Acer AL2216W / Wbd

Acer AL2216W

The announcement for the release of the AL2216W didn´t come from the Europe or the US, but from the manufacturer’s Asian website. We read that it would feature a DVI input – which is surprising considering that the AL2416W, its bigger brother, didn´t have one. Indeed, if some of the Asian countries and the US benefit from such a version (the US version is entirely black and is named Acer AL2216Wbd), its been lost in monitors for the old continent. In Europe, you have to make do with the AL2216W without DVI. The reason why there is no DVI input is easy. All wide monitors assembled outside of the European Union are considered as potential TVs and subject to a tax. There is an additional cost – on the components – of 14% that leads to a 20% price raise. Now we understand why Acer removed this input considering that the objective was to sell the cheapest monitor possible capable of interesting potential buyers of 17, 19 and 20 inch monitors.

How good is this analog input? It’s OK. If the monitor is a bit blurry at first, you just have to press the Auto button (located on the left side of the monitor). It recalculates the phase, the signal clock and sends a perfectly clear picture. On the test monitor, we had to start this function after each reboot to make sure that all areas of the monitor were sharp. Nothing to worry about, as not everyone would have noticed this problem. After activating the Auto function, each time it was perfect.

About the image delay that we measured since this article, it is 8 ms compared to a CRT monitor. The average of the 16 monitors tested up to this date is 20 ms:

Out of 10 measurements, this delay was even zero in three attempts. However, there are peaks up to 32 ms or in other words two images. This delay might be due to afterglow and electronic components.

Ergonomics are equivalent to entry level monitors and are a minimum. It isn´t vertically adjustable, doesn´t have a pivot mode and has no memory card player or USB hub. You get what you buy, a monitor and that is it.

Color quality

Color quality

The quality of colors is measured with the LaCie BlueEye Pro colorimeter, which in fact is a Gretag colorimeter coupled to the software suite developed by LaCie.

Just to remind you, we work with a value called DeltaE. It represents a measurement between the color requested and the one really displayed on the monitor. The higher the result obtained, the less true colors are. The value is also counter-balanced for human eye color sensitivity.

Delta E > 3 the desired color is noticeably different from the one on the screen.
2 < Delta E < 3 color quality is satisfactory but a graphic designer probably wouldn’t be content
1< Delta E <2 colors are accurate.
Delta E < 1, the result is perfect.

Each time, 18 patches of color are studied and 16 results are reported in a graph. To facilitate interpretation of these results, here first is a table based on the average DeltaE for the 2 monitors studied.

Also, here is a table based on the average of DeltaE of the Acer monitor compared to the current 20 and 21 inches references.


It’s rather surprising but the Acer – this rather inexpensive monitor – has good basic settings. Results are better than average. If these DeltaE values don´t ring a bell to you, and we understand that perfectly, here is a handier illustration that is easier to understand. The lower pattern represents the grays as they should ideally appear on the monitor. The above pattern is made with the grays as we measured them on the monitor after an 1 hour and a half of use. Whatever monitor you are using, even if it’s calibrated or not, imagine that the lower grays are the correct ones and try to see why the above ones are different (if you see a red, green or blue lower pattern, it is maybe the time to adjust your monitor parameters...):

Acer AL2216W
ViewSonic VX2025wm
Belinea 10 20 35W
Now it should be a bit easier to see. We noted a slight green dominance for the Acer but compared to previous ViewSonic and Belinea monitors, the progress is obvious.

Reaction time test

Reaction time test

A car moves from left to right at high speed.

Movement isn’t perfectly fluid. Depending on its speed, the car is shown in several successive positions. If the car goes very fast, the positions are very close and the eye perceives a flowing movement.
Perfect monitor monitor with 3 ghost images
A monitor without ghosting effects would have previous images completely fading away when a new one appears. This is the theory and in practice, it´s often not the case as images fade progressively. Sometimes up to 5 afterglow images remain on the monitor and represent the visible white trail behind objects. Some monitors have strong overdrives in addition to image anticipation algorithms. In this case, an image can appear in front of the main object, creating a white halo ahead of objects in motion.

With CRTs we captured afterglow with a camera at a shutter speed of 1/60 seconds as compared to 1/1000 s for an LCD. We take 50 pictures per test. We then can see a monitor’s ghosting effects, or all the car’s position in the entire process. The most important image is the one on the left, the better one. It will be the most displayed on the monitor, while the one on the right is in transition.

Here are the two extreme states with each monitor as afterglow oscillates.

TN 5 ms : Acer AL2216W
TN 8 ms : BenQ FP202W
IPS 16 ms : Dell 2007WFP
IPS 8 ms : LG Flatron L2000C
IPS 6 ms : Nec MultiSync 20WGX²
TN 5 ms : Samsung SyncMaster 204B
PVA 8 ms : Samsung SyncMaster 215TW
P-MVA 8ms : ViewSonic VX2025wm
ViewSonic P227FB

The result is logically unsurprising. Reaction time of this new 5ms monitor is strictly identical to another TN 5ms previously released, the Samsung SyncMaster 204B. The reaction time order for big monitors remains unchanged:

- The fastest is the Nec MultiSync 20WGX² (IPS 6 ms)
- then comes the MVA 8 ms (type ViewSonic VX2025wm, Belinea 10 20 30W) and some of the IPS (8 ms like the LG Flatron L2000C, and some 16 ms like the Dell 2007WFP),
- the next ones are the TN & PVA, 5 and 8 ms (including the Acer AL2216W),
- and then there the others.

The Acer monitor isn´t the fastest and some are better even amongst the older monitors. We can nevertheless put this into perspective by saying that the reaction time of TN 8ms monitors is considered by many as good enough. There were very good articles published at the release of the most famous monitors like the: Samsung SyncMaster 913N and Hyundaï L90D+. At the time, we insisted on the non negligible possibility of progression compared to CRTs. It wasn´t so bad and at the time (end of 2004/ early 2005) and they were the best LCD monitors on the market.

Viewing angles and movies

Viewing angles

We take pictures of the monitors at a 50° angle. We realise with this test that the viewing angles of the monitors´ characteristics are sometimes largely exaggerated.
Acer AL2216W
IPS 6 ms : Nec MultiSync 20WGX²
IPS 16 ms : Nec MultiSync LCD2090UXi
TN 6 ms : Samsung SyncMaster 204B
PVA 8 ms : Samsung SyncMaster 215TW

P-MVA 8ms : ViewSonic VX2025wm
As usual, IPS have the best viewing angles, and VAs are homogenous. They do lose a bit of visibility in every direction. TNs are good horizontally but not vertically (especially the lower viewing angle). The potential problem is that a small person (children) who will be looking at the monitor from below might not see the image.

Movies

This test has been updated, because of our last article on the image correction by 3D graphic cards. Now we take three cases into consideration:

if you have a mainboard with an integrated chipset (it would be a shame for a monitor with such a resolution) or an ATI or NVIDIA graphic card that doesn´t support the latest AVIVO / PureVideo functions. Except if you have installed a special plug-in, the image will be displayed as such without correction. Movies with the Acer monitor twinkle rather strongly as it accentuates compression defaults of video sequences whether it is in SD (DVD) or HD. Color scales seems imperfect. You nevertheless have to step back a little – 1.5 or 2 meters if you are sensitive to this type of effect.

If you posses an ATI or NVIDIA graphic card with the latest drivers and play a DVD. For ATI, the anti noise function is activated from the start. For NVIDIA, you have to manually select the right adjustments (the procedure is simple). The twinkling effect is a lot less visible. It isn´t as good as MVA monitors but the improvement is noticeable. We have to say that we prefer NVIDIA´s correction, which slightly improves the sharpness of sequences.

You play an HD, 720i, 720p, or 1080. movie. For now, none of the graphic cards reduce the twinkling effect. All in all, defaults are less visible than with DVD movies as there is less compression and the resizing of sequences is less rough. Some color scales in the sky, sea, or darker areas sometimes show defaults. The solution is the same as in the first case and you step back a couple of meters.

Conclusion

Conclusion

There is no good or bad surprise. The Acer monitor is just as we thought it would be. Or almost. We hoped that it would have a DVI input and it only finally has a VGA – at least in Europe. The other inconvenience for the model we received was that we had to use the Auto function each time we rebooted the monitor or else some areas were a bit blurred.

This is definitely annoying, but the AL2216W perfectly compensates for this defect thanks to better than average color rendering. We hope that all monitors sold will have the same. Someone reported to us that the colors were too dull. We haven´t seen their monitor but there are two possibilities. Either the monitor is not good, or – it is also possible – the monitor is just like the one that we tested. This means that it has less brighter colors than the competition, which often tends to oversaturate colors. So, after comparison, the AL2216W might indeed seem a bit dull.

For reaction time, there were no surprises. We already tested a TN 5ms, the AL2216W, which behaves exactly like this one.

Conclusion: except for a few users that can´t imagine buying a product that isn´t the newest technology, you would be crazy to spend more money in a smaller monitor than this Acer AL2216W. If you aren´t addicted to your CRT, because you think that no LCD is good enough to compete with it, or if you already have taken a look at TN 5, 8 or 12 ms monitors and that the reaction time wasn´t a problem, the new 22 inch generation might interest you. For movies, the internet, strategy games and even FPS (if you aren´t too demanding), these economical monitors have the best current quality / price ratio. They might even sweep away the 17, 19 and 20 inch competition. We still have to wait and see which manufacturer amongst Acer, ViewSonic, Samsung or BenQ will have the best monitor. We tested the first one available, and we are making our way through the others. Results might not be really different as reaction time will be the same for everyone. The only difference will be in standard color rendering, design and ergonomics.

One last point…Resolution for this monitor might be a bit surprising for some of you at 1680 x 1050 pixels, the same as a 20 inch. There isn´t more information displayed, but it is bigger. Is it too big? Not from our point of view anyway. Here is the pitch of the monitor:


Figures show that 22"s write noticeably smaller than 4/3 15 and 19”s. In practice, we find it very nice and perfect for those who don´t want to make too much effort with 20" monitors.