Iiyama AS4637BK review

Last month, Iiyama's superb 17in AS4332UT leapt onto our A List, thanks to a combination of great visuals and stunning value. However, hot on its heels is the AS4637BK, offering an extra inch of viewable diagonal and the slimmest bezel yet on an 18in TFT. But is it enough to warrant the asking price of almost £150 more?

One thing that may sway you towards the AS4637BK is its superior styling. The tiny 12mm bezel and chic black finish give it real panache. But if looks aren't important, this monitor still has enough features to impress.

Like the AS4332UT, there's a USB hub with one upstream and four downstream ports mounted on the underside of the panel. Alongside this are two DVI-I inputs, providing both analog and digital connectivity, plus composite video and S-Video inputs for external video sources.

Pivot functionality is also included, and when rotated by 90 degrees the AS4637BK can easily display a complete A4 page, full size or larger. This isn't just a token feature addition either, as Iiyama includes Pivot software in the box. Further ergonomic benefits are provided by the height-adjustable stand, and the panel can also tilt and swivel, making it simple to adjust to your liking.

For testing purposes, we connected the AS4637BK to the DVI output of a GeForce4 Ti graphics card at its native resolution of 1,280 x 1,024. The benefits of the pure digital signal shone though immediately, and the resulting picture was razor sharp.

One area where the AS4332UT fell down was colour performance, specifically banding in colour fades, and the AS4637BK suffers from similar problems. However, mixed colour blending was superb and close to the best we've seen. This meant the AS4637BK isn't suited to colour-critical work such as photo editing, but more subjective applications like video watching or gaming looked fantastic. This was also helped by the quick response time of 35ms, which meant even fast-paced 3D ran smoothly.

Switching to an analog source resulted in a slight loss of fine sharpness, but the AS4637BK performed well. Viewing angles were good, both vertically and horizontally, and low-resolution scaling was fine.

The Iiyama AS4637BK is an excellent 18in TFT, both in terms of image quality and features. NEC's MultiSync LCD 1880SX (see Reviews, issue 90, p130) offers a similar level of quality, but costs more and forgoes the USB hub and video inputs in favour of corporate features such as long analog cable compensation.

The main competition, though, comes from Iiyama's own 17in AS4332UT and Eizo's L565 (reviewed opposite). Of the two, the Eizo just edges ahead, thanks to better image quality and a cheaper price.

The AS4637BK is good value at £759, but the L565 offers the same native resolution for £210 less. If you desperately want the extra inch of viewable diagonal, the AS4637BK is the best 18in TFT for the money; otherwise, Eizo's L565 is the way to go.

Author: Gareth Ogden