Philips LCD Monitors: 231E1SB
17” LCD monitors are still used for many purposes because of their high resolution. 1280 x 1024 has approximately the same number of pixels as the more popular 1440 x 900 widescreen resolution. The desktop area these smaller monitors offer is still only 35% smaller than the 21.5” 1920 x 1080 FullHD resolution LCD monitors. From this point of view small firms, home and office users don’t need to upgrade to FullHD yet, because all programs run well on 1280 x 1024 resolution.
Bigger desktop areas are needed only by programmers, designers, photo/video studios and of course by users who simply want to enjoy movies in the best available quality. This being said I have just purchased a Philips 231E1SB LCD monitor, to replace my old 17” Fujitsu-Siemens. For a person who stays on-line a lot poor contrast ratio, small desktop area, long reaction time (>8ms) and uneven brightness are legitimate reasons to abandon their old faithful monitor for a new one.
Philips 231E1SB is a 23” FullHD widescreen LCD monitor, still based on traditional fluorescent tube backlighting, but with all the advantages of the latest LCD monitor technologies. I’ve paid $200 for it in my country, but it should cost a lot less where taxes are lower. On newegg.com there are several cheaper 23” LCD monitors starting from $160 with better specifications even.Philips 231E1SB has relatively average features, 1920 x 1080 resolution, 25.000:1 dynamic contrast ration, 5ms response time (2ms G2G), both VGA and DVI inputs, but it comes only with VGA and power cables. This makes some sense, there’s no need for all users to pay for the DVI to DVI cable because they might want a DVI to HDMI cable instead to connect the monitor to a Blu-ray player or HD receiver.The LCD panel’s enclosure is made entirely of plastic, which resulted in a very light weight for a monitor this size, it weighs only 5.6kg, while my old 17” Fujitsu-Siemens LCD monitor weighed 5.5kg.
The downside of Philips 231E1SB is that it doesn’t have built-in speakers, probably because they have been trying to reduce power consumption and cost also. The monitor consumes only 29Watts in ECO mode, but the way I use it (with brightness at 0) it consumes even less, while in a darker room minimal level of backlighting is more than enough. The problem of the speakers I have solved by placing a pair of small USB-powered speakers in horizontal position under the screen (just like a speaker bar made by Dell and others). Viewing angle is exceptional 176/170 (H/V), which at this size (23”) clearly indicates a high quality LCD panel.
Another cool feature (that may seem irrelevant to most) is the possibility of reducing the power LED’s brightness all the way down to zero, so it won’t bother the user during important work. It’s done from the monitor’s menu. Other features like brightness/contrast adjustment, input select, aspect ratio select (4:3 or 16:9), AUTO adjust (for analog only) and mode select are available right from the monitor’s button, so you don’t need to go into the menu. Buttons also have different shapes to be more easily identifiable by the user. You don’t need to see them to push the right one.
Buttons are located at the side, so they won’t ruin the monitor’s cool external design.
All in all the Philips 231E1SB is a great monitor, I recommend it to those who are not willing to jump to LED backlighting yet (because of its shorter lifespan compared to the mature fluorescent tube backlighting technology’s proven durability) but want an exceptional image quality with low power consumption.
Written by Karpat Zoltan, date Sep 21, 2010 in LCD Monitos
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