Viewsonic vx2450wm review

ViewSonic's VX2450wm-LED features an LED backlight 24" (23.6" Vis) widescreen monitor with up to 50% energy saving compared to a regular 24" monitor. Mercury free VX2450wm-LED offers a Full HD 1920x1080 resolution, 5ms response time, 20,000,000:1 MEGA Contrast Ratio, digital and analog inputs and integrated stereo speakers. Ideal for both home and office with the piano black finish, VX2450wm-LED can be mounted on a VESA compliant stand or wall mount bracket. It also has an automatic aspect ratio adjustment so when your input is a 4:3 signal, the image will not be stretched but instead it will be positioned in the middle of the screen with side bars. 3 year warranty, industry's best pixel performance policy and Windows 7 certification make VX2450wm-LED a great long term investment.

My Review

Well, we tend to call the new monitors LED and the older flat panels LCD but the truth is they are both LCD displays. The newer flat panels such as the Viewsonic VX2450WD-LED use LEDs to create the back lighting whereas the most older models use cold cathode fluorescent lamps.

I am somewhat of a monitor nerd. I have five 1920X1080 displays arrayed around my desk. Four of those are Viewsonics. Two are the aforementioned VX2450WM-LED and two are Viewsonic VX2433WM with fluorescent lighting.

When I bought the first VX2450WM-LED, I was impressed enough to order another. The two things I noticed immediately were that the colors seemed a bit more vibrant with the LED displays and that the LED displays are cool to the touch whereas the older displays generate a significant amount of heat. Given that in addition to my two client machines, I have five servers (2 Windows 2008 which will soon be shut down and three Ubuntu Linux), heat becomes an issue.

One of my "musts" for any monitor is that it be VESA mountable. I have found that moving the monitor of the desktop and mounting it on a framework behind the desk opens up an amazing amount of desk space. I note that more and more consumer displays lack the VESA mounts. All the the Viewsonic monitors (the 2450WM replaced two Viewsonic VX2255s) have had VESA mounts.

The VX2450LEDs do not have HDMI inputs as do the 2433WMs but at least at present I'm not sure that's a big issue for monitors. They do have DVI and VGA inputs both of which work just fine.

One of the features I quite like is the "Auto Off" feature that can be set to turn the display off after a predetermined amount of time.

A couple of further comments. If you are limiting yourself to one monitor you are missing a whole world of productivity. Most newer computers have two video outputs and can easily be set to use two monitors. Even new laptops can extend the desktop to a second display. Try it you'll like it.

The second comment is to say how much I like Amazon Prime. I was a bit unsure of it but finally gave it a try. Now virtually everything we order comes to the door in two days. I order even simple things like watch batteries and they show up with amazing regularity. There is a 30 day free trial which I recommend you try. During the trial, when you need something, think Prime first. I think you'll like it.