Acer S243HL review

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Verdict:

An amazingly thin screen a futuristic design that will turn heads, but it's not as good value as some rivals

Review Date: 16 May 2010

Price when reviewed: £228

Supplier: http://www.kikatek.com

Reviewed By: Barry de la Rosa

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

User Rating

The Acer S243HL is a radical design and, although it may not be to your taste, it's still impressive. The 18mm-thick screen is the thinnest we've seen, although in practical terms it's worth noting that the hinge for the stand adds another 30mm and the stand itself protrudes another 90mm to the rear.

With the inputs built into the angular, science-fiction-inspired stand, the screen's rear is a flat, uncluttered expanse, and you could argue that it's more attractive from the rear than it is from the front.

Of course, this waif-like profile is courtesy of LED backlighting, which provides an even glow across the entire 24in, 1,920x1,080-pixel display. There's a very slight blue cast to the picture, which reduces the impact of reds and - therefore - flesh tones. Otherwise, we found colours to be vibrant and contrast good.

Acer departs from the norm in its choice of inputs, with a single analogue VGA input and two HDMI inputs, rather than the more standard DVI. Naturally, both HDMI inputs support HDCP, so either one will display Blu-ray content correctly. If your PC doesn't have an HDMI output, you'll need a DVI-to-HDMI adaptor.

There's a 3.5mm audio input, but the speaker on our review model didn't work. A series of buttons built into the neck of the stand control the menu system. Apart from basic brightness, contrast and three colour temperature controls, the only other setting is for Acer's image presets, which we found to be fairly subtle.

Text mode turns down brightness, which is good for long periods of reading, while the Graphics and Movie modes turn up contrast and colour. Standard mode is decent, but we chose User mode and reduced the blue channel a few points to make the picture slightly warmer.

If a 22in or 23in monitor just isn't big enough for you, the S243HL is a great choice, and it will certainly turn heads wherever you place it. BenQ's 22in G2222HDL is over £100 cheaper however, and is much better value, while Iiyama's 27in Prolite E2710HDSD-1 costs only a little more.

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