 72 or 73, shallow colors blend together. There is no point in pushing beyond that point. The precision of colors isn't what my old Triniton CRT was, but that is also expected from any LCD. If I make a picture in Paint and use a gray color with a value of 1(out of 255) I can't differentiate from black. Same with white and grey level 254 if that gives you an idea.
4.) Analog input isn't clean. I hooked my Powerbook to it with a VGA cable at 1600x1200 and there is some slight smearing when there is a big white-black transition. Slight meaning single pixel, nothing unworkable, just unattractive.
5.) The brightness control doesn't adjust black level (somewhat typical of LCDs)

Good: Even with contrast set to 73, it is fine. I turn brightness (It really adjusts the brightness, not black level!) down to 40 in my room because I don't even need the excessive brightness this thing produces. The DVI picture quality(what I use) is perfect. It has a 4 port USB 2.0 hub! It is beautiful, except for the big foot. Low resolution interpolation seems good and there is some adjustment for it in the menu. No fast movement problems like ghosting have been noticeable to me, unlike my old 15" Samsung monitor (old and bad).

I wrote a lot about the bad points up there, but they don't matter much to me. The bad pixel truely is small and is only visible from certain angles, fortunately not center. I don't use the PerfectSuite software to calibrate it, I rarely ever use the analog input, and I didn't need a higher contrast. I play games, program, and surf on it. I wanted a good 1600x1200 LCD panel and this is it! It has a USB hub and can pivot. This is a good price for that. DO NOT buy this if you want to manipulate photos. Viewsonic's best 19" model would probably be better for color reproduction or a more expensive professional LCD ($800+) like the Apples or Dell pros or even more expensive stuff, but you shouldn't be using any of the current LCDs anyway, use a CRT. If you must have super accurate blacks and color fidelity, you must wait until this new LED backlit LCD technology is developed. But, otherwise, this is a good buy.

Excellent monitor, but with some unexpected flaws. [Posted on 2006-08-02]
I bought this monitor 2 months ago (2-Jun-2006) and here is my experience so far:

Pros:
* Excellent reactivity. Absolutely no problems with even the "fast" games such as Call of Duty 2, Need for Speed Underground 2, Far Cry... This MVA monitor is much faster in practice then PVA models such as 6ms-declared Samsung 970p.
* Excellent ergonomics: tilt, swivel, pivot, height. DVI and VGA input. USB hub.
* Good colors, although not the best I've ever seen (Samsung 970p has better colors, but is much slower and with lower resolution).
* Well differentiated near-black shades - much better then any CRT. Good for Doom 3 and such.
* Effective and easy to use naked-eye color calibration software (PerfectSuite). I was able to make colors visibly more natural and they seem much "deeper" to me now. The real hardware calibrator would yield better results still, but I wonder by how much...
* Good picture quality even in low brightness / low contrast conditions. If you are professional, you won't burn you eyes on over-bright picture.
* Excellent scaling. I have no problem playing games at non-native resolutions.
* Very good analog VGA picture quality (though I recommend DVI if possible).
* I personally like its "no frills, down to business" OSD.
* Non-intrusive resolution change notification.
* Good video quality, though this monitor is so precise you will easily be able to see compression artifacts on DVDs.

Cons:
* Grainy anti-reflexive surface - white is not completely "smooth", but appears as if screen surface is slightly dirty (as if covered with dust). This can be quite distracting in every-day work such as office applications and programming.
* Ideal viewing angles are very narrow. Even slight movement (maybe 15 degrees) away of ideal "view axis" will cause visible deterioration of color quality. With a relatively large monitor like this one, a net effect is that you'll have slightly dimmed colors in the corners even if center of the screen is dead ahead. It is still much better then TN, but visibly worse then IPS (such as older ViewSonic VP201b).
* Black, although pretty good, is not completely black and aforementioned viewing angle effect is especially visible in black corners.
* No bad pixels on arrival, but one always-off sub-pixel developed during 2 months of usage. Not noticeable unless you look for it though!
* Ergonomics: Screen cannot be lowered all the way to its stand - bad if you working desk has heightened platform for monitor.
* PerfectSuite software sometimes fails to establish communication with the monitor - this turns off color calibration until you "restart" (turn-off then turn-on) the monitor and restart the PerfectSuite.
* Price (700 EUR in Serbia).

Reliabiltiy Issue [Posted on 2006-09-09]
Purchased original in early April 2006, second replacement is enroute.
Two DVI-Digital failures. Works D-SUB (Analog). I purchased for digital performance. After several weeks of use I could smell hot electronics running a sim. Shortly after - DVI-D failed. Original order also had a defective DVI-I cable. Was told to go to seller for replacement. Not according to seller. Best move I made was to buy Express replacement as a result. Had a gut feeling the purchase was going to be a problem. When it works, the DVI-D is excellent. I'll RMA till it's right.

ViewSonic VP2030b 20.1" LCD Monitor [Posted on 2007-03-16]
Have only owned this monitor for a week and am extremely impressed with it. Setup is easy and straightforward and software is a breeze. Unable to find any cons for this monitor and it far exceeds my expectations.

Beautiful monitor! [Posted on 2007-10-12]
This is a great monitor. It came with a fantastic, sturdy stand (even if it is a little deep) which allows you to quickly change the height, angle, and even pivot from landscape to portrait mode. Also includes every kind of cable you might use to connect it to your PC. Picture is beautiful, even using the analog VGA input, with no dead pixels. Boasting about 20-percent more screen area than a 20-inch widescreen, this is the largest standard-aspect screen you can buy -- which is perfect for me, because I use a KVM switch to share the monitor with another PC that only runs DOS applications, and DOS apps usually won't support widescreen monitors out-of-the-box. Big, beautiful -- buy it: you won't be disappointed.

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