Customer Reviews

ViewSonic VX2025WM 20-inch Widescreen LCD Monitor

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've been using this new 20" wide LCD for about two weeks, and it's great. This is an awesome monitor. It's much better than my old Viewsonic VP191s for playing games, reading text, etc and the VP191s was a really high quality monitor of the previous generation of LCD monitors. Playing games and watching movies is significantly clearer than my previous monitor. This is an excellent gaming or movie monitor.
From what i've read, I believe this is a P-MVA panel technology LCD monitor. If you read articles about P-MVA, IPS, TN, etc it may help you decide whether this monitor is right for you because each type of panel technology has drawbacks. Although they say MVA panels are supposed to be the slowest of the types, this monitor is extremely fast and I don't notice any ghosting or blurring when playing games or watching video. I believe the newer generation monitors are using technologies (P-MVA, S-IPS) that narrow the gaps between the technologies especially LCD response times.
There's a tiny amount of blacklight bleed from the bottom left and bottom right corners, but it's only a small amount and only with the lights turned off and with a pure black image on the screen. I've been playing Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and I don't notice any backlight bleeding while playing even with dark scenes and the lights turned off.
There were no dead or always-on pixels that I could find (compared to the VP191s which was an excellent monitor but still had about 3 or 4). I viewed the monitor from all different angles using several different colors (R,G,B, black and white).
I haven't used the built-in speakers, and I probably don't plan to. The speakers in LCDs are only meant to add very basic sound playing capabilities so that you don't need to have speakers separately.
The buttons are great, much easier to work with than my previous LCD monitor.
The high contrast ratio is great and the monitor is bright.
The monitor's native resolution is 1680x1050. This monitor displays a warning whenever you are not in the native dimensions which is a nice idea. You can disable the warning message so that it no longer shows up if you tend to work in other resolutions a lot. It seems like when working in non-native resolutions that it displays better than my previous LCD, but I haven't had much experience. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, and EverQuest II all support the 1680x1050 resolution.

Possible Cons:

The screen looks great, although the bezel is wider than my previous LCD which had a very slim edge/border. The bezel is about 1" thick all the way around the screen edge. The bottom of the monitor bezel has an extra half inch for 3/4 the panel width for whatever reason.
Some other new LCD monitors that I have seen have Picture in Picture capability, so it's too bad this one doesn't but I'm not sure I would have used it anyways.
The monitor doesn't have a USB hub. It would have been nice to have a USB hub built into the monitor.
The stand does not adjust height, although the stand can be removed and the monitor can be wall mounted. It is a fixed stand, but allows the monitor to lean forward or back to adjust the vertical viewing angle moderately.
The stand permanently holds the monitor 4 inches above the desk/table. The actual LCD viewable screen will begin approximately 6 inches above the desk/table.
My previous LCD was great and allowed you full height adjustment including lowering the LCD all the way down onto the desk, which is where your monitor really should be. It also allowed you to flip the monitor sideways. This ViewSonic VX2025WM monitor does neither.
Of all the things I might want to deduct points for, only the lack of an adjustable stand bothers me. I might pickup a "Neo-Flex LCD Stand" from Amazon to see if it is a good replacement for the stand on this monitor.
ADDED INFO: I am using the DVI input for this monitor.
UPDATE - I purchased the Ergotron Neo-Flex LCD Stand ( 33-288-CBL ) and it's an excellent LCD monitor stand when combined with this VW2025WM. It's a great stand and will allow you to lower the height of this LCD all the way onto the desk surface (which is how I like it. The top edge of a monitor should be about 1" to 2" below your own eye level for better ergonomics / less neck strain) or much higher above the desk. The stand allows tilt forward/backwards and even 180 tilt for vertical viewing. I recommend buying the Ergotron Neo-Flex stand if you need a flexible monitor stand rather than the fixed stand that comes with this LCD. The stand is available for purchase here on Amazon.com

The Monitor.
The Viewsonic VX2025wm is a wide screen 20.1 LCD monitor. It has a native resolution of 1680x1050. It has a display area of 17.1" horizontal x 10.7" vertical; 20.1" diagonal
The contrast ratio is at 800:1 It has a response speed of 8ms-FAST. It has DVI and VGA connections.

Setup.
It worked great out of the box. All the cables needed are included. No drivers needed on the Mac, not sure about the PC. But it was fast and simple. No dead-pixels on my monitor. I did not have to use the manual, since the Mac did everything automatically.

What it looks like.
Great. The default screen colors are a bit bright for me. I adjusted the monitor colors and contrast to my liking using the Macintosh monitor settings. The Macintosh also comes with the color sync application that walked me through adjusting the monitor settings that is appropriate for the lighting condition in our office. The monitor is great for graphic applications, Photoshop and illustrator, etc.

The screen uses the antiglare coating on it. I find this better than the new Sony and Samsung with their xbrite LCDs, by coating the screens with a glossy coat. It looks great at the stores, but has a lot of problems when it comes to glare.

Energy Efficient.
This monitor consumes 35 watts an hour in use. About a 75% less than my previous CRT monitor, and half the energy consumption of the comparable Dell UltraSharp 2005FPW monitor.

Audio.
The monitor has built-in speakers hidden underneath the screen, which are adequate for general use. But are not loud enough for listening to music or watching movies.
I also found it strange that there is no audio output jack for plugging in headphones, considering there is an audio in.

Monitor Controls.
There are five buttons underneath the screen: 1.) Power on/off 2.) Audio/Up 3.) Audio/Down 4.) DVI select. 5.) Analog select. The last two allows you to switch between analog and digital. Pretty useful if you have two computers and would like to share one monitor.

Foot Print.
Small. 19.0" wide x 13.4" tall x 2.6" deep. The stand is about 8" square and is heavy enough to keep the monitor grounded in place. The space above the stand is also a perfect nesting space for my G4 Powerbook and Wacom tablet.

The Design.
The monitor is well built and feels sturdy. The casing is made out of nice sturdy plastic and is black with a silver metallic trim. The design of the monitor is simple and clean with a simple hinge on the back to tilt the monitor up and down. A small Viwesonic logo is on the top left corner and some icons for the buttons. Okay this is not as attractive as a cinema display, but then again it is also half the price. This is a handsome monitor compared to Dell and other LCD monitors.

Overall I'm happy with the monitor. Great color depth and rich color plus fast refresh rates and most importantly energy efficiency. The monitor also has a small footprint, great for those of us here NYC with small spaces.

For quite some time now, I've been looking for a display to replace my 22" CRT. Because one of the primary uses for my PC is gaming, I've been dissatisfied with LCDs due to their slow pixel response. I recently purchased the ViewSonic VX2025wm due to its purported fast (8ms) response time and large display size. I was a bit put off by the widescreen (16:10) aspect, at first. But, given the fact that there are few standard (4:3) aspect 20" LCDs with response times as low as 8ms, I decided to take the plunge. I'm happy to say that I am very satisfied with the VX2025wm.

Features: The display offers a bright screen with crisp text display. The widescreen aspect takes some getting used to, but I acclimated after about 30 minutes of use. If you've used ViewSonic monitors before, you'll feel right at home with the simple 4-button control schema. Press (1) to activate the menu, the up or down arrows to select an option, and (2) to confirm. The display options are fairly standard: image adjustment, color temperature, brightness/contrast and display setup. Both DVI and VGA inputs are available. ViewSonic also included a nice cable-management feature at the rear of the monitor which essentially keeps your cables out of sight.

Performance: The display is connected to my primary PC: Athlon 64 4000+ processor with 2GB DDR SDRAM and an nVIDIA GeForce 7800GTX graphics adapter. I subjectively tested the performance of the display with a number of first-person shooters like Battlefield 2, Quake 4, Half-Life 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004. None of these exhibited any ghosting or smearing. Tearing was minimal to non-existent. Less-fast paced games like Battle for Middle Earth II and World of Warcraft performed admirably as well. DVDs also displayed well, with no tearing or ghosting apparent in my test material (Revenge of the Sith and Return of the King). As noted above, text is very crisp for productivity or Internet applications. Some may find that the text is too small at the default font size - this can be adjusted within Windows to accomodate for the higher-resolution display (it didn't bother me, however).

The display does have a few shortcomings, most of which aren't a big deal to me, personally. First, the monitor does not support HDCP. While this isn't a big deal now, it's something to keep in mind if you will be migrating to Windows Vista next year. Windows Vista will require video cards and monitors to pass an HDCP token when viewing protected content (e.g. HD video). If you don't care about watching movies on your PC, then this won't be a big deal. The second shortcoming is the lack of height adjustment on the stand. The display height is just about perfect for me. And, I plan to purchase an adjustable arm for the display. But, some users like more flexibility in the display height, so it's something to keep in mind. Finally, the monitor does include integrated speakers hidden under the display. I didn't bother hooking them up, as I have a set of Klipsh Promedia 2.1 external speakers. Personally, I would have preferred that ViewSonic omit the speakers and offer the monitor at an even lower price.

Minor quibbles aside, this is an excellent display for both gaming and general use. Highly recommended.

Pros:
? Bright, crisp text
? Fast pixel response
? No dead or stuck pixels
? Simple, intuitive controls
? Clean design, built-in cable management
? Excellent price and value

Cons:
? No HDCP support (not an issue until Windows Vista hits the market)
? No height adjustment in stand
? Speakers are an afterthought

Out of the box, the VX2025WM looks the part. It's sleek, has smart accents like the open-rectangle base and cable-managment support beam, and looks quite geekily luxurious on a clean desk.

Running World of Warcraft, this monitor's color reproduction is absolutely breathtaking--sunsets in Mulgore glow a vibrant orange, and Feralas' underbrush teems with mottled green. Response time is quite respectable: FPSes like Half-Life 2 are smooth, and again, the color is impeccable.

But, it's in these FPS games that the monitor's serious disadvantage come into play: Black reproduction.

Skulk around in the dark in HL2, (or worse, Prey), and suddenly, black doesn't look so uniformly black. The backlight bleed around the corners is indeed noticeable, less so in certain conditions, but uncomfortably so in others.

It's right on that uncomfortable line where I don't think it's bad enough to send the unit back (from what I've read, they're all like this), but on the other hand, well, it's just not very good.

If you won't be using this display for gaming, it's a five-star device. If you will, expect a mixed bag--though at less than half the price of an Apple Cinema Display, it may be your only reasonable choice for a widescreen, 20" 8-bit panel.

I've had this display for about a month and am quite happy with it. Tons of desktop real estate, and games look and perform fantastically (the 8ms response is one of the major selling points for me).

It could use a USB hub, and the built-in speakers are pretty weak (but who uses those anyway). Non-native resolutions display poorly, but thats unfortunately normal for all LCDs.

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 very high resolutions 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. Also if you are tight on budget you can go for the 19" ViewSonic monitor. They are very competitively priced though they are only an inch shorter.

Enjoy

I looked at other monitors, like the Samsung, which can be rotated for real document layout. But with the wide >20" screen--with acute angle--ViewSonic makes the argument one can set two documents side-by-side and the physical screen rotation becomes a moot point. As other reviewers mention the monitor is indeed bright and its refresh rate is more than adequate. This could be a keeper for many years to come.

I wanted to give the VX2025WM a full five-star rating, but there are a few things just serious enough to knock that last star off -- at least in my personal opinion.

You've likely read most of the reviews here already along with all of the specs on the 2025, but there are a couple of more glaring omissions in both thusfar. First, nowhere in the specs -- even on Viewsonic's own website -- can I find the specification for dot pitch. A couple of reviews have mentioned a very slight (and typical) LCD "graininess." Expanding 1680x1050 out to 20-inches will naturally have this effect, but a "fatter" dot pitch will accentuate it even more. I think the 2025 has a fatter-than-average pitch and that's why Viewsonic fails to mention it -- anywhere. I do not believe this is an accidental omission. [REVISION: I have since learned that the 2025 uses the same/similar panel (there may be manufacturing variations) as Dxll's new 2007FPW, that would mean a DP of .258, which is quite respectable] However, this "graininess" is by no means obtrusive or even noticeable unless you have 20/2 vision or work with your face plastered to the screen. The second issue is backlight bleed. I have two 2025's running in a dual-display configuration from a Quadro FX 1300 dual DVI adapter (PC). When configuring the displays one of them is definitely brighter (hotter) than the other at identical settings (contrast, brightness, etc) and suffers more from backlight bleed, though this only shows up on dark/black backgrounds like when booting or shutting down. This implies that there may be noticeable (but tolerable) variation between units. I purchased both of mine at the same time from the same vendor and both have close serial numbers. It's a non-factor when using the displays in Windows. Colors are vibrant and uniform.

I don't play games and I have a big TV to watch movies on, so I don't do that on my computer either. My computer is all about work and playing around on the internet at 1:00am writing Amazon reviews (grin) -- for which the VX2025WM is exceptionally well suited. Text and graphics display with exceptional clarity and legibility. Colors are vivid, editing in Photoshop is a dream, Word, Excel and other Office apps will find ample real estate to have all your menus open along with your documents, and with dual displays I can edit in Photoshop and Dreamweaver simultaneously with room left over. It was a choice between a single 24" 1920x1200 LCD or two of these. Doing the math the choice was simple. Dual 2025's offers clear productivity advantages that a single 24" display simply can not match.

The other cons have already been mentioned by others: No height or rotate adjustment (a Viewsonic trademark), speakers are strictly for "business audio" purposes only (what did you expect? Never intended to use them myself), in a dual config the bezels mean over two inches of division between displays. Relatively minor issues, but all totaled they provide enough reason to withhold that final star. For the money however there is simply nothing out there that can compete -- period.

For me this monitor is an upgrade from 2 digital side-by-side 17" LCD's. I love it. No dead pixels, the colors are vivid, the latency is low and the footprint is elegant. Zero banding, Prey and Ghost Recon look fantastic, and the X pattern backlight issue many talk about is so minor it's not worth even talking about. I chose this over the pricier Dell in the same weight class which many have reported as having serious banding issues. I was concerned by the lack of an adjustable stand but the height is perfect and with the available range of tilt motion you will no doubt be able to find the right viewing angle. I am very pleased with my purchase!

i'm rather torn by this monitor. it is good, but not great. i can care less about USB ports, speakers, and card readers and such. fluff. what i want is a monitor, not a swiss army knife.

my other monitor is a 21" trinitron CRT using BNC a cable. it's been showing it's age lately, and this viewsonic is its replacement. i guess it's not fair that i'm going from a terrific CRT to a lower priced LCD, but hey that's life. i didn't lose that much screen space by using this monitor. viewable on my CRT was just over 19". doing the math shows i lost a few square inches by changing aspect ratios. but your mileage may vary with different monitors.

so, what are my grievances on my copy of this monitor...

the first thing that struck me, is the anti-glare coating on this panel. it reminds me of noise on a digital picture taken at a high ISO. it's a very fine noise. it has no color or pattern like a gained up sensor. difficult to notice on a complex image or movie, but noticeable on a color gradient or single color test image. this "noise" is annoying when post processing images and using things like noise ninja. it makes it more difficult to determine if the image itself has noise, or of the lcd's anti-glare coating is contributing it's "noise" and tricking your eyes. true, i can zoom in further into the image, but should i have to? i've recently pushed back the monitor a good 18 inches back to see if it made things better. (something i could never do with a giant 21" CRT) i've also moved the DVI cable up and away from any power cables to avoid any noise that could be interfering.

there is a slight hint of banding.

many pros. color is very good. contrast is good. brightness is good, though out of the box it was way too bright for me. size is good, (again my other monitor is a enormous and heavy 21" trinitron). looks great from the back if that means anything to you too. clarity is very good. text is very sharp. came with a dvi, dsub, and speaker cable. driver cd has a color profile for you to use.

but that darn anti glare filter annoys me...

I haven't calibrated the monitor against a dedicated calibration tool. maybe i should. My suggestion, is take a look at it in the store on a high quality videocard using DVI. if you're not going to pixel peep images and do extensive post processing of images, this will most undoubtedly serve you well. but if you are... check this monitor out in person before you buy and make up your own mind.

if i had to do it all over again, i don't know what i would have gotten. bang for the buck wise, this is the current winner.