Flatron L226WTQ-BF

The LG Flatron L226WTQ-BF isn't an extravagant 22in widescreen monitor, but it does sport a thin bezel and a flashy stand. It lacks USB ports and its stand isn't height-adjustable; it only allows for tilting and swivelling.

Its image quality wasn't perfect straight off the bat; it packed a little too much contrast, which made the monitor's colours look overly rich. We had to turn it down in order to get a more natural image. The brightness was also very high, which makes it an ideal monitor for viewing in a brightly-lit room, but it can be tiring in a dark environment. We also had to turn this setting down. Once we made the adjustments, the monitor produced good results, but there were still a couple of niggly problems.

The greyscale tests in DisplayMate showed some discolouration in the darker levels of grey, which we couldn't remove by changing the colour temperature or luminance of the screen. Testing at 6300 Kelvin, which we found to be the most realistic setting, the greyscale was laced with a yellow tinge. Watching The Matrix DVD, the discolouration was noticeable in all dark areas.

Tests with photographs showed shadowed details and dark areas quite well, but bright areas with subtle colours looked ever-so-slightly washed out. Overall though, the screen isn't bad for viewing photos. While its colours are a little rich and whites are somewhat washed-out, it should suit most users' needs quite well. Its text reproduction showed traces of purple fringing at all font sizes on a white background, but it wasn't too distracting. The text quality in Windows' menus and labels was sharp and clean.

For watching movies and playing games, ghosting isn't an issue and blurring wasn't noticeable when scrolling text in long documents and Web pages. It has the fastest response time we've seen to date - 2ms. Viewing the monitor from the sides will result in colour and luminance changes the further you go, but text is still readable.

Overall, for everyday tasks, this Flatron is well-suited. It doesn't produce a perfect image, but it does a serviceable job of displaying images and movies.