Asus PW201 review

Office users turn away now: there's no doubt as to the Asus PW201's intended audience, and it most certainly isn't you. This is a display built for the sole purpose of entertainment, and it comes with an absolute wealth of features to ensure it ticks every box in the home.

Instantly noticeable is the design of the main display, with the speakers situated either side of the screen rather than the usual position below. With each producing 3W, they make a decent fist of audio tracks, with plenty of clarity in the top end but lacking slightly when it comes to bass. The design makes the PW201 much wider than an average 20in TFT, but the screen itself is the usual 1,680 x 1,050 resolution and it even has a 1.3-megapixel web camera set above it.

The stand is elegant and solid, with the silver contrasting nicely with the black sheen of the main body, and it's extremely adjustable too. It lifts by around 13cm, swivels widely from side to side and tilts as much as you could ever need. It also pivots by 90 degrees, but you need to tilt it right back and rotate it at an angle to avoid scraping the corner on the base. Once done, you'll have easy access to the huge array of ports, with DVI and D-SUB complemented by component, composite and S-Video connections. In short, whatever video source you have in your home, the PW201 will accept it.

It has a glossy screen - one of the most reflective we've ever seen at PC Pro - which is both its main strength and a major weakness. It adds a beautiful spark to colourful images and the sharpness of video is stunning, but even in just a reasonably lit room you'll see as much of yourself as of the action onscreen. In less harsh lighting, however, it won't be a huge issue.

To ensure you get the best picture, the PW201 has a comprehensive OSD. Preset modes for movies, games and the like are hit and miss but worth trying to see if any suit your lighting conditions, and the usual brightness and contrast settings are complemented by sharpness and saturation. It isn't the easiest menu system to use, though, as the stylish touch-sensitive controls swing from hypersensitivity to sluggishness, seemingly at will.

The image quality itself is as good as you'd expect, with an impressive white level thanks to the maximum brightness of 350cd/m2, and the contrast holds up reasonably well too. The black level isn't perfect, but if you're willing to sacrifice some of that brightness this can be solved to a certain extent. The 8ms response time gave us no problems at all in Far Cry or in our fast-moving movie scenes. The panel itself comes with Asus' Zero Bright Dot (ZBD) promise, so you can be confident of a display with no permanently lit pixels.

The Asus PW201 isn't a cheap monitor, especially when compared to the LG L204WT, but for a capable entertainment TFT with a wealth of features, including a three-port USB hub, it's good value. If entertainment is all you require, this is a fine choice, although we prefer the sleeker looks of the similarly priced Acer AL2032WA, which remains our alternative 20in TFT choice on the A List.

Author: David Bayon