Product Website...

Full Review Text:

AOC Widescreen LCD Monitor 2219P2:
an impressive display of wideness

Anthony Caruana | 02 October 2008

AOC might be a new player in the local market, but they’re showing that they have plenty of talent when it comes to making great screens that don’t break the bank.

The AOC 2219P2 is a sensational display. It ticks all the boxes that a business user would expect, in addition to covering the needs of the home user. It delivers excellent performance, looks great and has a solid set of features.

The 2219P2 is delivered in two parts; a base and the LCD. Putting the two together is dead easy and we were up and running in just a few short minutes. We connected the 2219P2 to our test system using the supplied DVI cable (there’s a VGA lead in the box as well). As the 2219P2 has in-built speakers, we also connected the screen to our computer’s headphone port using the supplied 3.5mm cable. The display is matte. While many folks have a preference for glossy screen finishes, we prefer matte as there are fewer reflections on the screen.

We tested with Passmark’s MonitorTest tool. Colour quality was excellent although we did find that the whites had a slight grey tinge. When viewing images and application windows it wasn’t very noticeable, but we did see it when testing with an all-white screen.

The 2219P2 rendered complex shapes with diagonals and ellipses very well. We really had to look very closely to see any jaggedness. We wouldn’t expect any jaggies to be noticeable in real-world operations. Blocks of different colours were clearly delineated, with no blurring at the interfaces between colours that we could see through the variety of complex test patterns.

Video playback was excellent. We watched a couple of our favourite DVDs through the 1680 by 1050 display and were quite impressed with the quality. Although high-definition support would be nice to have, that’s rarely seen in a monitor of this size. Response time is rated at 2ms. We couldn’t see any blurring during fast-moving action sequences.

From an ergonomic point of view, the 2219P2 offers great flexibility. It’s fully height-adjustable, making it ideal for both taller and shorter users. It can also be tilted through a 25 degree range. If you spend most of your time working with documents, you’ll find the 2219P2’s ability to rotate from landscape to portrait mode a boon. At the screen’s 22-in size and high resolution you can easily view a full A4 page at one time.

We couldn’t spot any dead or stuck pixels on our review unit. AOC’s policy is that either three stuck pixels, three dark pixels or a total of five non-functional pixels is enough for a replacement during the three-year warranty period. This is a reasonable policy, although it doesn’t cover you if there are two adjacent stuck or dead pixels right in the middle of the screen.

So, what’s missing with the 2219P2? It would be nice if the display integrated some USB ports and a card reader. However, that’s really fishing for something to criticise as the display delivered on every measure and test we could throw at it.