No monitor offers an absolutely perfect image. You have to make trade-offs and decide which quirks you can and cannot live with. But the image on IBM's 15-inch T540 TFT Flat Panel (AU$1599 direct) comes as close to perfect as any LCD monitor--analogue or digital--we've seen, which is saying a lot for an analogue-only monitor.
Just as important, it offers easy set-up, a sleek design, and easy-to-use controls, with a maximum native 1,024 by 768 resolution.
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Physical set-up for the T540 is as easy as it gets. The monitor comes with both the analogue cable and cord to the power adapter already connected. You just take the monitor out of the box, place it on your desk, and plug in the video cable and power cord. The base offers a smooth tilt feature with no swivel.
Image set-up is just as easy. Run the test pattern program provided on the floppy disk, call up the onscreen menu, choose the automatic adjustment option, and the monitor sets itself up. This worked perfectly in our tests, using a Hercules 3D Prophet II Ultra card. The entire procedure required five button presses, and we finished in less than a minute.
The controls are easy to use too. All the control buttons are along the bottom front of the monitor for easy and comfortable adjustment. The menus themselves are easy to understand and navigate.
We tested the monitor with our standard test suite. Our tests focus on DisplayMate (courtesy of DisplayMate Technologies, Web site), which offers a set of images designed to easily see problems in monitors. We found no problems worth mentioning. The T540's image is excellent in its native 1,024 by 768 resolution. We witnessed no jitter in patterns that normally produce it in most analogue LCD monitors, and there was no sign of streaking or ghosting. Colours were suitably saturated, and text was crisp and readable even at 6.8-point type. The T540 passed the focus test with ease as well; small text and the tiniest graphics were sharp and easily readable.
At 800 by 600 resolution, the only noticeable flaws were ones we expect when viewing an image on an LCD monitor at a non-native resolution: artefacts in patterned fills and a slightly unfocused effect for edges in text and graphics. However, overall, the IBM T540 monitor has excellent image quality and is well worth its reasonable price.
IBM T540 TFT LCD Monitor
Company:IBM
Price:AU$1599
Phone:1800 289 426
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