NEC MultiSync E222W review

It may be part of NEC's entry-level office range of TFTs, but the MultiSync E222W is still dearer than many 22in models we've seen. While some justify this with a high-quality panel, the business focus of this device means NEC has taken the other route, giving the E222W a fully adjustable stand and some fancy eco features.

So the screen tilts, swivels and rotates through 90 degrees to portrait mode for tall documents, as well as lifting through a full 11cm to suit any eye level. At full brightness it consumed 42W, but after we'd reduced that to around 90% it evened out at around 35W. Enabling the eco mode dropped the brightness further to 60% and a power draw of 27W, but that was too dark for comfortable use on anything but white documents.

Making those tweaks was simple, thanks to the clear menu and small navigational nubbin beneath the screen. With eco mode disabled we put the E222W through our technical tests, and found a rather mixed bag of results. Text was clean and sharp, and colours were reasonably accurate, with smooth gradients in both our colour and greyscale ramps, but we did notice a few tinges of pink and green in the latter. Dark greys had a slight brownish hue while reds looked a little dirty next to more vibrant monitors.

Then there's the pale, washed out tone that pervaded everything, which we only managed to subdue by lowering the brightness from the default maximum. This also helped to deepen the black level, but not to a sufficiently impressive degree; we still noted slight bleed at the top and bottom edges. Mid-tones were still too light, though, while darker areas of shadow exhibited noise in places.

It offers the usual choice of DVI and VGA inputs, but there are no speakers to add to that impressive stand; even had there been, we're not sure it would have been enough. The E222W is a pleasant enough office monitor with plenty of flexibility, but unfortunately for NEC the panel is not quite good enough to justify the price.

Author: David Bayon