Refine search for Displays

  Leave a comment      Email this to a friend TrustedReviews Newsletters

Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge

Sharp has been making LCDs since the early seventies and has continued to play a major role in the development of this technology. It therefore comes as no surprise to see that the company has a broad range of monitors in a variety of shapes and sizes, including the LL-171A-B, which is sitting in front of me now.

Clearly not one to shy away from aesthetics, Sharp has encased this 17in panel in an attractive two-tone chassis with a black, narrow bezel at the front and a creamy-white perforated case at the back. In fact, the choice of colours reminds me of a certain well-known beverage – extra cool in my opinion.

As for the stand, this also represents a departure from the blocky and drab norm and is instead smoothly curved in, dare I say, quite a sensuous way. Sadly, however, the desire stops there when I take a closer look at the stands construction. While it’s in no doubt solid and stable, it offers no form of height adjustment, nor is there a built-in turntable for smooth swivelling. It also cannot be pivoted for a portrait view. That said, the panel can be tilted and the hole in the middle of the neck does offer a neat way to route the cables to the LL-171A-B’s vertically mounted ports.

On the subject of ports, the LL-171A-B is an analogue only monitor. No DVI port is available here, just a D-SUB one to marry up with your graphics card. This has obviously kept the cost down and at under £260 pounds (at the time of writing) the price is not that bad. And remember, for the cash you also get a pair of speakers housed in the underside of the lower part of the bezel/chassis. These are hooked up to the line-out from your PC by way of an audio lead (supplied by Sharp) that has to be plugged into the 3.5mm jack around the back of the monitor.

Bear in mind though, the audio from these one-watt units isn’t exactly earth shattering, but they’re nonetheless clear enough for low-level music playback and for sounds that inevitably crop up while surfing or using applications. If you want more fidelity a good pair of headphones plugged into the 3.5mm jack mounted on the front will do the job.

Completing the port array, is the socket for the LL-171A-B’s integrated power supply – a feature I really like because it does away with an external power adapter that just ends up kicking about your feet or cluttering up your desk.

For controlling and adjusting the display there are six buttons in total, all clearly labelled. To the far right you have the power button, whereas the remaining five are mounted between the speakers underneath the silver bar that spans across most of the lower bezel. These cover menu access, mode select, and left and right cursors that double up as shortcuts to the volume and brightness levels. An auto button also exists, which when pressed once will set the clock, phase, and picture position automatically for you. If that’s not enough you can of course adjust these settings manually, and to help you Sharp includes a setup test screen on the driver CD to assess the affects of any changes you make.

By and large, OSD navigation is pretty simple and intuitive, plus there are further settings for black level and contrast, gamma, colour temperature and four display modes, namely “Standard” (the default scheme) “Office” (lower brightness to save power), “sRGB”, and lastly “Vivid” which boosts up the primary colours.

Add your comment