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You also have LG’s well known f-Engine chip; (you can read more about it here. However, this version appears to be more streamlined and has lost some of the user features found in earlier f-Engine monitors. For instance, the split screen for previewing the f-Engine chip’s influence has gone. Here the f-Engine can only be turned on or off. Its affect is to increase the contrast and brightness without affecting the colour tonality of the picture. I found it helped bring out a little more detail in dark movies and games.

I used all of these settings quite heavily when testing the M1910A. First, I should say that the TV-tuner had no problem finding the signal from my cable provider and from an indoor aerial. However, the picture was always a little too saturated including the one from a mid-range DVD-player. Skin tones looked false and while I could change the tint and makes changes to the colour levels there was a distinct artificial look that I couldn’t get rid of. You could still make out subtle greens and pinks on close–ups of people faces.

Although debatable, this can be a result of the M1910A’s 6-bit panel which needs to use fancy dithering algorithms to push the colour gamut up to 16.2 million colours. Don’t get me wrong though. The picture is not unwatchable, but I’ve seen better. The M1910A also suffered from a somewhat grainy picture, similar to the one I observed in the LG Flatron L1730P. As for the DisplayMate tests, the M1910A put in an average showing. There were some signs of banding in the 256 greyscales, and the 10-colour scales faded to black unevenly.

Overall, this is a difficult display to recommend. Its fine for general use, either as a standard PC monitor or an everyday TV, but it doesn’t excel in either area. If you start to push it with some hardcore image-editing or highly-quality video then it falls short of the mark.

Verdict

The 19in LG Flatron M1910A looks good on your desk, has a decent set of speakers, and comes with a competitive price for an LCD TV of this size. Sadly, this is overshadowed by a mediocre picture quality and the absence of a DVI port.

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