Customer Reviews

ViewSonic VA1912WB 19-inch Widescreen LCD Monitor (Black)

5 star:		(56)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am very happy with my purchase of the Viewsonic VA1912wb. I found it to be a GREAT value in that I got a great widescreen at a reasonable price. A few things to mention.
** Amazon shipped it in great shape...double boxing via FedEx.
** Screen is very bright. I had to lower the brightness to near the lowest point. That is good...so there is room to the upside if I ever need that.
** The back of the monitor is very attractive. Sounds odd...but not for those that have the back facing outwards and visible. Mine happen to be in a study that is near the front entry...so having an attractive appearance is important to us. Cables are well concealed and routed behind a beauty plate. No odd cuts or stickers/tags...clean lines.
** Included instructions are minimal...but hey...there are only three items to hookup (power, input, speakers). There is also the web and customer support if necessary.
** KEY ITEM...this monitor has both analog and digital inputs. Clearly digital is the direction of future hookups...so make sure to ensure whatever monitor you purchase...it has digital inputs.
** The monitor includes the DVI cable. Many monitors do not and will cost you easily $20 more.
** The display is clear, crisp...and better than my monitor at work. Don't notice any dead pixels...no flaws observed.

I highly recommend this monitor and would purchase it again. I am happy with this purchase.

First off, let me say that this is a VERY impressive monitor. My points of reference for that statement are my other three LCD monitors: three Samsung models, two of which are 913Ns and the other is a 712N. These two Samsung models are advertised to have the same contrast ratio rating as this ViewSonic, and their advertised brightness ratings are 20 points higher than this ViewSonic. Surprisingly, I actually can see the brightness difference between the Samsungs and this ViewSonic, but, for my taste and needs, the Samsungs are simply too bright, and I end up turning down their brightnesses anyway. For high light, daytime use, I have found that I do like to have the brightness all the way up on the ViewSonic, but I truly do not see any need for it to be any brighter than it is capable of being.

Installation was simple: in fact, something that might be helpful to those of you who are buying this would be that, interestingly again, the drivers that are on the ViewSonic website are actually older than the ones that came with my installation CD, even though the driver package that is posted on the ViewSonic website claims to have been posted only a few weeks ago. When I first installed this monitor and turned it on, I truly do not think the picture was as clear, or the graphics as rich, as any of the Samsung monitors that I own. But, and this is another tip for new users of this product, the default setting for the ViewSonic screen contrast was set MUCH lower than the maximum setting. When I increased the contrast up to its maximum setting, I believe the clarity and quality of the picture to be nearly equal, if not fully equal, to those on the other LCDs that I own.

One big plus about this monitor is that it comes with a DVI cable included, so you save that added expense (this isn't true with all ViewSonics). And, especially with the digital connection, I have no doubts about ViewSonic's claim that this monitor has nearly twice (5ms versus 8ms) the refresh rate as the Samsungs. I have to admit that I wasn't sure I needed a widescreen display, but I believe it's going to be a challenge going back to the standard ones! This is a really a fine monitor!

Now for a few small negatives. One reason I haven't purchased ViewSonics in the past is that they put a fairly tall bar on the bottom of these screens to accommodate speakers. I already have a fine speaker system set up and connected to my computer, so I really have no use for monitor speakers. Additionally, those ViewSonic speakers always raise the monitor height up much higher than I'm comfortable with. Strains my neck. The reason I really didn't worry about it on this monitor was because, while there are speakers, they appear to be nearly half the height of the normal ones on other ViewSonic monitors. With that said, I have to admit that even this speaker accommodation bar added a bit more to the screen height than I had expected. For example, on the 17 inch Samsung monitor, the bottom of the screen is 3 3/4" from the desktop. On the 19 inch Samsungs, it is 4 inches. On this ViewSonic, the bottom of the screen is 5 1/2 inches above the desktop. It's not bad, but it's going to take a bit of getting used to. If all else fails, other monitor stands are available.

As with most electronic products these days, there is very little in the way of documentation. The 87 billion language installation card tells diddly. The .PDF manual that is installed on the computer simply says the standard self-explanatory things. However, I found the interactive help program on the manufacturer's website be quite useful in helping fix a few small problems, surprisingly.

All in all, I'm very impressed so far, and I'm really looking forward to using this monitor! By the by, shipping from Amazon.com was amazingly fast: it shipped the next day, and it arrived the day after that. I can't complain about that speed! My only question is why they would need a weight surcharge on this but could ship an extremely heavy wood lathe for free? Go figure! Anyway, a solid four stars for this monitor.

Plugged it in turned it on, and auto adjusted to wide screen, all my software looks like it's made for widescreen, 16:10 is perfect for editing and animation rendering, from timelines to tools, perfect. Auto color at startup, is exceptionally good. Shades of the same color can be seen to create 3d image in bryce5, in rendering the scene, diagonal lines are clean, images are sharper if you bring down the brightness a bit, better to have to dim than to brighten. Played Ghost Recon, detail animation is clear and obvious. It is true, in real time or moving scenes like games or movies, no ghosting or back light, colors are vivid, white and black shades are pretty good, gray is a little washed out. You should not care what color monitor or the stands adjust or the built in speakers not good(you should by now have 2.1,3.1,5.1)? black with silver small buttons extremely nice. It does what it says, oh, and read instruction #1.remove back cover to plug in cords!! plugs go in easy(some of you were trying to plug in with the cover still on). Remember what your buying and primary use, example in this case is it sight or sound your buying? buy smart(va1912wb), think(va1912wb) and research, "buythis1" wink, wink.

Considering I have an Nvidia Quadro4 980xgl video card DVI inlet, ecc 2g ram, intel p4 ht 3g, mbaord AsusP4c800E-Deluxe, sata raid-1 baracuda 120.
I gave my computer specs so you have an idea about computer monitor compatibity.

Got one of these to replace a dying 19" Hitachi. The ATI video driver I had installed would not handle the native 1440 X 900 resolution, something I checked before I hooked up the monitor (right click - properties - settings - screen resolution). I upgraded the driver and the new resolution was supported. Then I installed the new monitor.


It is just beautiful! Plenty of room to run two web pages side-by-side. The sound from the speakers is tinny, but they are extremely handy. I have my computer hooked to the stereo, but I really only use the stereo for music. The speakers allow you to hear a few sounds or a quick audio clip without firing up the stereo. There is a button on the front of the monitor that enables you to turn the monitor's speakers off...handy.

After three days I checked for dead pixels and found zero.

Negatives - the menu system is awkward to navigate because of the 5 small nearly-indentical buttons on the front of the monitor. The monitor occasionally pops up messages like "Analog Input" which I guess are supposed to be helpful, but are aggravating. I have not yet had a chance to see if these can be turned off. The stand does not adjust vertically and seems a little tippy when pushed from the front.

Overall, I think this monitor is a great baragin and would recommend it to anyone.

Purchased this monitor for my HP 2005 Media Center PC. For Best image you have to use the 1440x900 ratio, which make the text really small but very very very crisp. Because its widescreen it doesn't seem much bigger then my old 17" LCD but for the price I'm very pleased with this monitor. I purchased from Tigerdirect through Amazon.com. Monitor thumbs up. Amazon thumbs up. Tirgerdirect, thumbs way down as I think they lost my original order. But if your looking for a good widescreen brand name monitor at a budget price, this is the one! 6/3/06 update: This monitor has DVI and VGA. I'm able to use it with my Mac and PC at the same time with out a KVM switch because my mac is DVI and my PC is VGA. With one press of the button on the monitor I can switch between VGA and DVI video sources. Two computers....One monitor! Nice!

I'm very pleased with this monitor. For a 19" widescreen with 8ms response time, and digital input (DVI), it's the best monitor for the low price point. I don't use my computer for gaming (that's what home consoles are for), so I can't rate this monitor's performance on high end graphics. However, I do watch high-def tv shows in 720p and 1080i, and this monitor is great for it, particularly because of the large display and smaller letterbox bars on the top and bottom. Integrated speakers are a nice bonus, but don't use these for your main sound. These are good for when you aren't listening to music or watching movies/videos, and don't want to turn on your 2.1 or 5.1 system just to hear something quickly. To sum up, if you want the benefits of widescreen and a digital input, but don't want to spend too much, this is the monitor for you.

Great monitor, use DVI, text VERY clear, MUCH easier to read than my 19" CRT.., colors excellent (use vidoe card for correction with DVI).. newest Drivers from Viewsonic Website are MS Digitaly signed.. XP2 has native support for 1440.900

No APCI interferance like with the Samsung drivers

NO Ghosting, even in very fast-action movies..

Screen about the same height as a 19" (10.2") CRT, but wider, (16.1")

NO dead pixels

Speakers better than most monitor-speaker..
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BUT
My monotor was poorly packed, the OEM box in an Amazon box, no packing let the inner box slide about 4" back and forth.. outer boxed damaged... LOTS of banging arond..
--
Result, a " 1/4" grey-band" very light, but there on "black" (particularly annoying on a wide-screen DVD) and a slight "discoloration" on other colors..

RUINING a otherwise PERFECT display..

NOW I have to send it back for another, and wait about 3 weeks..

I rate this monitor HIGHLY, Great for DVD and anything else.. I do not play games, so I cannot rate them...

Purchased this monitor directly from Viewsonic. First monitor I received had a dead pixel in the center of the screen. Closer inspection showed that this monitor was likely previously returned before it was sent to me. Called viewsonic and told them that I had a dead pixel, expecting them to take care of it no problem. Oh no, I had to pay to send it back. In other words, I had to pay for them to replace a defective monitor that was likely previously returned for the same reason. Finally, convinced them under threat of taking it to the Dept. of Consumer Affairs that they would cover shipping. Received another monitor out of the original packaging with several dead pixels in the right corner. Called again. "Sorry our policy says that the monitor can have up to 7 dead pixels and we consider it in perfect shape." Will not return it. And obviously sent me two previously returned monitors. My opinion: These are not people you want to deal with. They are pushing bad merchandise and making it as hard as possible to return it. I strongly recommend Amazon provide this notice to their buyers.

This is an excellent monitor - we picked up one at work entirely due to the low price, and it was so nice on my desk there I chose to get one for my desk at home as well. Excellent for everyday use, though you should pick up other speakers if you plan on being at all serious about sound.

There's a lot of discounts on this model right now, too - I picked mine up for $250 (incl rebate) in person at Fry's, and average over the net and nearby stores here seems to be about ~$300.

This monitor is marvellous. Very easy to install. Comes with a free DVI cable, no hassle setup. It has all the bells and whistles that you would look for in a perfect monitor.

The colors are too good. Brightness is perfect. The stand is adjustable according to your viewing preferences. You can watch DVD movies in actual wide-screen format because this monitor has an aspect ratio of 16:10. You will only see a small rectangular bar on the top and bottom when watching DVDs programmed in 16:9 ratio. 8 millisecond response time renders smooth videos.

Active TFT display means you can watch it from any angle in your living room. I watch it even at 70 degree angles and it looks good enough.

The black finish adds elegance to your room. The power transformer (to convert 120 or 250 volts to 12 volts) is built inside the monitor. So you won't see ugly cables outside. The monitor cable to connect to your computer is also neatly tucked inside the monitor's casing.

To enjoy the monitor to the fullest extent, you need a good video card that supports 1940 X 1024 resolution and has a DVI output. If your computer has DVI output, make sure you connect the monitor using the DVI cable provided. The output is impeccable when using DVI signal. Even VGA signal is not bad, but DVI is too good.

The monitor has built in speakers. But I would suggest not to depend on this feature. The speakers are ok for web-chatting, VOIP calls, etc. But when watching DVD or listening to audio, you may want to go for external speakers and not depend on the speakers this monitor provides. Also if you turn on the speaker to full volume, the monitor sometimes flickers. Reason is both monitor and speakers are using the same power source and the power source may not be able to support the extra wattage required when the speakers are at the maximum sound level.

In summary, do go for this monitor TODAY. Don't wait an extra day. You will love your purchase.

Please don't go for the ACER monitors that are available for the same price. They don't have all the features that are available in this monitor. Also make sure you shop around for the best prices. This monitor is the best selling monitor of 2006. Hence lot of online sites are offering very competitive prices.

Enjoy