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If you’re looking for a replacement for your bulky and aging 17in CRT monitor, an upgrade to a 17in LCD is usually the next logical step. Not only do you get a display that takes up less physical space, but your screen resolution will also be bumped up to 1,280 x 1,024 pixels thereby giving you more desktop space to work with. Of course you can run 1,280 x 1,024 on a 17in CRT, but the fact that a 17in LCD has 17 inches of viewable area as apposed to sub-16 inch viewable on a CRT, means that it’s a less comfortable experience.

Prices can vary from the mid to high £400 range down to around £300 or just below for the budget options. As for the BenQ FP731 sitting in front of me now, this occupies the latter price category, costing around £300.

Now what do you get for your hard earned cash? Well the FP731 is not a bad looker with a matt silver finish to the narrow bezel that will no doubt complement the growing number of silver PCs out there. It’s a fairly neutral design that should look good in either an office or home environment.

As for the black square-based stand this is packed unattached to the panel, so the first task is to fit this to the integrated neck. Be careful here, though, as BenQ warns you not to insert your fingers into the seem between the neck and the panel, otherwise it’s a case of crushed fingers as one pulls the neck out from its flat-packed position. Once that’s done it’s simply a case of sliding the neck into the base until it clicks in place.

With the stand fully fitted, the profile of the FP731 looks rather elegant with its angled neck and small base that takes up a minimum of desk space. However, if you’ve seen a number of LCD displays you’ll notice that there are several omissions to the stands design. For instance, there’s no height adjustment and with the whole display sitting quite low on the desk some may find that a book or two will be needed to bring the screen up to a more comfortable eye-level. Furthermore, there’s no pivot mechanism or swivelling turntable so if you’re after a portrait view or want to turn the display smoothly to the sides then this unit is not for you. That said, BenQ has provided a couple of hooks to keep the cables neatly routed around the back.

Talking of cables, it was good to see that the power supply unit is fully integrated into the display so all that is needed to supply power is the supplied kettle-type lead. As for the signal cable, this doesn’t need to be plugged in at all. Unfortunately, I’m not talking about a novel wireless solution here, but rather a captive analogue cable that I’m afraid doesn’t win any praise from me. To be frank, I just don’t like the idea of sending the whole unit back to BenQ if a fault develops with the lead, and at the end of the day I’d much rather see a D-SUB (or better still a DVI) connector around the back and the relevant cable in the box. Mind you, this has kept manufacturing costs down and ultimately helped keep the FP731 relatively inexpensive.

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