Hitachi Superscan Elite 751 review

The appeal of a monitor that's priced slightly higher than a good 17in model but which has the capabilities of a 20in is easy to see. And Hitachi's new 19in Superscan Elite 751 aims to be just that.

In order to beat a good 17in monitor by any significant margin, you need a tube that can produce a clearly readable 1,280 x 1,024 image. A resolution of 1,152 x 864 doesn't justify the additional spend of £150 to £200 over a good 17in model, and many monitors are unable to produce a 1,600 horizontal resolution anyway. However, in my experience, only a 21in monitor is really usable at 1,600 x 1,200, so the issue remains relatively simple. If the best a 17in monitor can produce is 1,024 x 768, the question is whether Hitachi's 19in offering can tempt people with a convincing 1,280 x 1,024, without incurring the cost and size penalties associated with 20in and larger displays.

The Elite's £699 list price is still cheaper than almost all 20in units. It also weighs in at a reasonable 25kg, a little bit more than the 20kg to 22kg of most 17in monitors. Where the depth of the cabinet is concerned, the Hitachi came in at a hair over 18in, which is comparable to a large 17in unit. The Elite also has a detachable signal cable, so you can replace it easily if it fails, but no BNC inputs.

The controls are based on the premise that while an OSD makes life easier, individual buttons greatly speed access to specific functions. Consequently, the Elite is fast and easy to set up, but all the major geometry corrections are present, along with plentiful and detailed colour control, and anything you want can be called up in about a second.

With the Elite running at 1,280 x 1,024, the greater image diagonal - 18in as opposed to 16in for a decent 17in tube - did indeed yield a larger and more readable image than a 17in monitor could ever manage. However, text and screen objects were still smaller than they appear on a 17in tube running at 1,024 x 768. The overall focus was good and it stayed sharp right out into the corners, but unless the Windows large fonts option was selected (which rather defeats the object), legibility wasn't as good as that achieved by a quality 17in display at 1,024 x 768.

Ultimately, in my opinion the 19in tube diagonal just isn't quite big enough to boot the 20in off its pedestal. This may perhaps explain why 20in was chosen in the first place; after all, if manufacturers could have saved a few bob by making 19in tubes, why didn't they do so from the outset?

Author: Dominic Bucknall