G2200W

There’s nothing really outstanding about BenQ’s G2200W. For a standard price, you get a standard monitor with a number of shortcomings sure to deter those looking for premium quality.

The G2200W shares many of the common traits of 22in monitors, with a native resolution of 1680x1050 pixels and a 5ms response rate — good enough for most uses, though fast motion movies and games may suffer. The monitor’s 1000:1 contrast ratio pales in comparison to competing units like ASUS’ LS221H, though it does have a dynamic contrast ratio of 2500:1. Connectivity is limited to standard D-Sub and DVI connections.

The G2200W doesn’t break from the crowd too much in terms of style, with a matte black bezel. The monitor sports a grill-textured separation at the bottom for a slight design twist which seems a little too reminiscent of the '90s for our liking.

With no possibility for height adjustment or horizontal tilting, the G2200W’s physical adjustment is restricted to vertical tilting. This may suffice if the monitor can be placed in the desired position but it is potentially quite troublesome. Viewing angles are adequate at a standard 160 degrees horizontally. BenQ says that the monitor is capable of 160 degrees vertical viewing angle as well, but as with most 22in monitors vertical tilting causes colours to become severely washed out.

Default settings on the G2200W are biased towards a blueish hue, so some calibration is required. Thankfully, the monitor’s adjustment buttons make configuration and personalisation an uncomplicated process. The on-screen display provides configuration options for brightness, contrast, colour and picture mode.

Along with a user mode, the G2200W provides four different picture presets, including an sRGB setting. BenQ also provides its own Senseye technology which provides a side-by-side comparison between the sRGB colour scheme and the presets; unfortunately there’s no way to compare sRGB settings with the personalised configuration. We found all four presets unsatisfactory for everyday use, as they proved to be dull and inaccurate. Still, even after altering the settings manually, the G2200W was underwhelming.

Running the monitor through a bevy of DisplayMate Video Edition tests, the G2200W was fairly average. Colours are vibrant with no obvious inaccuracies. Lines and edges are clearly defined and well-rendered, though poor brightness levels causes detail to quickly disappear from darker areas.

Black levels are somewhat disappointing regardless of contrast setting. Backlight bleeding also occurs, though this isn’t too noticeable and shouldn’t prove an obstacle during everyday use.

The G2200W’s shortcomings were immediately apparent during testing. Transitioning from windowed video to full screen caused the display to stutter, with aberrations visible during this transition. Text rendering is adequate, though using the monitor’s integrated presets quickly caused text to become unreadable due to high contrast and ghosting.