Viewsonic N2060w review

ViewSonic's 20in N2060w is the smallest HD TV that we've reviewed and it looks diminutive compared to the 26in and 32in TVs that we're used to reviewing.

However, costing just £299, this widescreen television will appeal if you can't afford a bigger TV or you're looking for a second set for the bedroom or study.

The N2060w sits on a fixed stand that has no tilt or height adjustment. However, we were impressed with the viewing angles. You should find that, no matter where you are seated in a small room, you'll be able to see the picture clearly and without any loss of contrast.

The N2060w has only an analogue tuner, rather than Freeview. Reception was quite good, with a reasonably clear picture. Unfortunately, the tuner failed to automatically find Channel Five using our aerial, which is something other TVs we've reviewed haven't struggled with. However, it's likely that you'll want to buy a separate Freeview set-top box.

The N2060w has a VGA port for connecting to a PC. Although the image quality isn't pin sharp, it will display the Windows desktop at close to its native resolution of 1,360x768. This is standard, as Windows doesn't support the TV's native resolution of 1,366x768. Picture quality wasn't very good, with small fonts being hard to read, while skin tones appeared too orange and didn't look natural.

The manual does not suggest connecting the display to a PC using the HDMI connector, but we did anyway with the help of an HDMI-to-DVI cable. The resulting image wasn't great and would work in Windows only at a resolution of 1,024x768. This means the input is of use to standalone players only.

We tested DVD playback using the component input and the TV did well. Colours were good and the picture was detailed and sharp. Other connections include SCART, S-video and composite. We tested the ability of the N2060w's video-signal processor to display interlaced broadcasts, as a lot of video is still delivered in this format. Unfortunately, it didn't do so well here. There is no noise-reduction feature and this showed with a lot of speckling appearing in solid areas such as sky. There was also some ghosting on fast-moving images.

ViewSonic's N2060w is a good HD TV for the price, and it is one that you can connect to a PC via VGA if you really need to. If you are on a tight budget or you need a small screen, it's a good choice. If you can stretch a lot further, however, then Samsung's 26in LE2674BD is well worth the extra £250 and it has excellent picture quality from all inputs.