Fujitsu Siemens ScenicView P20W-5 review

Monitors designed for business rarely have any noteworthy features, but the new ScenicView claims to draw no power in standby, offering big companies huge potential savings.

The P20W-5's design isn't particularly bold, but the grey and white colours match Fujitsu Siemens' new range of PCs. It's also good that the stand is height adjustable, so you can position the screen anywhere from 50-170mm above the desk. The base can also swivel though 90 and tilt up to 35.

There are three inputs: VGA, DVI and, surprisingly for a business monitor, HDMI. The latter is HDCP compliant, although we can't see many office workers watching Blu-ray movies. Stereo speakers are built in and are of the usual monitor standard: tinny and not particularly loud.

One good thing is that the P20W-5 really does use 0W when it switches to standby. You need to flip a switch that's tucked round the back first, otherwise the power supply won't switch off, and will draw 0.4W. Ultimately, the saving is minimal per monitor, but could quickly add up if you need scores of them. For those that do, the P20W-5 supports Fujitsu Siemens' DisplayView IT Suite for remote management.

In addition to its impressive standby mode, in use the P20W-5 is the most power-efficient 20in monitor we've seen. It uses only 33W, which is far less than the 48W used by most monitors of this size. An Eco button lets you save an additional 3W, but this reduces the brightness.

In the onscreen menu options are limited, and the three mode presets - photo, video and office - essentially adjust the brightness. There's also an ambient light sensor that can adjust the brightness depending on the current lighting conditions.

We don't often have cause for complaint about a monitor's quality, but this 20in widescreen is the worst we've seen for a while. It's adequately bright and has good contrast, but the backlighting is woefully uneven. When displaying a solid colour, it's as if there are four lights shining in from the corners, resulting in a noticeable cross in the middle of the screen. Sadly, this is still evident even in office applications, and means any serious photo editing is out of the question.

Even discounting the uneven backlighting, the P20W-5's price is too high. Its power usage is low, but we doubt many people will be happy to sacrifice image quality. Considering you can buy LG's better-quality 22in monitor for £71 less, we simply can't recommend the ScenicView.

Author: Jim Martin