Product Reviews

Mirai began to rebrand its monitors as Chimei in 2007. The 22in widescreen CMV 223D is the first Chimei-branded model we've seen.

The screen has a slim 17mm brushed silver bezel and is mounted on a matt black stand, which doesn't feel very sturdy. Just brushing against it causes a considerable amount of wobble. The display isn't height adjustable and it has a rather low screen elevation of 95mm. This means you may need to use a stand to raise the display to a comfortable height to prevent neck strain and backache.

A row of tiny control buttons are located on the underside of the screen. These feel sharp when pressed and are painful on the fingertips. When the onscreen display isn't visible, two of the buttons provide instant access to the brightness and contrast controls. A button, bizarrely labelled Turbo, changes the viewing mode. There

ADVERTISEMENT

are three preset options here: picture mode, text mode and economy. Toggling through each setting simply changes the brightness to preset levels. Each mode worked well for its particular tasks, though.

Both analogue and digital connections produce a crisp Windows desktop at the monitor's native resolution of 1,680x1,050. Like most monitors of this size, the CMV 223D has a contrast ratio of 800:1. However, unlike most 22in widescreen displays, which consume 60W or more, the CMV 223D requires only 49W when in use, making it more economical to run.

Colours were vivid, but not oversaturated. The corners of the display appeared slightly darker and a screen of solid black revealed a little leakage from the backlight across the bottom. No matter how much we fiddled with the controls, we could not get clean whites. Our test screen of solid white was tinged with grey patches, with grey areas at the corners of the screen.

Chimei claims a horizontal viewing angle of 170°. This is quite wide and should allow for a viewing audience of two people. In practice, we found that the image quality deteriorated considerably unless we were sitting directly in front of the screen. While there are speakers built in, they produce a tinny sound.

The CMV 223D costs £188 including VAT, which is expensive compared to the HannsG HW223DP, which costs £8 less, has a four-port USB2 hub and provides much better image quality.