Acer AL1951

Advanced in some ways, this Acer monitor performs admirably, bar wallet performance.

Choosing between two competing LCD monitors is often like trying to decide which of the Olson Twins most deserves to sleep with the fishes. Most have more than acceptable image quality, leaving price and pixel response time as two of the most important factors. While the price of this 19” screen isn’t the most competitive, Acer’s claim of a 2ms response time helps it stand out from the crowd.

The fascia is nice and slim, and it’s great to see the plugs at the rear of the base, rather than tucked away in a hard to reach spot under the rear of the monitor. Calibrating the monitor wasn’t difficult, as it seemed to have almost perfect brightness and contrast out of the box, as witnessed by the DisplayMate setup utility. It passed most of the DisplayMate tests with flying colours, bar one – the backlight is most definitely not even.

The top and bottom of the screen is much brighter than the central area, which can be a little distracting in darker scenes. But the ultimate test of this monitor’s prowess came in the motion tests, such as Battlefield 2 and Half-Life 2. As expected, all ghosts have been exorcised from this monitor due to extreme response time, but then again, we don’t notice ghosting in most 8ms monitors. Thanks to the maximum refresh rate of 75Hz, slightly better performance when using Vsync was possible when compared to a 60Hz monitor.

Considering it’s possible to pick up a respectable 19in LCD monitor for around $500 these days, the high asking price of the AL1951 makes it a hard sell. If you’re convinced that you can see ghosting in other 8ms LCDs, the faster pixel response time of this monitor might be a godsend, but for the rest of us we're better off waiting for a price drop.