Taxan Ergovision 650

The Ergovision 750 is the first Taxan to feature a Mitsubishi Diamondtron tube. The Diamondtron has already become a popular choice elsewhere - the ViewSonic PT775 is just one of many now available. The Ergovision also complies with the stringent TCO 95 standard governing, among other things, electromagnetic emissions and energy efficiency. While this isn't yet mandatory in the UK, it shows that the Ergovision is right up to the minute.

The cabinet is 425mm deep, so you won't end up with your nose squashed against the screen if your desk is set against a wall. It has both the standard D-SUB connector and a set of five-way BNC inputs. All of these are recessed so that you can push the unit right back against the wall if necessary, without risking damage to the jacks at the rear.

The tilt/swivel stand was fluid, allowing the cabinet to be repositioned easily without any subsequent slippage. The Ergovision weighs 22kg, which is well within acceptable limits for a 17in display, and makes it easy and safe to move if handled properly.

The Taxan combines digital controls with an on-screen setup menu or OSD (on-screen display). This brings together the benefits of a settings memory, which automatically loads the right parameters as you switch resolutions and comprehensive image controls.

The actual buttons on the bezel consist of a group of four cursor keys for navigating the menu and a +/- pair for making adjustments. The menus themselves are nicely drawn and make use of simple diagrams to illustrate the effects of the various options.

The range of controls is considerable, with almost every aspect of image geometry covered. You can go beyond the basic barrel/pincushion, trapezoidal and parallelogram corrections into finessed tweaking.

There are also three fully customisable pre-set colour temperatures, each with individual RGB intensity controls, and both vertical and horizontal convergence adjustment for getting rid of any coloured bloom around the edges of screen objects.

The screen was coated with a good quality laminated anti-glare, anti-reflective treatment, and delivered its quoted 16in viewable image diagonal as a bright, flat picture typical of Diamondtron. There was no problem with vertical refresh support as a 1,024 « 768 resolution display can be driven at up to 105Hz. This is more than enough to achieve the subjective appearance of complete stability. The image itself was fairly sharply focused, with just a slight falling off at the corners. The background white didn't need tweaking, and there was no really noticeable discolouration lurking at the corners and edges of the screen.

The Taxan and the ViewSonic PT775 are quite similar. The latter had a slightly sharper focus, but in other respects the two units are comparable. That said, the Taxan costs £519, which compares favourably with the ViewSonic's £645 and the Nokia's £599. I'm not convinced that the minor gain in image quality with either is worth the extra money.

Author: Dominic Bucknall