Here’s a simple fact. The vast majority of LCD monitors being sold today sport either 17 or 19in panels. And nearly all of those are 5:4 aspect ratio panels with a native resolution of 1,280x1,024. If you fancy a few more pixels, you typically have to fork out for a 20in or larger display. Likewise, a handful of 17in monitors aside, there’s precious little choice in the affordable widescreen segment of the LCD display market.

You might, therefore, think this new Viewsonic display is an instant winner. After all, it boasts a movie-friendly 16:10 aspect ratio and a grand total of 1,440x900 pixels. But for starters, that apparently generous resolution actually translates into approximately 100,000 fewer pixels than a standard 1,280x1,024 panel. And thanks to that wide aspect ratio, it’s actually shallower, top to bottom, than a conventional 5:4 aspect 17in LCD. So, while the wider proportions are certainly a boon for watching widescreen movies, for desktop work it actually feels more cramped than a conventional 5:4 aspect 19in panel.

Aesthetically, it’s not much of a looker. Cheap, joyless and thoroughly mass market sums up its design vibe. The tilt-only adjustability of the chassis hardly adds an air of luxury. Still, it includes both DVI and VGA video inputs, though the pair of feeble integrated speakers are only suitable for the most rudimentary audio playback.

Keeping the mixed bag theme going is the patchy all-round image quality. It’s certainly a bright and dynamic-looking display with rich, vivid colours and the viewing angles are beyond reasonable criticism. Colours at the default 6,500k-colour temperature are oversaturated and no amount of OSD menu colour balance juggling achieves a truly satisfying result. Similarly, when rendering darker scenes mild compression and loss of detail is evident. While those shortcomings compromise video playback quality, however, this remains an impressive gaming panel thanks to a strong backlight and excellent subjective pixel response performance.

If you’re after an affordable widescreen monitor for a multimedia PC, by all means consider this monitor. Just know that it’s not the sensible money, high resolution, wide aspect, über-panel we’ve all been waiting for. And that’s a shame.