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Hello,
I have just bougth a FP231W the other day and wanted to give my review of it.
I know that this model is old news, but now the price is becoming very interesting.
I got mine for about $1500 CAN thats about $1200 US including tax.
The nice thing is that I got it from a store so I could check it and return it if it had any problems.
I was lucky the screen had 0 burned pixels (including subpixels) and the black is almost perfect no bleding light no spots nothing.
Before buying this one I had tried the 213T so I will compare the 2 for the people that might consider them.
Size/Build:
I have an 18" LCD is about 2 years old. The FP231W is a little bit bigger in heigth than the 18" and smaller than the 213T. The wide screen aspect is very nice. Games look amazing in wide screen mode. Side by side with the 213T it does not look bigger it looks about the same wider but shorter. Quality wise this is a very high quality screen nice finish good looking you can see that is a quality product.
Resolution/PixelSize:
The screen has a pixel size of 0.258 thats a little bit smaller than a 17" (0.26), thats quite small so if you find the pixel size on a 17" too small this is not the screen for you. Compared with the 213T the pixel size is much smaller that one is 0.27 and you can see the difference.
Contrast/Brightness/Colors:
The official spec is 250 brightness and 500:1 contrast, I would give it more like 150-180 cmd and because of that the contrast is more around 300:1. Thats the only thing that disapointed me. The brightness is much lower than many other screens I have to run it at 90% in order to be happy with it. The contrast it's ok at about 50%. Because of lack of brightness the colors don't look as vivid as on the 213T. They are acurate and look nice but compared with any new 17-19" lcd they don't look that impresive. The 213T had amazing colors but had other problems (beige white, uneven and washed out black...) this one is satisfactory color and brightness wise and the white is white and the black is uniform and looks black.
Response Time/Gaming
The oficial response time is listed at 16ms and they seem dead on I have not tried the new 8ms panels but for me 16ms seems good enough I tried WOW, and FarCry and they both run perfectly no visible ghosting, compared with the 213T this one is 10 times better the 213T ghosted like crazy even WOW wich is not a fast FPS had visible ghosting on that one. Played Lord of the Rings in wide screen on it and it looks amazing (wished the colors where more vivid but I guess you can't have everything
) there was no ghosting visible in the movie.
Viewing Angle:
The viewing angle is good, it gets a bit purple from extreme angles but not enough to bother you.
Conclusion:
This is a high quality screen, nice big resolution(1920x1200) lots of options (vga, dvi, s-video, rca), big size. The brightness is a bit low but it's ok, if you expect sony xbrite colors look elsewere, compared to the apple 23" the colors are not as nice and the screen is not as bright (had the chase to try it in store) but than again that one is at least $500 more. Compared to the 213T I say this is a newer better screen.
Had problems runing it on my 6600gt in dvi it only ran at 1600x1200 on the other hand on my laptop with a radeon 9600 it ran fine in dvi at full res(I guess I'll sell the 6600gt and get an X800 pro).
I'm very happy with my purchase. And I feel lucky that I got one with no burned pixel and no quality issues. I had to return 2x213T because of burned pixels and uneven blacks, the old 18" that I got has a grey defective pixel in the midle of the screen.
One question for other people that have this screen do you have the same low brightness as I do or is it just my screen? Do you find that the colors are not as vivid as other screens?
Thanks.
I have just bougth a FP231W the other day and wanted to give my review of it.
I know that this model is old news, but now the price is becoming very interesting.
I got mine for about $1500 CAN thats about $1200 US including tax.
The nice thing is that I got it from a store so I could check it and return it if it had any problems.
I was lucky the screen had 0 burned pixels (including subpixels) and the black is almost perfect no bleding light no spots nothing.
Before buying this one I had tried the 213T so I will compare the 2 for the people that might consider them.
Size/Build:
I have an 18" LCD is about 2 years old. The FP231W is a little bit bigger in heigth than the 18" and smaller than the 213T. The wide screen aspect is very nice. Games look amazing in wide screen mode. Side by side with the 213T it does not look bigger it looks about the same wider but shorter. Quality wise this is a very high quality screen nice finish good looking you can see that is a quality product.
Resolution/PixelSize:
The screen has a pixel size of 0.258 thats a little bit smaller than a 17" (0.26), thats quite small so if you find the pixel size on a 17" too small this is not the screen for you. Compared with the 213T the pixel size is much smaller that one is 0.27 and you can see the difference.
Contrast/Brightness/Colors:
The official spec is 250 brightness and 500:1 contrast, I would give it more like 150-180 cmd and because of that the contrast is more around 300:1. Thats the only thing that disapointed me. The brightness is much lower than many other screens I have to run it at 90% in order to be happy with it. The contrast it's ok at about 50%. Because of lack of brightness the colors don't look as vivid as on the 213T. They are acurate and look nice but compared with any new 17-19" lcd they don't look that impresive. The 213T had amazing colors but had other problems (beige white, uneven and washed out black...) this one is satisfactory color and brightness wise and the white is white and the black is uniform and looks black.
Response Time/Gaming
The oficial response time is listed at 16ms and they seem dead on I have not tried the new 8ms panels but for me 16ms seems good enough I tried WOW, and FarCry and they both run perfectly no visible ghosting, compared with the 213T this one is 10 times better the 213T ghosted like crazy even WOW wich is not a fast FPS had visible ghosting on that one. Played Lord of the Rings in wide screen on it and it looks amazing (wished the colors where more vivid but I guess you can't have everything
) there was no ghosting visible in the movie.Viewing Angle:
The viewing angle is good, it gets a bit purple from extreme angles but not enough to bother you.
Conclusion:
This is a high quality screen, nice big resolution(1920x1200) lots of options (vga, dvi, s-video, rca), big size. The brightness is a bit low but it's ok, if you expect sony xbrite colors look elsewere, compared to the apple 23" the colors are not as nice and the screen is not as bright (had the chase to try it in store) but than again that one is at least $500 more. Compared to the 213T I say this is a newer better screen.
Had problems runing it on my 6600gt in dvi it only ran at 1600x1200 on the other hand on my laptop with a radeon 9600 it ran fine in dvi at full res(I guess I'll sell the 6600gt and get an X800 pro).
I'm very happy with my purchase. And I feel lucky that I got one with no burned pixel and no quality issues. I had to return 2x213T because of burned pixels and uneven blacks, the old 18" that I got has a grey defective pixel in the midle of the screen.
One question for other people that have this screen do you have the same low brightness as I do or is it just my screen? Do you find that the colors are not as vivid as other screens?
Thanks.