Chimei CMV938D

Chi Mei is building a reputation as a producer of inexpensive, entry-level displays. The CMV938D is no exception, though you should give careful thought to what you're sacrificing for the price.

The monitor offers a native resolution of 1440x900 pixels, which is typical for current 19in widescreen models. This makes it better suited to movie and TV playback, but can be a disadvantage for tasks like word processing or photo editing due to the reduced vertical resolution (12 per cent less than a conventional 4:3 19in display). The quoted pixel response time is a respectable 5ms (tr/tf) -- which should be alright for games or video playback - but this is achieved at the expense of colour handling, with the CMV938D only capable of 16.2M colours (instead of 16.7M) and only with the use of colour dithering. This makes it unsuitable for anything that requires colour accuracy.

At 330cd/m2, the CMV938D is bright, though it's unlikely you'll get the quoted contrast ratio of 600:1 without turning it right down (and even then you'll see shallow tonal changes being lost). But our biggest complaint is the shallow vertical viewing angle (140-degree quoted), which can produce colour inversion and distortion from relatively small changes in viewing position.

On top of this, the screen uniformity is poor, the stand feels cheap and has no height adjustment (nor any cable management), but it offers digital and analog connections and a Kensington lock socket.