ViewSonic ’s VA2026w is a fairly priced wide - screen 20 - inch LCD monitor . It can get in touch to your Mac digitally via a single DVI porthole , or to an older Mac or PC via a single analog port . And though it scored well with our judges for school text discernability , its narrower - than - average viewing slant and lack of supernumerary feature make it difficult to recommend this monitor over other 20 - inch wide - screen we ’ve latterly reviewed .
The VA2026w run around a thin bezel design in black , with silver accents . It features a fair large circular cornerstone that offers little in terms of flexibility . There is no height adjustment and no power to pivot or swivel , though you may tilt the display back a few degrees . The case also lacks other feature like loudspeaker , a USB hub , or tv camera mass medium readers .
When I connected the VA2026w to my 2.66GHz Mac Pro , it reboot up automatically into its aboriginal 1,680 - by-1,050 - pixel resolution . As is truthful with most consumer displays , images on the ViewSonic ’s screen appeared overly blue and bright at the default preferences . After calibrate the display with a Gretag Macbeth Eye - One Display 2 , image looked much better . For those without standardization hardware , the VA2026w offers multiple colour presets , as well as a customizable User musical mode , which offers soft - to - use onscreen menu .
We assembled a dialog box ofMacworldeditors to rate the display alongside a grouping of similar proctor . They found the schoolbook on the ViewSonic to have Very Good legibility , even at belittled peak sizes . On the other hand , the viewing angle on the VA2026w was give only a Fair evaluation . Of the six 20 - inch wide - cover monitors we ’ve recently tested , the ViewSonic had the most spectacular people of colour shifts and loss of direct contrast when depend at the presentation from the left or the right of marrow . Our panel will usually disregard these color shifts when rating a show ’s color fidelity , but the break were so prevailing that the narrow consider angle probably did bear on the account somewhat , even though color seem perfectly fine to those sitting directly front and center of the show .
The ViewSonic uses a technology calleddynamic contrast ratioto increase the display ’s contrast proportion from the received 1,000:1 line proportion to 2,000:1 . This engineering examines the incoming image before it is displayed and can adapt the backlight to increase the difference between unaccented and dark area of the silver screen . We take care at both games and movies on the display , as well as our standard run images , but we could n’t see any difference between displays with dynamic contrast and those with standard direct contrast .
jury tests
graduated table = Superior , Very Good , Good , Fair , Poor
How We test : We connected the display to a 2.66GHz Mac Pro with 1 GB of RAM and an Nvidia 7300GT graphics card , draw Mac OS X 10.4.10 . We observe the operation of the exhibit with its default , out - of - the - boxwood configurations and then graduate it to 6,500 Kelvin with a gamma of 2.2 , using a Gretag Macbeth Eye - One Display 2 colorimeter . The Macworld Lab viewed a number of on - screen test images and rated each showing as Superior , Very Good , Good , Fair , or Poor on its colouring , text , and viewing angle compare with a sampling of standardised displays.—Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith
specifications
Macworld’s buying advice
The ViewSonic VA2026w is n’t a bad exhibit , but other modelling in its class offer better look at angles and low toll tags . Shoppers could do substantially by purchasing either the crummy Dell E207WFP ( ) or the feature - loaded , but more expensive , NEC MultiSync LCD205WXM ( ) .
[ James Galbraith isMacworld ’s lab director . ]
