Introduction
On 27th November, the first BenQ E2200HD was sold in Chandigarh, and it was me who got the pleasure of being the first to buy this thing. Though this LCD was announced way back on Sept 5, I was told it was going to be available here in Chandigarh round about October 20th. And now 27th November is more than a month later than 20th oct. Later than never, it did come out. 
hyeah: 
Anyways, ive got the LCD and im reviewing it. And this is my first review, so guys please bear with me
. And in my review, I’ll let the pics do most of the talking. Though I have a decent camera, Kodak easy share 600 (or something), I think it’ll be fine for the review.So now lets check out the specifications of the product
[BREAK=Specifications]
Specifications
Taken from BenQ’s site, and here u go
Screen Size - 21.5" Wide
Color - Glossy Black
Resolution - 1920x1080
Pixel Pitch - 0.248
Brightness - 300 cd/m2
Contrast Ratio - 1000:1 (DCR:10000:1 )
Response Time - 5ms / 2ms(GTG)
Display Area - 476.64x268.11 (mm)
Display Colors - 16.7 million
Viewing Angle - 170/160 (L/R;U/D) (CR>=10)
Input Signals - D-sub / DVI-D/ HDM1.3 / Audio in / Headphone Jack Horizontal
Frequency (KHz) - 34 ~ 94 (KHz)
Vertical Frequency (Hz) - 50 ~ 85 (Hz)
Video Bandwidth (MHZ) - 25 ~ 205 (MHz)
Color Temperature - Reddish / Normal/ Bluish / user mode
Power Consumption - 48W (max)
Power Supply - Built-in
Speakers - 2 x1W
Features
-Senseye+Photo Image Technology
-AMA
-DCR (10000:1)
-HDCP Support*
-OSD Language : 17 languages
Adjustments (UP/DOWN) - Tilt -5/20 (down/up)
Dimensions (WxHxD) - 522.8x407.8x186.8 (mm)
Weight - 5.2 kg
Accessories
-(Standard) Quick start guide
-User manual CD
-VGA, Audio cable
*Both the video sourceâ€â€such as a PC, PlayStation 3 or media playerâ€â€and the LCD monitor must support HDCP to play back protected content on HD- DVD or Blu-ray Discs via an HDMI connection. If either device lacks an HDCP chip, image quality may be reduced or playback may not even be possible. Most current PCs’ graphic cards are HDCP-compliant and support output over HDMI partially.
A point I need to make here. As its mentioned in the accessories list on BenQ’s site, that there’s no DVI-D cable bundled with the product, I was ready with some extra cash to buy a cable along with the LCD.
But I was surprised, but more than being surprised it was happiness for me, to see a DVI-D cable bundled along. Though I thought not giving this cable along with the LCD was a measure to cut costs, it felt good to see it in the package.
So Note please - The DVI cable is bundled along with the monitor
Now, lets see some pictures of the product
[BREAK=Pictures]
Pictures
The packaging of the product
The Bundle, notice the nice cardboard packing of the monitor
The monitor with all the accessories
The right side of the monitor showing the menu controls
The left side showing the headphone jack
The back of the monitor
The backside showing the input options
A nice thing I really made use of with the monitor is the wire managing clip. Here, have a look and see what it does.
The clip being used on the back
The front view when the clip is being used
It just keeps ur desk neat and tidy, a really cool thing.
Coming up are some pictures of the LCD Menu taken from the manual
[BREAK=Menu]
Menu
Following are the menu pictures which are from the manual on the cd. I added them so u guys could get a feel of the menu on the monitor. Its real easy choosing ur settings
Following page gives the hardware test bed and the software and monitor settings used for the review
[BREAK=The Test Bed]
The Test Bed
This is the configuration of my rig on which I tested the monitor.
Hardware
Intel q6600 @ 3.2 GHZ
Patriot 800 MHZ CL5 ram
AMD HD 4850 @ 700/1100
Software
Windows XP SP3
Various games
Microsoft Word, Acrobat Reader 9, Mozilla Firefox 3
Monitor Settings
These are the settings I used with the monitor throughout the review. I did not have much time since i bought this monitor as ive been quite busy, and thus couldn't do much of tinkering with the menu settings for the perfect display
, but so far these settings suited me best. Though if sb has the time to calibrate the display properly, they'll end up with far better results.
As you can see, "Dynamic Contrast is OFF", the "Colour Temperature is BLUISH", "Sense-eye Demo is OFF", and the "Display Mode is FULL" about which i've also mentioned later in "Points before the verdict" page. Other settings are very clear to understand from the image itself.
Now lets do some gaming on the monitor :hap2: . I know this is gonna be the most viewed page.
[BREAK=Gaming Pictures]
Gaming Pictures
This is the page that’ll be the most useful for people like me, who want to know how the 16:9 aspect ratio handles today’s games. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
Call of Duty 5 being played on the monitor
Crysis Screenhot 1
Crysis Screenshot 2
Crysis Warhead Screenshot 1
Crysis Warhead Screenshot 2
Far Cry 2 Screenshot 1
Far Cry 2 Screenshot 2
NFS Undercover Screenshot 1
NFS Undercover Screenshot 2
Stalker Clear Sky Screenshot 1
Stalker Clear Sky Screenshot 2
Lost Planet Extreme Condition Screenshot 1
Lost Planet Extreme Condition Screenshot 2
James Bond - Quantum of Solace (Game) Screenshot 1
James Bond - Quantum of Solace (Game) Screenshot 2
NFS Most Wanted Black Edition Screenshot 1 (This game does not have native widescreen support for 16:9. To make it run on this aspect ratio, i had to download a file from the widescreen gaming forums. And the game looks pretty cool on this resolution, this is me talking, coming from 1280x1024
)
NFS Most Wanted Black Edition Screenshot 2
NFS Most Wanted Black Edition Screenshot 3
Counter Strike 1.6 Multiplayer Screenshot 1
Counter Strike 1.6 Multiplayer Screenshot 2
Now lets move on to an RTS game, one of my favourites, AOE III - The Asian Dynasties
. (But the best RTS game according to me is AOE2, nothing can come near it, too bad, it doesnt support resolutions above 1280x1024, and thus i could'nt post its screens )
AOE3 Screenshot 1
(the advantage in an RTS game with a higher resolution is that you can see a larger part of the map as compared to lower resolutions and thus it enhances your playing experience
)
AOE3 Screenshot 2
Now lets see how gaming on this monitor looks on lower resolutions of 1680x1050 and 1280x800
[BREAK=Gaming at Lower Res]
Gaming at Lower Resolutions
This page i've dedicated to all the ppl who do not have the hardware requirements to get playable framerates at the native res of this monitor (1920x1080), but still want to buy this thing for the sake of better computing in general.Always remember that it is not just games the computers are made for. There's a wider scenario to things.
First of all i'll start by posting how the desktop looks at different resolutions.
Desktop Screenshot at Resolution of 1280x800
U lose all the viewing space and the desktop itself doesnt look so good
Desktop Screenshot at Resolution of 1680x1050
This looks a little better, quality wise almost as good as the native res of 1920x1080
Desktop Screenshot at Resolution of 1920x1080
This is how things look at the native res, no res can beat this
Now lets move on with the gaming part
First of all lets see how Crysis looks at 1280x800 and 1680x1050 resolutions, respectively
Crysis Screenshot 1 @ Res 1280x800
Crysis Screenshot 2 @ Res 1280x800
Crysis Screenshot 1 @ Res 1680x1050
Crysis Screenshot 2 @ Res 1680x1050
You can see that gaming is a lot more better at the 1680 res, if ur hardware doesnt meet the requirements of gaming on the native res, this res will suit u fine and the quality isnt that bad either.
But the same cant be said about the 1280x800 res, the images are a lot more blurred and its like gaming at 800x600 on a 1280x1024 LCD. If uve played games this way (800x600 on 1280x1024 LCDs) and u didnt worry much, this res will also suit u then, but for me, it wasnt that good
Lets move on to another game, and now lets see how Crysis Warhead looks
Crysis Warhead Screenshot 1 @ Res 1280x800
Crysis Warhead Screenshot 2 @ Res 1280x800
Crysis Warhead Screenshot 1 @ Res 1680x1050
Crysis Warhead Screenshot 2 @ Res 1680x1050
The same can be said about this particular game as well and for all games in general, which is proven further by the following screenshots
Far Cry 2 Screenshot 1 @ Res 1280x800
Far Cry 2 Screenshot 2 @ Res 1280x800
Far Cry 2 Screenshot 1 @ Res 1680x1050
Far Cry 2 Screenshot 2 @ Res 1680x1050
James Bond Quantum of Solace 2 Screenshot 1 @ Res 1280x800
James Bond Quantum of Solace 2 Screenshot 2 @ Res 1280x800
James Bond Quantum of Solace 2 Screenshot 1 @ Res 1680x1050
James Bond Quantum of Solace 2 Screenshot 2 @ Res 1680x1050
Counter-Strike 1.6 Screenshot 1 @ Res 1280x800
Counter-Strike 1.6 Screenshot 1 @ Res 1680x1050
I myself do not have a killer rig, i can get playable fps on 1920x1080 on Crysis Warhead only when i have the settings on medium. And i know soon enough i'll have to play games at resolutions of 1680x1050 or still lower.
But I myself am pretty happy with the monitor.
What u get with this monitor is more than gaming at high resolutions, its like the whole feel of computing is elevated, and u would love it, no matter u can play games on the native res or not.
This is my opinion on things
hyeah: Now lets move on to HD content playback on the monitor. Again a favourite
[BREAK=HD content Playback]
HD Content Playback
I acquired a 720p print of the movie Gladiator and played it on the monitor. I was simply awestruck buy the display i got. I had never noticed such detail earlier and after i saw the movie it made watching low quality content miserable for me.
Though the quality was superb, i did notice some flaws with the monitor.
-Black and dark scene reproduction was not up to the mark.
-Viewing angles are poorer than an LCD HDTV and so u dont get the perfect feel of watching a movie, uve got to take a position which suits best and not to move from it, as it then changes the quality of the display as seen by ur eyes, and this at times becomes quite troublesome.
-And i did notice some lag in the beginning, but after some time watching a movie, u get used to it.
The good points about watching HD content
-The brightness was simply awesome. The bright scenes were a delight to behold.
-I already mentioned about the detail and quality of watching HD content. U can see every hair of a persons stubble.
And this was a 702p movie, im soon gonna post my impressions about a 1080p movie. Here are the pics below, for me to make my points mentioned above very clear.
Gladiator Movie Screenshot 1
(As u can see, the detail is very clear)
Gladiator Movie Screenshot 2
(Here in this scene, the colour reproduction looks awesome)
Gladiator Movie Screenshot 3
(Again the detail is very good. Can see each face in the crowd. Though not in the picture, as my budget camera screws up :no: )
Gladiator Movie Screenshot 4
(The dynamics are good)
Gladiator Movie Screenshot 5
(The only problem with the monitor, Dark scenes :S )
Gladiator Movie Screenshot 6
(Another dark scene, but this time handled beautifully by the monitor. The contrast is good, as can be seen)
Note - The exact quality i got cant be appreciated with these pictures because of my not-so-good camera. These screenshots would give u an idea of the capabilities of the monitor
Now lets have a look at what all advantages the huge resolution of the monitor holds
[BREAK=The Resolution Advantage]
The Resolution Advantage
The huge resolution of 1920:1080 has a huge advantage when you’re using word (mostly office stuff), adobe reader and for browsing the net, not to forget for general computing. I've already talked about the advantages RTS games have at higher resolutions.
Here you can see that I have 4 windows open and still have got room to spare
The LCD lets u see pages side by side when dealing with word and acrobat reader and the text is very easily readable. It is MS Word in this case
This is a screenshot for Adobe Acrobat Reader 9 showing 2 pages being displayed side by side. And this might be an advantage when ur reading e-books on ur pc
, though over here its one of my dad's nephrology articles (not as interesting )
Even net browsing is cooler on a high res, some pages end in the middle of the screen :rofl: (just kidding here guys, im being a bit carried away by this monitor at the moment :bleh: )
Almost done, some points i'd like to discuss before i wrap it up
[BREAK=Other points before the Verdict]
Some other points i'd like to discuss before the Verdict
*I don’t have any tools to measure color accuracy and stuff, and nor do I know how to use them. So I’ll lead u guys who know what all this means to the following link - AnandTech: BenQ E2200HD and E2400HD - 1080P FullHD LCDs, but for me, this monitor is simply amazing, no matter how it performs in these tests.*About viewing angles - I previously used a Sony 17†1280x1024 LCD and I can say for sure this monitor has better viewing angles than the Sony LCD. The viewing angles pose a small problem when ur watching movies on the monitor.
*The monitor has three inputs like u must have read from the specs page – DVI-D, VGA and HDMI 1.3 and switching between them is no hassle when you’ve got them all plugged in. I just switched between vga and dvi as I’ve got no HDMI inputs from any source.
*The monitor has 3 display modes for resolution scaling-
-Overscan
-Full
-Aspect
My setup was on "full" and it worked fine for me.
Here is what these display modes mean, i took this picture from the LCD Manual -
*For others, who want to read the entire manual, i uploaded it on rapidshare, here is the link - RapidShare: Easy Filehosting
*I tried smaller resolutions than 1920x1080 for the desktop, and all looked awful, starting off with 1680x1050.
*I tried the dynamic contrast and I didn’t see any noticeable improvements with it.
The conclusion is awaiting u on the next page
[BREAK=The Verdict]
The Verdict
Now let me tell u guys for how much I bought this thing.
I got it for Rs 12,500 from a local shop in Chandiarh with the bill. Other shops I tried had it from Rs 12,800 to 13,800, but I convinced this shopkeeker to give it to me for 12,500, and mind u, it did take some convincing
Now If I was to mark this on a scale from 1-10, i'd give it a 9. Won't give 10 because my philosophy is "nothing is perfect" and wont give it a 8 because its simply too good for an 8
Now let me list the Pros and Cons which I feel
Pros
-Price - Rs 12,800 on average
-Huge Resolution - 1920x1080
-16:9 aspect ratio – All latest games support it and it’s the native widescreen movies format, so no black bars when viewing high quality widescreen movies
-Gaming looks really good on this thing
, and that's what most people on this forum want-3 inputs which I already mentioned (HDMI 1.3 is gonna be used in the near future and who doesn’t want an LCD that has an input for it)
-Speakers (good for small time gaming like multiplayer games, but don’t expect too much here)
-Headphones jack built-in
Cons
-For u to play games at the native resolution, u’ll need a really powerful rig, other smaller resolutions don’t look that good.
-The speakers aren’t too good, this isn’t much of a con as nobody expects too much from the built in LCD speakers
-It is unsuitable for people into image editing and animation because of the cheaper TN film based display of the LCD.
-Then there is nothing I can think of at the moment
So this was it, my first review. I hope you guys liked it. Critics
, please put forward your questions, i'd like to answer them. And any suggestions on how to make reviews better will really help me with my further articles, i.e. if I do post any further articles .Till then, good luck guys, and take care. See you soon.
