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Occasionally a monitor comes along that has it all, cool looks great screen and built in goodies like a TV tuner. That beast is the Acer AL2032 which is a gem of a product.
The Acer AL2032 WA offers broadly the same specifications and image quality as the Sony screen, but has a much more singular goal in that it’s designed as a PC monitor, pure and simple.owing the current vogue for widescreen format, the Acer boasts a 20in display with extended width and native resolution of 1,680×1,050 pixels. This makes it ideal for multi-tasking, because you can run two applications side by side with plenty of breathing space. We also found the widescreen format ideal for photo editing, especially with wider format D-SLR shots; you can easily fit the images on the screen at a reasonably high resolution and still have room for the many and varied software tool panels on the side.<\/P>
Continuing the Acer’s excellence in the realm of digital image and movie editing, the screen uses the company’s new CrystalBrite technology, which is similar to Sony’s X-Black technology. This means that, although the screen isn’t as good at cutting out reflections as conventional LCD panels, you get a much sharper looking display, with richer colours and excellent tonal range, enabling you to see the finer points in lowlight and highlight areas of your images.<\/P>
As an object d’art, the Acer is beautifully designed in a slimline package with lustrous acrylic finish. Even the stand is pleasantly curved in the shape of an arc, which not only looks elegant but cuts down on the monitor’s footprint. Meanwhile, back at the sharp end, the display itself is the perfect size for DVD movie-watching and, as such, the Acer’s fast 8ms response time makes for fluid movement. On paper, the response speed isn’t quite a match for the Sony but, in our tests, we didn’t notice the slightest difference in performance between the two monitors. <\/P>
With analogue, digital, S-Video and AV Composite inputs, there’s no shortage of connection possibilities, but the sound quality from built-in speakers is only average. Even so, for a widescreen monitor without built-in TV tuner, the Acer is our pick for quality and design, as well as being excellent value. <\/P>