ViewSonic G90f

If you thought flat-screen 19in monitors were beyond your reach, the G90f - together with Hansol's similarly priced 920D - might be enough to change your mind. In terms of quality per buck, both are among the best here, and it could be that the areas where they fall down won't affect your day-to-day usage.

For instance, the G90f didn't score highly in our sharpness and resolution tests because it can't match the best when it comes to showing detail at 1,280 x 1,024. In general use, this results in very thin lines becoming blurred and indistinct. However, the G90f's focus was good enough for our judges to pass it in both tests.

The ViewSonic didn't excel in our colour and greyscale tests either, only managing to cleanly pass two out of the eight tests. Its vertical colour registration was particularly poor, although this will only be noticeable at extremes of the screen. We're slightly more concerned by this monitor's reflectivity. This isn't such a problem if you're usually working on a white background, but with dark backgrounds it's too close to a mirror effect.

But the G90f does excel in one area - geometry. We might have been lucky with the sample we were sent, but the G90f was virtually flawless and beat every other monitor on test.

We can't get so excited about its features, because there are virtually none. The VGA cable is captive, there aren't a huge number of OSD controls, and its maximum resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 is only supported at 77Hz, not a flicker-free 85Hz.

Nevertheless, we have a masked respect for this screen. It does the basic things well and, if that's all you need, save your money and opt for the ViewSonic G90f.