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The buttons are clearly labelled along the monitor's bottom. There is the usual Auto button for re-syncing an analogue image; Menu/back; left/preset (including standard, movie, dynamics, photo and sRGB); right/brightness and contrast; and Enter, which switches inputs outside of the OSD. The OSD itself is quite similar to the colourful effort found on the V2400W, meaning it's well-laid out, eminently visible and really easy to use. Frankly, it puts the equivalent models of many competitors to shame, especially giants like Samsung.

The 5ms response time is fairly average for a 22in panel, and a 1000:1 native contrast ratio is not bad. The latter can be boosted up to 2500:1 using the dynamic setting, though the results aren't very impressive with oversaturated colours and strongly unnatural skin tones. The Movie preset isn't much better either. This is not to say the G2200WT makes for a bad entertainment experience. It does a surprisingly good job as long as you use Standard mode, and the amount of dark detail on offer suggests the native contrast figure is not exaggerated as much as with many TN panels - though as with every TN deep blacks are not its strongest point.

When it comes to general image quality, there's also little to fault with this budget BenQ. For a TN panel, it delivers an above average performance in sRGB mode in our greyscale tests, managing to resolve all but two of the most subtle shades. However, there is slight contamination of yellow in both blacks and whites. Backlight bleed is so minimal as to be almost unnoticeable in normal use, and there is virtually no banding across colour blends. Text is also very sharp, though at 6.8 points or lower there is some red aberration similar to that found on the Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP.

BenQ states 160 degree viewing angles across both the horizontal and vertical planes. These figures are close to accurate and there is little of the pronounced colour or contrast shift present here that's noticeable on most TN LCDs.

So overall, you get the G2200WT's excellent adjustability, good build and decent image quality for less money than you would expect. In fact, at around £160 it's one of the best value-for-money 22in monitors you can buy.

Verdict

If you're on a limited budget, you can do a lot worse than the well built and fully adjustable BenQ G2200WT 22in monitor. Sure the image quality isn't professional grade, but for the average user its sufficient.

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