Product Reviews

A widescreen monitor is the obvious choice for fun and games. NEC's Multisync 20WGX2 is a 20" widescreen display and part of the company's gaming line. However, its high native resolution of 1,680x1,050 provides enough desktop space to enable you to work on two documents side by side when you have to stop playing F.E.A.R and get some work done. Sadly, the monitor doesn't have a pivot, so you can't turn the screen on its side and work on documents in portrait mode.

For the entertainment crowd, there's a lot to like. First, the 20WGX2 comes with NEC's Dynamic Visual Mode (DVM), which lets you choose from one of four predefined modes: movie, photo, text and gaming. Each preset has its own brightness, contrast and colour settings, designed to get the best picture from its input. This makes moving from an office document to a game very simple, and we were impressed with the results. You can still fine-tune your own settings using the

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onscreen display or NEC's NaViSet software.

DVM also has an Advanced mode, which adjusts the brightness dynamically depending on the content, raising the contrast ratio from 700:1 to 1,600:1. It worked well in our test games, especially those with dark, moody scenes.

As you'd expect from a high-end monitor, the 20WGX2 has analogue and digital inputs. Both provided a good picture, but we'd recommend using digital where possible. The 20WGX2 has a glossy coating, typical for an entertainment monitor. This helps increase image quality, contrast and colour depth, but you have to be careful where you use the monitor, as it reflects bright light and can make the screen hard to see.

We were impressed with what we saw. Picture quality was above average, colours were vivid and rich and there were no transition problems in our colour test. Our greyscale test showed slight banding in darker areas of the image, but you're unlikely to notice this. When watching high-definition movie clips on the monitor, we were impressed with colour quality and the sharpness of images during fast-moving scenes.

The 20WGX2's viewing angles were excellent. NEC quotes 178- for vertical and horizontal viewing, and the monitor was evenly lit across the panel. You get a brilliant picture no matter where you sit, so it's perfect for watching movies with friends.

This is a quality monitor, perfectly suited to gaming and entertainment. Best of all, it's a good £40 cheaper than other 20" widescreen monitors we've reviewed.