Doubling as an LCD monitor and television, Dell's W1900 LCD TV is a solid performer, although expensive.

The 19" widescreen (16:9) display has a native resolution of 1280 x 768 (WXGA). The integrated standard definition analog TV tuner is capable of displaying resolutions up to 1920 x 1080 interlaced (1080i). However, due to the native resolution, the 1080i HDTV is downscaled.

Its viewing angle is a fantastic 170 degrees from both axes. With brightness of 450cd/m2, it's at the upper end of the scale for LCD monitors (which are typically in the 200-250cd/m2 range) but a little lacking compared to many dedicated LCD TVs (which are often 500cd/m2+). It would be powerful enough to work well in most lighting conditions. While the featured contrast ratio of 600:1 is quite respectable, the W1900 is let down by a slow response time of 25ms.

When fired up, the W1900 has a variety of excellent display modes such as picture-in-picture, picture-on-picture, picture-beside-picture, video-on-video and video-on-PC. The TV tuner also supports closed captioning, parental control and teletext.

In addition to standard TV viewing, we tested the W1900 using both a DVI and VGA connection with a PC equipped with a 128MB ABIT X700 graphics card. We also tested it using the DisplayMate monitor diagnostic (www.displaymate.com), Unreal Tournament 2004, various scenes from The Matrix DVD and an Xbox.

The W1900 produced vibrant and crisp colours during the DisplayMate tests, although we noted slight banding in some colour and greyscale gradients that were not noticeable during general use. Loading up UT2004 and panning the surrounding buildings did not produce any trailing edges or ghosting, suggesting that the display would be adequate for gaming despite its slow response time. DVD playback was also spot on without graininess from any inputs and again we appreciated the excellent viewing angle.

For installation, the W1900 can either be wall mounted using VESA standard mounts or you can use the sturdy and height-adjustable stand that comes with it.

A range of connection ports are located at the rear and side of the display. All the rear ports are for input and include two RCA HTDV component ports in addition to single VGA, DVI (for PC connection), antenna/cable coaxial, 3.5" stereo and DVI-HDCP connections.

The ports located on the side include two RCA composite (input and out), composite S-Video in, 3.5" headphone jack and a RCA subwoofer output. The W1900 has two 7W integral speakers. The sleek black and silver remote control uses a blue backlight for navigation in a darkened room.