Product ReviewsTFT monitors
Apple has done a lot to bring down the cost of flat-screen displays with the aggressive pricing of its Studio and Cinema products. And other manufacturers have reacted to falling panel prices by bringing down their prices too. One such manufacturer is Waitec, which has just released a new range of LCD displays to the UK market. Waitec is not well known in the UK market, as it has only recently begun distribution of its products over here, but the Shining range of flat-screen TFT monitors is very competitively priced and boasts features that Apple's monitors lack. The 18.1in Shining TFT costs £450.21 (£529 inc VAT) compared with £467.23 (£549 inc VAT) for Apple's 17in Studio Display. It does not have the stylish minimalism of the Studio Display, but its sturdy silvery grey design will not look out of place beside the monolithic new G5 Power Macs. Setting up the monitor is a bit fiddly, though, as Waitec has arranged all the connectors so that they face downwards and are recessed into a small panel on the rear of the unit. This means you have to turn either yourself or the monitor upside down to connect all the cables, but at least you only have to do this once. The monitor's stand allows you to tilt and swivel the screen freely, and the stand curves into a handle at the top, so it is easy to pick the monitor up and move it around. The only potential glitch at the setup stage is that the Shining uses a conventional DVI interface to connect to the Mac. If your Mac's graphics card only has ADC and VGA connectors, you will need to buy an ADC-to-DVI adaptor, if you want a digital connection, which costs about £30. Recent Power Macs have both DVI and ADC interfaces, though, so this will largely depend on the model of Mac that you own. In addition to the DVI interface there is an analogue VGA connector, so it can be used with older Macs that don't have a digital video interface at all. The Shining also has two video inputs - one each for S-Video and composite video - which means you can connect video equipment such as a camcorder or VCR to the monitor and use it like a TV screen. Apple used to include video input in its flat-screen
Any port in a storm There's an audio input option as well, and the monitor has a set of stereo speakers built into its front panel. As you would expect, these small speakers produce a fairly tinny sound, but there is also an audio output connector so you could plug a set of external speakers into the monitor. The unit has two audio inputs - a standard audio jack and an RCA connector - so you can connect a second audio source, such as an iPod, in addition to the Mac itself. The monitor does not have any USB ports built in, but for an extra £90 you can get the TU version of the Shining, which has a four-port hub and a built-in TV tuner. These input and output options are handy, but they are obviously secondary to the monitor's image quality. The Shining TFT has a dot pitch of 0.28mm, compared with a slightly finer 0.26mm for the 17in Studio Display, so the Apple monitor would seem to have an edge in terms of sheer clarity and fine detail. However, you would have to have fairly amazing eyesight to spot the difference, and we had no complaints about the Shinig's image quality. Maximum resolution is 1280 by 1024 pixels, just like the Apple Studio Display, and our Mac automatically recognised the monitor's built-in ICC profile, so we were able to calibrate its colour settings using the Mac's standard Monitors Preference panel. There were one or two small problems, though. The manual supplied with the monitor says that it supports refresh rates up to 75Hz, but selecting that refresh rate produced a very flickery image. We ended up sticking with 60Hz refresh, although that is common with many flat-screen displays, so it isn't a major problem. Lost in translation The manual is a bit of a mess, though. It has been badly translated into English, and is not very clear on details such as using the Shining's on-screen menu options. When we first received the monitor it was set to use S-Video input rather than our Mac's digital input. There are six buttons used to navigate through the various menu settings, and it took some experimentation with the on-screen menu before we figured out how to select the correct video input mode. But these are minor criticisms, of what is a high-quality monitor. The Shining's impressive image quality and versatile input and output options make it a worthwhile alternative to Apple's own monitors. The only question that remains is why they named it after a Jack Nicholson film. By Cliff Joseph |
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