Nokia 730C

It's been close to a year since we last saw a 17in CRT from Nokia, with the disappointing 710C (reviewed issue 73, p182) performing badly in our tests. The main criticism of the 710C lay with its Chungwa Picture Tube flat shadow-mask tube, which was one of the first implementations of this technology at the time. However, rather than continue with this approach, Nokia has reverted to a Diamondtron NF aperture-grille tube, although at £274, this rethink has come at a price.

The 730C retains the same look as the 710C, which is best described as functional - certainly no style awards here. The main change is to the OSD controls, which now feature a four-button system rather than the 710C's simple three-button arrangement. The OSD itself is a big improvement, though, boasting corner hooking, convergence and focus controls on top of the usual spate of basic geometry and colour-balance controls.

With only a single non-captive D-SUB cable in addition to the power cable, setup was quick and simple. The initial image was also bright and sharp with impressively strong colours. The 730C held up well under testing with DisplayMate Multimedia Edition at a resolution of 1,024 x 768 in 32-bit colour. Geometry was generally good, although there were slight irregularities in the bottom corners which couldn't be fully corrected, despite the detailed OSD. Power regulation was sufficient to maintain geometric uniformity when, for example, resizing applications to full screen, although it wasn't as solid as Samsung's SyncMaster 700IFT (see Labs, issue 78, p102).

Focus was a similar story - good but not outstanding. The main problems concerned poor corner focus. The single focus control was mostly ineffectual, tending to correct focus in one area of the screen, but worsen it in another. This also affected vertical and horizontal resolution, although this was still above average.

Colour performance was more impressive. In particular, the colour registration could be tightly adjusted using the horizontal and vertical convergence controls - a distinct advantage over its larger 19in brother, the 930C (see Labs, p120). Colour purity was also good and colour fades were handled well, although the darker end of the colour ramp was slightly truncated.

Another criticism that was levelled at the 710C was the high-level of moirÚ interference, so it was surprising to see this continued with the 730C, given the totally different tube designs. A single moirÚ adjustment is provided, although this had little effect and also led to a deterioration in fine focus.

The 730C can achieve an impressive maximum resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 at 77Hz non-interlaced vertical refresh, although in practice it's unfeasible to use this resolution within the confines of a 16in viewable diagonal. Dropping down to 1,280 x 1,024 is still usable, although the 730C is certainly happiest in at 1,024 x 768.

The Nokia 730C is a definite improvement over the 710C, and the use of Mitsubishi's Diamondtron NF tube has certainly seen performance benefits. However, despite the excellent colour performance and good geometry, the 730C still falls short of the best in this class, such as Samsung's SyncMaster 700IFT and ADI's MicroScan G710 (see Labs, issue 78). Also, at £274 the 730C is relatively pricey, costing a significant £54 more than our Labs-winning SyncMaster 700IFT. The 730C is a good CRT, but it's too expensive to stand in line with the best.

Author: Gareth Ogden