Testing Wide Monitors

From SMH.com.au a report on three new monitors.

The line between the TV and your computer is blurring.

These days the display sitting in the study is likely to be called upon to screen games, movies, photos and computer content from the web - so it makes sense to own a monitor that will connect to a computer as well as AV gear such as Blu-ray players (r.i.p. HD DVD), games consoles and high-definition personal video recorders.

Of course, you can get a computer to do all those AV jobs, but not everyone wants to go down that path.

Many flat-panel LCD and plasma televisions feature an analog D-Sub input for connecting to a computer, but few have the digital DVI input required to get the sharpest pictures from your computer.

Alternatively, there are a handful of DVI computer monitors that also feature the gamut of AV inputs such as HDMI, component, composite and S-video.

Such monitors usually don't have built-in TV tuners but those we've seen only have analog TV tuners that will be useless in a few years anyway with the move to digital-only television broadcasts. Finding a monitor with all these inputs is a challenge - we rounded up two while the third, the ViewSonic, doesn't have a DVI input but snuck in because it comes with a DVI-to-HDMI cable.

The BenQ doesn't have built-in speakers, which could be a deal breaker for some people, but you could always buy some good desktop speakers to sit alongside it. None of the monitors come with a remote control, but that's no big loss as long as the connected devices come with remotes.

As well as having HDMI inputs, the monitors are all HDCP (High- bandwidth Digital Content Protection) compliant - meaning they will play nicely with the copyright protection used by Blu-ray players.

They also play nicely with Macs and PCs, plus they all have Picture in Picture so you can open a smaller window in the corner to watch two sources at once.

Remember the ViewSonic doesn't have a DVI input, so it's not the best choice if you want to have a computer and Blu-ray player hooked up at the same time using DVI and HDMI respectively.

Assuming a monitor has all the inputs you need, the next thing to think about is size and resol-ution.

As with televisions, bigger is not always better. If you're going to be mostly sitting at a desk using it as a computer monitor, be wary of going for the mammoth 28-inch ViewSonic - you don't want to be constantly turning your head to see the entire screen.