Viewsonic VP2765-LED review

The Viewsonic VP2765-LED is a 1080p 27in monitor with an A-MVA panel and VGA, DVI and DisplayPort inputs as well as a four-port USB2 hub. Its fully-adjustable stand can be swivelled to portrait mode and raised from 113mm to 239mm, making it easy to find the position that suits you.

We've covered MVA (Multi-Domain Vertical Alignment) technology before (see FAQ, Shopper 282) - Advanced MVA (A-MVA) is simply one panel manufacturer's version of the technology. VA panels are meant to provide better contrast and viewing angles, but tend to have slower response times; Viewsonic quotes a 25ms black-to-black response time for the VP2765-LED.

This makes the VP2765-LED unsuitable for gaming, and we noticed ghosting when playing Call of Duty 4. It's most obvious when strafing past a sharp divide between dark and light areas, such as a tree against a bright sky, but you notice smeared textures everywhere after a while, especially in a fast-paced shooter such as CoD4. The VP2765-LED is pitched as a business monitor, and those who prefer more sedate genres such as strategy or adventure are unlikely to notice a problem.

Our initial image quality impressions weren't good. When compared to the Hazro HZ27WC, whose IPS panel produces deep, convincing colours, the VP2765-LED's colours looked washed out, with the lighter colours such as yellows suffering the most. Meanwhile, blacks are deep, so the effect is to polarise images into light and dark areas, with steep gradients in between.

We tried to correct this effect with the monitor's crude, but simple to use menu system. You only get access to basic Brightness and Contrast controls, while colour temperature can be set to sRGB, 9300K, 7500K, 6500K, 5000K and User. For some reason, the sRGB setting is far too dark, and it disables the Brightness and Contrast setting so you can't correct it. The preset temperatures seemed mostly too cold, so we set it to User and kept all three colour values set to 100.

While this added a bit more warmth, it still failed to improve overall image quality. There is a huge contrast between the VP2765-LED's deep and convincing blacks and the washed out colours. This effect is exaggerated further if viewing from a sharp angle - dark areas become darker while light areas become lighter, which makes colours go all over the place.

This is not necessarily a bad thing if you're working on data or drawings that aren't colour dependent, but home users who want to view their photos or watch films won't be impressed. The display is also up against some stiff budget competition. BenQ's EW2730V also has a VA panel, and its image quality is superb, with deep, vibrant colours and rich contrast, and is £35 cheaper than Viewsonic's monitor. Meanwhile, the Iiyama ProLite E2773HDS is one of the best TN panel monitors we've seen and is more than £100 cheaper than Viewsonic's screen.