LG L172WT review

Modern flat-panel monitors are bright, with pixels that are quick to respond to fast-paced action.

They also boast impressively detailed resolutions - much better than the average TV set. That must be why so many users watch telly on their PCs. The makers of TFT monitors reckon it's a good idea too - which is why almost all of them have brought out flat panels with built-in TV tuners.

LG's is a 17in widescreen model with a native resolution of 1280x768. With a silver stand and demure grey paint job, it looks pretty slick. It even comes with a remote control and an analogue TV tuner built in. It has a digital DVI input, designed to let you hook it up digitally to a suitably equipped graphics card for better quality. It also offers S-Video and SCART connections for hooking up camcorders, VCRs, DVD players and the like. Happily, all the cables you could ever need are included too.

Although it's a nice bonus to have a TV tuner built into a screen, this one's the analogue variety. As all terrestrial analogue broadcasts are made in standard full-screen format, it doesn't take advantage of the widescreen aspect ratio of the screen. There is a zoom function though, and Teletext worked flawlessly.

With the LG connected to our PC via the digital DVI connection, picture quality was good. Colours were reproduced well, even if subtle graduations of greys and light colours revealed some banding. The response time of its pixels is more of an issue - 25ms is a little slow. Games revealed some ghosting, and Doom 3's shadowy corridors gave the LG a few problems as it struggled to differentiate between dark grey and black.

For a little under £300, the LG is reasonable value for money. But bear in mind you could buy our Best Buy 17in TFT monitor, the NEC AccuSync LCD72VM, for over £100 less. Buy a digital TV tuner for your PC, and you'll still have change left over. In that context, the LG looks much less of a bargain.

Author: Sasha Muller