Acer LCD Monitors: AL2016W

Acer AL2016W is a relatively old LCD monitor. Manufactured in 2007 respecting TCO03 standards it’s not a very attractive monitor today, but if you manage to buy it used at a fair price (~$60) it may still satisfy your multimedia needs.

LED-backlit LCD displays are flooding the market, but not all of them are as advanced as manufacturers claim. While LEDs (light emitting diodes) are more practical, because they don’t require high voltages like fluorescent tubes, so their brightness adjustment doesn’t require high voltage parts. LED durability however is not yet at an impressive level, LED backlighting has about the same lifespan as the mature fluorescent tube technology. The only LED technology that is clearly superior to fluorescent tubes is the RGB backlighting, where each subpixel has it’s own color, there’s no need for colored glass in front of it to pass through, but these LCD panels are more expensive, most PC stores don’t sell them yet.

The enclosure of the Acer AL2016W LCD monitor looks a bit outdated and bulky, even more so from the side.

It has standard buttons in the front, one for auto adjustment (characteristic of digital monitors with analog input), increase and decrease buttons, menu and power button.

Although the analog VGA interface is almost as old as color monitors, the best LCD panels equipped with the right type of signal cable (ferrite filter on both ends) can display very sharp images, close to what HDMI and DVI offer.

The power cable is standard and the power supply supports power input between 100V and 240V.

Power supplies tolerate many unpleasant events on the input current, but the use of a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) is recommended together with a voltage regulator and maybe an additional surge protector.

Now let’s look at some boring specifications. Viewable image diagonal size is 20”, which is divided into 1680 x 1050 pixels (16:10 widescreen resolution). This resolution is bigger that the absolute minimum (1280 x 1024), while the aspect ratio lets you use software, view movies and play games that require 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. It also outranks newly released 16:9 resolutions: 1366 x 768 and 1600 x 900. Contrast ratio isn’t very impressive, but 800:1 should be considered acceptable for most uses. 5Ms reaction time is a bit slow for top action games, but it’s more than enough for any other less-professional application. Power consumption is right on the limit, meaning that 50Watts is 100% bigger than the average of today’s LCD monitors, but still considered acceptable for a 20” LCD monitor.

Sadly this monitor doesn’t have any extra features like a TV-Tuner or some integrated speakers that come in handy in when available desk space is very limited. Acer offered 3 years warranty, way back in 2007, so it’s less likely that you’ll still find one under warranty today, but second-hand stores may still sell them with 1-2 years warranty (offered by the store, not by Acer).

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