Refine search for Monitors

  Leave a comment      Email TrustedReviews Newsletters

If you’re thinking of buying a television for your bedroom and you’re tired of your old CRT monitor then maybe this TFT screen from Relisys will be right up your street.

In common with several notebooks we’ve recently reviewed, the RLT1720 features a widescreen LCD that makes viewing movies and playing games a more fitting experience. That said, I’m not entirely convinced that the display area is large enough to make the RLT1720 the centrepiece in a home entertainment setting. Well not for a large room anyway.

You see, even though the diagonal measurement is quoted at 17in, the native resolution is 1,280 x 768. This makes the vertical resolution equivalent to a resolution more commonly found on a 4:3 15in LCD monitor so as you can imagine the picture is a little on the small and narrow side. The impact of this, nevertheless, depends entirely on how you intend to use this display.

As the main display for a PC-come-entertainment screen for use at relative close quarters the RLT1720 is well suited. With the widescreen format, I am just about able to open a couple of Windows side by side allowing me to type this review and keep an eye on my emails. Alternatively, by utilising the removable TV-tuner and the picture-in-picture function I can position and scale up the PinP window to one side of the screen and happily type away while periodically watching a broadcast or video. Furthermore, if you’re the proud owner of a progressive scan DVD player then you can take advantage of the component video inputs that constitute the AV2-in around the back of the unit. There’s even a remote control for the couch potatoes among us, offering a full range of adjustments including signal input selection, 4:3/16:9 screen scale switching, and sleep timer control.

As for the quality of the moving image, I must say I have mixed feelings. While viewing the test DVD movie I could see little evidence of compression artefacts and motion smearing. Yet on the other hand, the picture is somewhat dark and an unnatural tone to skin colour is quite apparent. The latter may be a derivative of some questionable colour and grey scale results that are more pronounced when this LCD is scrutinised with DisplayMate.

Upon firing up the 64 intensity colour scales, it can be seen that the darker ends showed an uneven fall in intensities between the red, green and blue scales. For a display to be well balanced these should all ramp downwards smoothly to black. The same compression was also evident in the 256-intensity greyscale, and to make matters worse the darker ends of the scale had more of purple tinge than a grey or black one.

Obviously you can’t always expect miracles from an analogue signal through the D-SUB port, but as there’s no DVI one a clean digital signal is not an option. That said, there were no problems with phase and pixel clock and although there’s no dedicated auto adjustment button there is an option for this in the OSD, which incidentally can be fully accessed via the remote control. Viewing angles are acceptable at 160 degrees in both planes and should be fine for a small group to gather round for a movie night.

One final aspect caught my eye too, and that was how the bezel was designed. Most bezels are raised from the face of the panel and this is the case here, but rather irritatingly, the inner surface is also highly reflective, enough so that I could clearly see a mirror image of my Windows start menu.

Add your comment