Hitachi 17MVX-V2 review

Although we spend hours staring open-eyed at our screens, the PC monitor is often the last thing we consider upgrading.

This is partly because good ones are quite expensive, and partly because they have no impact on the PC's performance. Most of us want to see tangible power for our hard cash. However, it makes sense to invest in the one piece of equipment you pay the most attention to. A 17in screen allows resolutions of over 800x600 to be used comfortably, and this means more desktop space, which in turn means less fussy switching between applications. A new monitor will also likely display a clearer image than the cramped 14-incher which tends to come packaged with your system.

As far as image quality goes, the Hitachi V2 is very nice indeed. We saw hardly any visible misconvergence (coloration caused by inaccuracies in the beams) on the test model, and the image focus was spot-on, too. A certain degree of moir?(light and dark lines patterning the screen) was evident when darker backgrounds were displayed, but only on a small area of the picture and, in this case, not obvious enough to be too distracting.

Six buttons sit neatly on the elegant fascia and provide flexible control over the picture with all the usual horizontal, vertical and pincushion options. The red/green/blue bias is also adjustable, especially useful for those who do a lot of work with graphics. The back of the case is a lot less chunky than many 17in monitors we've seen, which is very good news for smaller desks.

If your graphics card can handle higher resolutions at decent refresh rates (72Hz or more for a flicker-free picture), and you don't fancy built-in speakers, the excellent image quality, reasonable price and svelte appearance of the V2 make it an ideal monitor upgrade.

Author: - Simon Edwards