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The last three buttons comprise an input switch, an auto adjust button and finally what BenQ calls a mode button. The latter works much like Samsung’s MagicBright button and switches between multiple pre-set screen configurations – you can choose between Standard, Movie, Dynamic and Photo. Obviously each mode adjusts the brightness, contrast and colour settings to match what ever task you’re undertaking at the time. Switching to Movie for example makes the image really punchy, with bright, vivid colours.

Looking at the rear of the FP241W reveals the feature that makes this monitor stand out from the crowd of other 24in widescreen displays – an HDMI port. Not only is there an HDMI port, but it’s an HDCP compliant HDMI port, so you’ll have no problem hooking up a Blu-ray or HD DVD player, or like I did, a Sky HD box.

There were absolutely no issues hooking up my Sky HD box to the FP241W, which would indicate that BenQ has certainly implemented its HDCP support correctly. With a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200, I was getting the full benefit of the 1080i signal of the Sky box’s output and I have to say that the image looked superb. Playing back some Premiership football footage proved suitably breathtaking, with the pitch looking amazingly green and lifelike, while the vivid colours on the players’ shirts were superbly resolved without being oversaturated.

High definition movie footage looked equally impressive – in fact Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Garner have never looked so good as Mrs Smith and Elektra respectively. Obviously my choice of movies was all about the breadth of the footage rather than who was in them, honestly. What I did notice when watching films is that the BenQ does a good job of picking out detail in low light scenes, while blacks managed to look, well, black rather than grey. The 1000:1 contrast ratio is pretty good for what is, essentially a desktop monitor rather than a TV, and the results show that BenQ is being very honest with its specifications.

Despite the fact that HDMI carries digital audio as well as video, the FP241W doesn’t have any integrated speakers. I don’t see this as a big issue though, since integrated speakers are usually pretty poor, and it’s unlikely that any high definition source wouldn’t have separate digital and analogue audio outputs.

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