What a difference a month makes. In PC Plus 221, we had our first taste of CTX’s stunning new home-user and multimedia 17in LCD monitor, the F773. And very agreeable it was too. A better screen for movies and other multimedia malarkey you’ll scarcely find. Yet, fast forward four weeks and we have a very different tale to tell.

For starters, the P772 is a conventional LCD monitor designed primarily for office and productivity work. So, there’s no glossy screen surface or stratospheric brightness rating. That said, with quoted brightness and contrast specifications of 260cd/m2 and 500:1 respectively, plus 16ms pixel response times, it’s no slouch. It shares the same main chassis enclosure as the F773, offering additional adjustability options in the form of tilt, swivel and height. Throw in a traditional anti-glare screen surface coating and you have a more practical and flexible friend for serious work.

However, the most significant difference between CTX’s new 17in monitors lies in image quality. Unfortunately, this month’s new entry is something of a minor visual catastrophe. Most distracting is the ghastly, uneven backlighting. Consequently, dark still images or scenes from movies are patchy, with areas of reduced contrast and a generally inconsistent appearance. Granted, it’s not an issue when editing documents with a white background. Moreover, it’s not always the case that all the monitors in a range feature the same panel quality. But we wonder what horrors await end-users if CTX is willing to submit such a poor example for scrutiny by PC Plus.

Sadly, this isn’t the end of the bad news. Colour fidelity is a real weak area, as evidenced by some thoroughly unsubtle colour gradient banding. We found the colour balance rather harsh and unnatural, something no amount of juggling with colour temperature or RGB settings via the on-screen display would remedy. Colour purists should steer well clear of this monitor.

On a brighter note, pixel response performance is excellent, with very little evidence of blurring or streaking during fast-paced movie sequences or 3D gaming. We’re also pleased to see DVI and VGA interfaces, though we’d prefer a quick-swap input selection button. Negotiating several layers of OSD menus is the sort of thing busy professionals can live without.