Sony GDm-W900

Sony has always been a big player in the home entertainment arena, and has produced wide screen TVs to satisfy the burgeoning home cinema market for some time. The wide screen format has made its way into the PC domain in the form of this desk-crippling super-monitor.

The GDM-W900 is a monster monitor. A 24in Trinitron CRT with 22.5in viewable diagonal, gives you a 16:10 ratio wide aspect screen and a maximum resolution of 1,900 x 1,200. The image really does fill your vision, and despite the fact that, vertically, the screen measures the same as an average 21in monitor, the bonus real estate afforded by that extra 77mm of width is truly impressive. In fact, compared with the average 21in monitor, the wide screen offers a full 20 per cent more screen area.

This means you can have two A4 documents open simultaneously at actual size, with even more room for running multiple apps. To take full advantage of this monitor, you'll need to make sure your graphics card supports resolutions of 1,920 x 1,200 and 1,900 x 1,024, otherwise you just end up with a 'stretched' screen.

Apart from its size, the GDM-W900 has some notable features. First is its variable aperture grille pitch. Unlike most Trinitron monitors, which have a uniform grille pitch, the Sony GDM-W900 has a pitch of 0.25mm in the centre and 0.28 in the corners, which means that a uniform level of brightness is maintained across the screen.

Second, despite its large screen size the monitor's footprint isn't much bigger than an outsized 21in unit. In fact, the GDM-W900's depth of 548mm is just 30mm deeper than the ViewSonic Professional PT813 (reviewed issue 37, p173). Similarly, although the GDM-W900 weighs a whopping 42kg and needs two people to lift it safely on your desk, it glides on its base, and can be repositioned with just one hand.

Connection to your PC can be made via a standard D-SUB connector, or for the purists there's a BNC cable connection option. There's a manual switch on the front that lets you flip between connections, so two sources can be attached at once.

Ten buttons control the on-screen menu. It's not very intuitive, and the sheer range of functions doesn't help. Luckily, the menu can be set to either novice or expert levels. The former limits the functions available, making things a little more simple, while the latter exposes the more advanced adjustments. These include adjustments for linearity, linearity balance, 'S' pincushion, flare distortion, horizontal focus, colour gain, colour temperature and more.

The GDM-W900 will handle all resolutions at comfortable refresh rates. At 1,900 x 1,024 resolution, the monitor ran at a stable 71Hz with no noticeable flicker. Focus at high resolutions was good too. Even at the maximum refresh rate using small fonts, all the text was readable and there was no noticeable defocusing in the corners. Geometrical linearity was also excellent, despite a fractionally squashed top left corner. Of course, you pay for this quality, and if the GDM-W900 was a little cheaper I'd recommend it immediately; as it stands, it's strictly for those with deep pockets.

Author: Jonathan Bray