L1950SQ-SN

LG's latest 19in LCD offering is a fast-response model with good looks and very good display quality. A 15mm thin bezel gives the monitor plenty of style and its circular stand allows for easy swivelling and tilting. The on-screen display (OSD) can be manipulated by four buttons on the bottom-right of the bezel, and the monitor's menu system allows for adjustments to be made to colour, brightness, contrast and gamma. Lightview buttons can also be used to access built-in presets for various tasks, such as reading text and viewing movies and photos.

The screen is rated as having a 700:1 contrast ratio, which resulted in nice deep blacks and bright whites during testing. Dark colours on a dark background and light colours on a white background could be clearly differentiated.

While its colour was quite rich and vibrant, we did find that some grey levels in the DisplayMate tests were slightly off, possibly due to the dithering technique that the monitor uses to achieve the various shades of grey in its 16.2 million-colour palette. However, when viewing photos we didn't notice any anomalies. Dark shadows, gradients and colour tones all appeared to be perfect.

LG claims an 8ms response time for this screen. Combined with rich colouring and wide viewing angles, this makes it great for watching movies.