LG Flatron W1942T

Designed as an all-purpose display for users who don't need something too large, the 19in LG Flatron W1942T is a fairly solid panel. It exhibited a few minor image quality issues in our tests but its overall performance was quite good. The price tag on 19in units these days is low, making this a compelling option for people on a budget.

This unit has a slightly unusual native resolution of 1440x900. Many 19in units offer some variation of 1280x768, so this model will be nice for those after a little more screen real estate. While it is a widescreen display with an aspect ratio of 16:10 it does have a native 4:3 display mode as well — this will display 4:3 content with black bars around it, rather than stretching it out and ruining the picture.

The image produced by the W1942T was fairly good. Colours were rich and nicely saturated. We were particularly impressed in our video tests where skin tones were perfectly rendered and everything looked vivid without being oversaturated. The picture was also sharp and crisp with no aberrations evident. That said, blacks weren't as rich here as we've seen on many other screens, which does take away a little from movie viewing and gaming.

The unit's contrast ratio is a little low at 700:1 but it still performed relatively well in this regard. There was a little detail loss towards the bright end of our contrast chart tests in DisplayMate Video Edition but it was quite minor and in our film viewing there was a nice level of detail in dark areas.

Noise was nonexistent in any of our moire test patterns, although there was a little aliasing on the edges of some text. Uniformity was also a little lacking with some noticeable corner darkening. Fortunately there was no obvious backlight bleeding. Viewing angles were pretty standard; everything took on a slightly yellow tinge when viewed from off centre but it wasn't particularly problematic.

In our speed tests the W1942T fared as expected. It has a 5ms response time, which is fine but a little slower than the best 19in models on the market these days. Our tests revealed some small ghosting that may bother hardcore gamers but it didn't really impact much in our gaming trials.

As with past LG units we've looked at, this monitor comes with extensive calibration options, so even if you aren't satisfied with the image quality you can tweak it to suit your tastes. You can alter everything from brightness to sharpness, to contrast and gamma, and change both the colour temperature and individual colour saturation levels. There are also a number of presets including Internet, Movie, Demo and User Defined.

Aesthetically the W1942T is quite plain and a little uninspiring. It has a matte silver bezel and plain black, plastic stand that does little to stand out from the crowd. DVI and D-sub are your two connectivity options, as is standard on most PC displays these days.