Planar 24-inch PX2411W Wide-Screen

Date: October 30, 2007 - Author: Matt Serrano

As 24" monitors invade our homes, it's important to make the right purchasing decision. What matters most? Lots of features, better image quality or the best gaming experience? We are taking a look at Planar's latest 24" model to see where it excels... and where it doesn't.

Introduction

Consumers are given a lot of choice when buying monitors today. Naturally, as technology advances, prices fall. Almost anyone can pick up a monitor upwards of 24" for $300 at their local big box store. The problem that presents itself though, is the quality of what you're buying in the store and setting on your desk.

The industry is moving towards an interesting correlation where size matters, but nearly everything else is set aside. A Joe who walks into a store and sees shelves full of huge monitors staring in his face has a hard time resisting pulling out a credit card. It's hard to resist. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this means we are left searching through a pile to fine a decent display that some crazed company has kept in production while everyone else is leaning towards marketing to the lowest common denominator.

The sad fact is people don't know quality. I cringe when I go to someone's house with a gigantic HDTV only to realize they have the picture settings plain wrong, or worse, they're using composite cables for "HD".

The same principle lies with computer monitors, with one distinction: people who buy them are never given the chance to screw it up, for the most part. Even though I view using VGA cables a crime, it's no where near as bad as some of the home theater examples I can give.

The fact is, most displays are a waste of time, and the ones that aren't are sold at a price point most consumers aren't willing to pay. So even if you wanted to buy one, less and less consumer-level monitors that favor performance over value are being produced. Yes, there's the "really high end" market (and that's the technical term), but those sell for -a lot- more the sub-$1000, or even sub-$2000 monitors we're used to.

24-inch monitors have recently become a popular choice with enthusiasts and regular Joes because they offer (what some would consider, unless you're eyeing one of those 30" behemoths) a more than suitable gaming experience and increased productivity. Who wouldn't love the perks of gaming at 1920x1200 and being able to load two spreadsheets side-by-side?

Two months ago, Planar formally announced their new 24" monitor, the PX2411W. Though it's set to compete feature-wise with monitors like the Dell's new E248WFP, interestingly enough it's priced closer to Dell's 2407WFP. Some numbers look promising, like a promised 1000:1 contrast ratio, 6ms response time and 178° viewing angle, which hints that it may be a P-MVA panel, compared to cheaper displays like the E248WFP which have TN panels that offer inferior viewing angles and color representation.

We've only reviewed a handful of monitors in the past, and we're hoping for that to change. If you have any comments or suggestions, please comment in our forums. A link to a registration-free page for comments can be found in the last page or the article.

Closer Look

The 2411W's bezel is a standard black with no fuss. First impressions were merely so-so; it isn't ugly in my opinion, but it's not going to win any contests. Planar could have gotten more creative considering what designs Dell, Samsung, Acer and Apple have come up with, for instance. It's boring to look at by comparison.

The black finish maintains the simple aesthetic. The clip close to the bottom is an accessory for the mechanism that keeps the display locked in place.

The controls are located on the bottom-right of the display. The buttons are, from right to left, the power, menu, right and left, auto and a source button. Most of them are self-explanatory, but pressing the auto button scans your analog connection to (hopefully) scale it properly to the monitor, while the source button switches between the two.

Unfortunately, you won't find many connections on this monitor. You're left with the meager offering of a VGA and DVI. There are no component, composite or HDMI inputs, and no extra features like a USB hub or card reader that we've come to find on other monitors. Out of everything omitted, I have to say I miss the composite inputs and USB connections the most, and there is little excuse Planar can give to dismiss their absence.

The stand is rather basic. The only capability is has it adjusting the height, meaning it cannot swivel or rotate. Since the entire stand is rectangular, it takes up a good portion of the available desk space under the display, stretching out for 9 ½ -inches.

I can't say first impressions of the monitor disappoint, especially for someone who hasn't use a 24" monitor full time, but I can't say they blew me away either. At first glance the matte panel delivers decent quality, so we'll see how it performs in the next section.

Specs, OSD

You can find the full specifications on Planar's product page, but we've included information that we've deemed most substantial:

The specs are about what you'd come to expect from a decent 24-incher, but there's nothing that really stands out. It's not as bright as some of the monitor's I've come across, but it is a bit brighter than Dell's 2407WFP-HC, for instance.

The on-screen display is about as basic as you can get. Planar opted with using a small grey rectangular box that appears fully opaque in the middle of the screen. The menu, right and left buttons all bring up the menu (the right and left buttons give quick access to the luminance control). Most new monitors competing in the same price range have more attractive and thought out interfaces, so it's hard to congratulate Planar here.

There are menu options are controls for luminance, image setup (analog), image placement (analog), color temperature, input selection, OSD setup and language selection with information, reset, and exit functions. The controls are simple and easy enough to navigate, but no advanced features are available. That means no picture-in-picture or side-by-side views, 1:1 pixel mapping or aspect ratio settings.

We'll be looking at the monitor's performance in the next section.

Testing, Final Thoughts

At the default settings, the monitor looks less than spectacular. Whites look more grayish than they should and colors had a semi-warm tint to them. I found that setting the contrast at 60 and brightness at 98 yielded better results. One thing to note is that the display can maintain its black levels with the brightness set from 60 to 100 - it won't change when the brightness is altered to compensate. Whites, on the other hand, are improved as the brightness is increased. There was a small amount of backlight bleed in each of the corners of the LCD, but I'd consider it to be in line with every other decent fluorescent back-lit display.

While everything looked fine on the desktop, there were issues displaying gradients. Instead of showing one solid color gradient, they were broken up into blocks, similar to what you would experience with a lot of S-IPS panels. While this is an issue that won't bother most people, it may prove to be a pain for those who do a lot of image editing. Viewing angle were true to the specifications; looking at the display at roughly 178° vertically and horizontally, I saw no noticeable loss in contrast ratio and no negative blacks, so I can't imagine anyone having a frustrating time with it.

It performed well in movies. Stretching DVDs to four times their vertical resolution won't have positive impacts on the picture quality, so don't expect them to look spectacular in full screen (which is true for nearly all displays (unless you're looking at something like Gateway's XHD3000), but with that in mind there was little grain that wasn't apart of the movies themselves and the picture quality was on par with the desktop experience. What little 720p content I had looked amazing, and I'm sure anything at 1080p would be incredible as well.

Gaming was also a treat for the most part. Despite the monitor's low (yet somewhat average) response time, there was little ghosting in games from my tests. However, I did see a lot of trailing when I performed a ghosting test (a black box moving across a gradient), which leads me to believe others may have different results. So personally, I found it adequate, but ghosting can be apparent under some circumstances.

Final Thoughts

After using the monitor for the past month, I've honestly come off under whelmed. The panel looks decent, that is, the text is crisp and colors pop out fairly well once it's been calibrated, but it's nowhere near the possibilities of some full color gamut monitors that are already available. Missing features like the lack of extra video inputs, the lack of a USB hub and the poor stand deter from the overall value. Essentially, you're paying the $600 MSRP for a decent screen, DVI and VGA inputs. Because of this, it's a hard monitor for me to recommend.

The picture quality was decent and holds up to a lot of 24" LCDs, but not some of best 24" LCDs. I did have some complaints with how gradients were displayed and the presence of ghosting, but it's important to keep in mind there is no "best" panel. Everything is strong in some areas and weak in others. Perhaps the biggest complaint is that you can find other LCDs better suited for gaming or image editing. Still, if you're looking for a middle ground, looking here might be a good choice.

If the price was lowered to better compete with other options out there, say $$450-500, then it would be to make a decision. But the barebones offering here just doesn't satisfy. There's not enough in the package to warrant excitement. I said earlier in the review that a lot of LCDs were cheap because they didn't offer decent image quality, but I found the opposite to be true here. Yes, the picture looks OK, but it's not a view I would pay that much money for.

Pros
• Bright 1920 x 1200 resolution display
• Decent performance with video and game content
• Excellent viewing angles

Cons
• Features like 1:1 pixel mapping and picture-in-picture are nowhere to be found
• Lack of component, composite, HDMI and USB inputs
• Poorly calibrated out of the box
• Ghosting and banding issues

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