LCD monitor prices are dropping, but are still two or three times the cost of equivalent CRTs. The Philips 140S offers a 14.1-inch display -- the same size you'll find on today's high-end notebooks -- and has an estimated street price of AU$1,399.

The monitor's image is crisp, and its auto-adjustment feature works well. It's slightly smaller and has fewer features than most competing designs, which detracts from the price advantage it has over some other models.

With a 14.1-inch-diagonal panel, the Philips 140S LCD monitor provides about the same viewing area as a typical 15-inch CRT. Unlike a CRT, however, it has a bantam footprint and weighs just over 10 pounds. Its crisp, precise display, however, comes at a cost quite unlike that of a 15-inch CRT, sporting a AU$1,399 (street) price tag. Printed documentation for the 140S is sparse, but since the monitor has relatively few features, there's not much need for it. Its sole signal input uses a standard analog VGA connector and a captive cable. There are no USB ports, and no speakers or microphone. Connect the power and signal cables and you're done with the setup. Windows Plug and Play automatically recognises the monitor without the need for an .INF configuration file, making installation easy. The monitor has an Auto button that syncs to the signal and adjusts the picture size, position, and timing. Our test unit did a perfect job the first time, and did not require any additional tweaking.

Pros and Cons Pros • Good image quality • Good scaling of lower resolutions • Good horizontal viewing angle • Good base with easy tilt and swivel Cons • Minimal paper documentation • No digital interface or USB • Weak on dark gray shades • Weak on vertical viewing angle

The screen has a fairly good horizontal viewing angle, but the image changes dramatically as your vertical viewing angle shifts. We used DisplayMate software to put the display through its paces in its native resolution, which is 1,024-by-768 (XGA). The brightness control was not as effective as the contrast in adjusting the image. The screen glowed brighter along the bottom third, which was more noticeable on a full black screen than on one that was all white. Colour tracking was very good -- there was no discernable tint to various shades of gray -- and continuous colour ramps showed only some faint banding. We noticed no ghosting or streaking, even on high-contrast images, and even complex patterns were free of pixel jitter. The monitor scales up images at lower resolutions to fill the screen, and we found them smooth and sharp with only minimal scaling artifacts.

The monitor comes with an extensive manual on CD, which includes a section explaining the company's pixel defect policy. Our evaluation unit appeared to be free of defects, but the policy explains that as many as 10 bright and 10 dark defects (out of 2,359,296 sub-pixels) are acceptable. All LCD monitor manufacturers have similar policies, but Philips gets extra credit for trying to present the information in a clear and understandable fashion.

The 140S has an attractive and functional design, with good access to cable connections and a simple tilt-and-swivel base that is easy to adjust.

In the end, however, this is an expensive monitor with few extra features and a screen size that is slightly smaller than those of the 15-inch LCD monitors that dominate this category. If you're going to spring for an expensive display, you might want to get a slightly larger one instead.

Philips 140S
Company:Philips Australia
Ph:1800 658 086
Price:AU$1,399
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