ADI Microscan 9L

In recent years, ADI has bolstered its traditional low-end range of displays with an increasingly sophisticated line-up of products. The 18.1in MicroScan 9L is the latest move towards the upper echelons of the market.

It looks pretty enough, with pleasing curves and a stylish, solid base. The base can be removed and a hefty steel bracket, included as standard, can be used for wall mounting the panel. Not included in the package, but available for the princely sum of £16 (£19 inc VAT) is a USB hub, with one upstream and four downstream ports.

The 9L has an analog video interface, so you can hook it up to your existing graphics card easily. There's a standard captive VGA cable, but at the rear are two more connectors, composite video and S-Video inputs. These let you connect the output of a video recorder or DVD player directly to the panel, switching between inputs via the OSD. The relatively low brightness in comparison to a television renders videos lacklustre, but the feature could be useful for the odd presentation. Unfortunately, the 9L doesn't have integrated audio capabilities, so you'll need external speakers to hear the soundtrack.

To test image quality, we connected the 9L to a Matrox G400 graphics card. Switching to the panel's native 1,280 x 1,024 resolution and selecting auto-configuration from the OSD resulted in a five-second delay while the unit locked itself to the analog signal. The result was a perfectly adjusted picture on a par with a digitally connected panel.

Illumination across the screen - often a downfall - was almost completely even, with just a slight band down the right-hand edge. Colours were even better, with a vibrancy and richness that almost rival an aperture grille CRT display. This perceived colour performance might well have been enhanced by the viewing angle of the 9L: ADI claims 160 degrees in both horizontal and vertical planes. This feature has a huge subjective effect. With many panels, the restricted viewing angle means that your left and right eyes see subtly different hues on-screen, leading to fatigue. This is one of the few reasons I still prefer a CRT display, but the 9L has started to make me change my mind.

After the auto-configuration had done its stuff, there was no obvious evidence of pixel jitter or modulation effects in normal use - there was some noise on a black background, but nothing drastic. Pixel response was excellent, with very little submarining of the mouse pointer around the screen. The 9L copes well at lower than native resolutions, with pixel smoothing making the best of the inevitable aliasing distortions.

Panels of this size still aren't cheap and, if quality is all you're concerned about, the top-end CRTs give a better image for a lot less cash. In the realm of high-end flat panels, however, the ADI 9L is the new king.

Author: David Fearon