Acer AL AL1917W 19" LCD Monitor - Black

A decent monitor coming from Acer is not a new idea. In fact, it is a very affordable product as well. With a maximum resolution of 1440 x 900, it is not the top dog in the field, however. Acer does not manufacture it's own panels, we had the chance to play with some of these, and it appears that LG is actually the manufacturer, just like on many Acer laptops.

Between the 3 we used, one had a dead pixel. It is not unheard of to have a "stuck" pixel, however, but our beef was with the poor quality of support from Acer itself. We were unable to reach anyone. At all. During the day. Quite surprising, actually.

The actual product was good, however. The fast response timing of 5ms is great for gaming on. The DVI provides for decent color matching (more on this later), making the monitor look great. The 300 cd/m2 brightness and the high 700:1 contrast also make the monitor easy on the eyes.

The fast response rate does come at a cost though; a 6-bit signal processor leaves much to be desired. Color matching isn't as good as it should be, and even worse with a standard VGA cable. This monitor can't be recommended for photographers, digital artists, or others like this because of this. I know 16.2 million colors vs. 16.7 million colors doesn't sound like much, but trust me, it does have an effect.

In sumation, if you are purchasing this monitor for gaming or watching videos, or even everyday applications, you will have an overall excellent experience. This, however, is not the professional's choice.

This monitor is not a square 19" but a letterbox/wide 19" - big issue.

Good color, easy to use viewing controls but the monitor is missing a CRITICAL item.

NO "Aspect Ratio" control/adjust - "everything" viewed is unnaturally stretched in width to full screen size.

There is no control for proportionallizing the screen image - due to this significant short coming (that I missed when reviewing the specifications) I must rate the monitor as disappointing/below average.

I use the monitor at 1280 X 1024, the focus does not give crisp/clear edges, all items including text look fuzzy.

This monitor is OK for movies and surfing but NOT for CAD/drafting. I had intended to use two of these monitors for engineering CAD/PCB type work - not.

I am a graphic designer, and have been active in the field for a few years now, and this monitor works great for me! This monitor has a great color temperature to help my images come out in print form the way I had wanted them to on screen.

What most people don't understand is that you need to run this monitor at it's native resolution (1440 x 900) to get the full effect. You can use your display properties (located in your control panel) to change this setting. I can see how someone would be disappointed with this monitor without changing this setting, as it doesn't look near as good at any other resolution (no monitor does).

I like Acer products, haven't had any major problems to date. This lcd monitor is good for the price. However, the only major drawback I found was that the monitor volume is low, so you may want to make sure you got some good speakers instead of relying on the monitor for sound (games and such). Make sure the resolution suites you. There are lcd's with higher resolution, but way higher price. For average computer user you can't go wrong with the Acer AL1917W.

It looks great at a little price for butget control, maintenaces cost also low, good picture and easy to clean. Saving space, performance so fast at screen bright enough.