Acer AL1731

The Acer AL1731 is a 17in TFT that features not only D-SUB and DVI-I inputs, but also S-Video, composite video and stereo RCA audio connectors - all welcome inclusions for AV applications. Given this plethora of ports, it's a shame there's no Picture-In-Picture option to make use of the extra inputs, but they're useful nonetheless.

The AL1731 scored well in our gruelling colour and definition tests. We found it a touch dark overall, though, with colour ramps disappearing at the low end too quickly, but there was no banding evident in graduations and the colour separation at the high end was well defined. The colour spectrum was evenly spread too, indicating a neutral response.

As is often the case with TFTs, performance was more disappointing during DVD playback, which showed artefacts on the digital input and, surprisingly, on the analog input as well. Ironically, this criticism is partly due to the inherent compression artefacts of DVD itself, which tends to be accentuated by panels with good definition. Nonetheless, the average 20ms response time leaves both movies and games with a noticeable lag and there's also the issue of less than comprehensive horizontal viewing angles.

Getting an even level of contrast across the screen isn't helped by the rather basic stand, which only offers a small amount of tilt and no height adjustment. Cable management is satisfactory, keeping the lines clean, but there's an external power supply to clutter things up.

The 20mm bezel extends at the bottom to accommodate stereo speakers, although at just one watt they're extremely tinny. The navigation buttons aren't very intuitive, either, and require a good deal of poking to access most settings.

The extra inputs make this an appealing choice for anyone working with video, but you'll find cheaper, comparable-quality panels around, such as Iiyama's ProLite E4315 (see issue 111, p66) for £270.

Author: Ross Burridge