The Planar PX191 LCD Monitor - Top Performance from a Top Name

The 19" Planar PX191 Dual Input LCD Monitor is the mid sized model in Planar’s line of high performance monitors that are designed ….For the most demanding video editing, graphics, complex office applications, CAD/CAM, gaming and video applications…. Though the response time of this monitor is notably average, at 25ms, the other specs are quite impressive:

- Image Brightness: 300 cd/m2 (typical)
- Image Contrast Ratio: 700:1
- Image Max Horizontal and Vertical View Angles: 170°
- Optimum Resolution 1280 x 1024 pixels at 60hz
- Power consumption: an impressively low 40 watts typical, 2 watts standby
- Response time 25 milliseconds
- 15 pin analog video connector and DVI white connector (both cables included)
- Wt. 15.6 lbs, overall height 15.75" to 20.5", (due to height adjustment and pivot features)
- Height adjustable stand
- Portrait/Lanscape pivot option (with Pivot Pro software)

In the box you get the monitor and height adjustable stand (one piece), a power cable and power adapter (unfortunately the adapter is not built into the monitor), 24 pin DVI (white), 15 pin analog (blue) video cables, driver/manual cd, Pivot Pro software CD, a quickstart guide, and 20 page manual.

I purchased the PX191 during a 20% off/free shipping special from Dell’s Home site, for a delivered price of $614. Currently this monitor is connected to the DVI output of an ATI 9800 All In Wonder Pro video card, though I’ve also used the analog connection with a Nvidia MX420 video card. I primarily use my monitor for web browsing, video and dvd playback, word processing, spreadsheet work, video editing, and some gaming (typically not FPS’, though).

Setup/Controls

If you’re using a DVI connection with this monitor, setup is almost trivial, plug in power and the video cable and turn the monitor on. (If you have an analog connection, you'll also need to push the auto button.) The only adjustments you’ll be able to make are brightness, contrast, and color temperature. And when using the DVI inputs, the brightness and contrast settings have only a minimal effect. For analog connections, the OSD offers adjustments for screen position, clock frequency, phase syncronization, sharpness, and a few other settings, though many users will not need to adjust these.

The PX191 has adjustment options to spare. It can rotate left or right by 45 degrees, down 5 degrees, and back 35 degrees. In landscape mode, the bottom of the monitor can be adjust from just 2” above your desktop, to 6 5/8” above your desktop. In portrait mode, the bottom of the monitor can be as little as 1 ¼” off of your desktop. To put the monitor in portrait mode requires two steps, telling the Pivot Pro software to rotate the image on the screen, and then actually pivoting the display on the stand. The display is easy to rotate by grasping two edges of the monitor and turning, but it locks firmly in both the landscape and portrait mode, with no risk of being a couple of degrees off in either case. The stand, while not heavy, feels substantial, and shouldn’t be weak point during this monitor’s life.

Controls are fairly typical and reasonably intuitive. There a 5 buttons, one to call up the OSD (on screen display), an on/off button, an auto button, and a plus and minus button. The is a small led, green for when the monitor’s in use, orange in sleep mode.


Initial Impressions

LCD monitors offer several clear and substantial advantages over CRT monitors, small footprint, a perfectly flat screen, image sharpness and geometric accuracy at the monitor’s native resolution, low eyestrain, and brightness suitable even in well lit environments. But the weaknesses are worth appreciating, the risk of “stuck pixels, difficulties in obtaining a “true black” color, slow response times that lessen image quality (ghosting) when images change quickly, cost, color and grey scale accuracy, among others. Fortunately, monitor manufacturers have been attacking these weakness, making the choice between CRT’s and LCD’s easier each year. Planar has been among the leaders offering models that limit the weaknesses while building on the strengths of LCD Monitors, though there’s not a “one size fits all” solution yet. The Planar PX191 focuses on providing color and grey scale accuracy, high contrasts and good blacks, and very good viewing angles, though the response times are merely “good”, at 25 ms.

Planar’s dead pixel policy is the best I’ve seen. A FAQ on the Planar website explains that they will consider replacement in cases where you see 3 or more dead pixels. Fortunately, the PX191 I received had no dead pixels.

Almost all 19” and 17” LCD monitors feature a native resolution of 1280 by 1024. At that resolution, text and images displayed on the PX191 (and most LCD monitors sold today) is sharp. Performing routine tasks in front of this monitor, such as web browsing, word processing, and working with spreadsheets is a joy, as long as you’re running the monitor at its native resolution. At lower resolutions, say 1024 X 768 or 800 X 600, the monitor must “scale” its 1280 X 1024 pixel layout to simulate these lower resolutions, resulting in text that is slightly fuzzy, with slightly blocky edges, not nearly so much fun to look at.

Features and Performance

Display Pivot

One of the “neat” features of many mid level and high end LCD’s is the pivot feature, where you can "pivot" your display 90 degrees to operate in portrait mode. Unlike many pivoting monitors, the Planar PX191 includes software (Pivot Pro 7) which allows you to take advantage of this feature even if your video card driver does not support the pivot feature. (The latest versions of Nvidia’s and ATI’s driver’s now support pivoting displays.) Accessing the display pivot feature in the monitor driver properties is a multistep affair, but using Pivot Pro is a snap, it runs in your taskbar, and you can pivot the display with one click. Pivot Pro also offers a “floating button” option for one click pivoting, but I found it disappeared whenever I went into portrait mode.

Pivot Pro (and the Pivot feature in ATI’s driver’s) works well with web browsers, spreadsheats, word processors, etc. I’ve found it does not work with TV Tuner software (like the TV viewing software that comes with ATI’s All in Wonder TV tuner/graphics cards), or with DVD player software (like PowerDVD). The Pivot Pro software says it may not work with DirectDraw applications (meaning you won’t be able to use it with many games), or animation and movie viewing software.

Viewing angles and Monitor viewing adjustments

Viewing angles left, right, up or down are listed as 170 degrees. Though this monitor’s view angles are outstanding, and I see absolutely no loss in image quality as I rotate the monitor left to right. As I stand up in front of my monitor, from an angle straight in front to about 60 degrees above horizontal there is no loss of quality. At higher angles the image gets slightly darker, but colors remain accurate, and don’t seem to “wash out” like I’ve seen on other monitors. I can’t imagine that you could find a monitor with better viewing angles.

Response times

Though the 25 ms response time of this monitor is not "state of the art", its more than good enough for all games except the FPS variety that feature fast movements. I don’t spend a lot of time gaming, but I’ve used this monitor with games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Tron 2, Myst Uru, Need for Speed – Hot Pursuit, Freedom Force, and Rise of Nations and I think it works well. But I’ve read reports from users playing games like Unreal Tournament that say a monitor with a 25ms response time will result in a compromised image quality as a result of ghosting. Keep in mind that using a monitor's response times to judge gaming performance is only a "get you in the ball park" number.

When I am using my computer, I am usually watching a TV show, recording, or DVD in a small window on my screen, and occasionally watch full screen. I don’t notice that this monitor's response times limit video playback in anyway.

Display Quality

I used Displaymate for Windows (an excellent monitor evaluation and setup utility available at http://www.displaymate.com/) to put the PX191 through its paces, to try to get a better feel for just how good this monitor was. I also ran the same tests on a Dell 1901FP that my family owns, for comparison. Though I feel both monitors did well in the tests, I’d give the edge to the PX191, as it consistently was able to display finer shades of grey and color, not a lot of difference, but usually just enough to be noticed in the tests were different shades were put on the screen. Images were sharp, uniform, and in focus on all parts of the screen. The PX191’s strengths are text and image sharpness, and color and grey scale capabilities. Results from some of the key tests:

- Text readibilty and image sharpness- Font sizes (Arial was used for testing) down to 6.8 points were easy to read, both in normal and reverse video (white on black). Even in “difficult” color selections, like black text on red or blue text on black, I found reading 6.8point fonts easy on the eyes. 6.0 point fonts were almost too small to read, and didn’t really have enough pixels to appear sharp. Typically I work with 10 or 12 pont fonts. Text is very crisp, uniform across all of the screen, and easy to read and work with. Even when the PX191 has to scale fonts to run in lower resolutions, text looks pretty good. At 1024 X 768, the 6.8 point font size (about the size of 8 point fonts at 1280 X 1024 resolution) is still about the smallest readable, though you can only fit about 80% as many words on a line across the screen in this lower resolution. Running through some of Displaymate’s other test for sharpness and uniformity were satisfying, focus and sharpness were even across all parts of the screen and with all colors.

- Grey scale and color accuracy- One area where the PX191 monitor clearly excelled when compared to the Dell 1901fp monitor was in grey and color scale capabilities, though I wouldn't notice much difference between the two monitors in day to day use. In every test I ran that gave a measure of the monitor’s ability to show different scales or shades of grey or colors the PX 191 was able to show more shades, and more uniformly across the screen. When displaying different levels of grey scale with different color tints at nearly full black or pure white the PX191 seemed up to the task.

Support

Planar’s support policies are very good. The monitor comes with a 3 year warranty, and assuming you have a proof of purchase and serial number, they will cross ship a new monitor to you using 2 day air if you have problems. The "3 bad pixel" policy is about as good as you will find. Downloads of manuals and other documentation (FAQ’s, spec’s) are available on line. The online documentation included on the cd was disappointing however, as it included copies of documentation for many Planar monitors, but none specific to the PX191. The hard copy documentation included was excellent.

Conclusion

The PX 191 is a bit more expensive than many other mid range 19” LCD monitors. But if grey scale and color accuracy and image uniformity are important to you, this monitor looks like an excellent choice. If you need a good general purpose monitor for home of office use, this monitor is still a great choice, though you might be overpaying a bit for its capabilities. On the other hand, the peace of mind of knowing Planar is backing this monitor might make it worthwhile, there’s certainly no need to buy an extended warranty that you might need with a brand that isn’t so aggressive about warranty support.

Links:
Planar PX191
http://www.planar.com/Products/flatpanel_monitors/px_flatpanel/PX191.html

Displaymate for Windows
http://www.displaymate.com/