Neovo X-174 LCD

I don't want to add to Ken's comments on the Neovo X-174 17.4" monitor (agree with them all) but do want to mention a couple of strengths this monitor has that he didn't cover.

My main reason for choosing this monitor was to watch TV, DVD's & play games in addition to using it for PC work & the X-174 delivers for this. I've seen LCD TV's for sale that respond more sluggishly than this & the quality of image from RCA video (tried an N64 & RCA in from SCART out on an ITV digibox - digital TV tuner) is fantastic.

I've also used this monitor at low resolutions on older machines - even with a VGA card capable of 640 x 480 (yes there are some still out there!) this monitor display's text without the nasty chunking some LCD's display at non-native resolutions.

The only downside with this screen is the interface; getting to the OCD & navigating through using the flat buttons on the side is not intuitive as you can't see what your pressing when you're looking at the screen. This really is a minor point though & the design (an acquired taste) is bettered by not having these in view.

As far as I'm concerned if you're looking for a flat screen monitor that will double as a TV (or have gaming in mind) there's nothing else on the market (19-Mar-02) that comes close.

The Neovo X-174 17.4" LCD monitor screen disappears in Win XP. Same problem, for some reason the monitor only displays at 1280 x 1024. Very annoying if you decide to upgrade windows or change your graphics card. Make sure you have a spare monitor available. Neovo technical support are hopeless - they don't respond to e-mail enquiries.

Let's face it, LCD monitors are unbelievably crisp in image quality and detail, but they always lacked in viewing angle and most had motion blur or hesitation when playing fast action games (the new graphics cards have really helped). Well that's not true any more! Before buying a monitor, I recommend you view them in a side-by-side comparison at one of the local retail stores. That is exactly what I did. I was fortunate to have all of the name brands represented; NEC, Samsung, Sony, Viewsonic, Compaq, HP, IBM, Philips, etc.; so doing a side-by-side comparison was easy. I even made sure they were running the same graphics card by recabling my final choices on similar PC's running the same graphics card and displaying the same moving and still images. I was looking for a 17" or 18" monitor (this one is 17.4" viewable and thus it's name of X-174). One monitor stuck out from all the rest with it's crisp color, excellent image reproduction, and unbelievable viewing angles, Neovo. All of this and the monitor was running in analog mode, not digital! One of my primary disappointments with LCD monitors is the viewing angle. Every LCD monitor that I viewed showed dark areas above or below dead center, even when viewed at the optimum angle of straight ahead. The Neovo monitor was the only one that I viewed that performed like a CRT monitor when viewed at less than optimum angles. Yes, their claim of 160 degrees is true! This is a very impressive monitor with an excellent build quality (a three year warranty) from a new subsidary company of AIC (I researced them on the Internet). Setup was a breeze; I replaced the default Windows XP Monitor driver with the one supplied by Neovo (it still worked with the default Windows XP driver, but I wanted to use Neovo's), pressed "Auto Detect" on the monitor, and that was it! Viewing StarWars Episode I showed such vivid colors and detail that my TV can't display and fast movement was not a problem (Pod Race). Now if only I can get a TV with this much quality at a decent price. I highly recommend this Monitor, but don't take my word for it...go out and view it for yourself.