
ASUS VW202T
Pros
- Good contrast and colours, it has HDCP support, wide aspect ratio comes in handy when multitasking
Cons
- The overall picture is a little dull, its black colour is too pale, base doesn't swivel
Bottom Line
While the VW202T displayed good colours and contrast, it isn't vibrant. Its black colour also isn't rich enough. For everyday applications, however, and for use in an office or at home, it's well suited, and the wide aspect ratio means that two documents can be worked on side-by-side.
-
Price
$ 449.00 (AUD)
The ASUS VW202T is 20in in size and sports a widescreen aspect ratio (16:10), making it suitable for either the home or office. It can be used for productivity, watching movies, viewing photos and for gaming. Its 1680x1050 native resolution is ideal for lining up two documents side-by-side, but widescreen movies will still have black bars at the top and bottom.
The rear of the monitor has VGA and DVI ports, so we tested with the latter on a Windows Vista system with an ATI Radeon HD 2900XT graphics card.
In DisplayMate, the monitor's greyscale suffered from a slight yellow discolouration, and noise was also noticeable in mid-range and dark-coloured grey blocks. This wasn't immediately noticeable in our photo tests, so it's not a major problem. Apart from that, the monitor's colours were very good, albeit slightly muted. DisplayMate's colour scale tests showed good contrast between colour intensities and photo tests backed this up. Photos with shadowed details, gradations and fine patterns were displayed with good clarity and without a hint of banding.
However, the monitor did look a little dull overall. Turning up the brightness too much drowned out subtle, light colours, so we had to settle for a picture that lacked vibrancy. A one-touch button on the front of the monitor allows for preset environments to be invoked -- theatre, night-time, standard, scenery and game -- and these can boost the brightness of the monitor, as well as the contrast, but they made the screen look too oversaturated and muddy during our tests.
The monitor's contrast was good, as mentioned previously, and this was also shown in DisplayMate's Black Level test, too. All dark grey levels on a black background were visible in this test; however, the black itself wasn't rich enough -- it looked a little pale. This was particularly noticeable when watching DVDs in a dark room, where the bars above and below the movie were more of a dark grey than black, and it also showed in some of our test photos. Some backlight seepage was noticeable in the DVD tests, too, and while the backlights were visible in the middle of the screen, the corners were a little dark.
For watching movies and gaming, this monitor is well suited, but we did notice minor ghosting in our document-scrolling tests. DVDs were handled well, with good contrast in dark scenes, and they didn't look blotchy nor overly pixelated at the monitor's native 1680x1050 resolution. The monitor's DVI port supports HDCP, so it will play back Blu-ray movies, as long as all other components in the PC (graphics card and playback software) are HDCP-capable, too. During our tests Blu-ray movies looked great.
This 20in model has an advantage over 22in models -- its dot pitch is smaller. That means that lines should look smoother on this monitor, and during our tests, we didn't notice any abnormal jagged lines.
Physically, the screen looks elegant and had a round base. The base, even though it's round, doesn't allow for swivelling, only tilting. The screen can be viewed adequately from the sides, luckily, but there is a loss of brightness.
Brand Post

Most Popular Reviews
- 1 Asus TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A review: This 4K monitor plays nice with consoles
- 2 Firewalla Gold review: Powerful home network security in a tiny box
- 3 Alienware AW3423DW review: Quantum dot OLED renders rival monitors obsolete
- 4 Acer Aspire 5 review: An affordable laptop that’s enjoyable to use
- 5 Asus ROG Zephyrus S17 review: This gaming laptop oozes luxurious power
Latest News Articles
- DisplayPort’s new labels avoid the confusion plaguing HDMI cables
- Dell’s latest 4K USB-C hub monitors get contrast-boosting ‘IPS Black’ powers
- Alienware’s ultrawide OLED monitor is perfect PC gaming excess
- Something for everybody in Acer’s new models
- Samsung's curviest Odyssey gaming monitors are coming to Aus in August
Resources
Business Centre
The latest business news, reviews, features and whitepapers

Videos
Watch our video news and reviews from around the world

Guides
Comprehensive buying guides, features, and step-by-step articles

PCW Evaluation Team
Pedro Peixoto
Aruba Instant On AP11D

Set up is effortless.
Cate Bacon
Aruba Instant On AP11D

The strength of the Aruba Instant On AP11D is that the design and feature set support the modern, flexible, and mobile way of working.
Dr Prabigya Shiwakoti
Aruba Instant On AP11D

Aruba backs the AP11D up with a two-year warranty and 24/7 phone support.
Tom Pope
Dynabook Portégé X30L-G

Ultimately this laptop has achieved everything I would hope for in a laptop for work, while fitting that into a form factor and weight that is remarkable.
Tom Sellers
MSI P65

This smart laptop was enjoyable to use and great to work on – creating content was super simple.
Lolita Wang
MSI GT76

It really doesn’t get more “gaming laptop” than this.
Featured Content
- Best Unlimited Internet Deals in 2022
- Microsoft’s universal ‘One Outlook’ client just leaked out
- Liquid Retina vs. Liquid Retina XDR: Which display is better?
- Which flagship TV is best? Sony 4K HDR Bravia 2016 versus LG 4K HDR OLED 2016
- 10 Blu-ray movies / Best looking Blu-ray movies