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Given the low price we weren't expecting stellar image quality and to an extent our experiences upheld this view, but if the E2208HDS lacks the fidelity of some efforts it's by no means bad. There is, for instance, some backlight bleed from the edges but nothing drastically worse than most monitors, while likewise there's a hint of banding but nothing terribly alarming.

It's the usual areas, such as the dark level detail, where this monitor performs to its price point. Dark shades of grey on a black background aren't particularly well produced, fading to black while also exhibiting some brown/green contamination in subtle shades. These results are reflected in some fairly mediocre black levels in videos and while the native 1,000:1 contrast ratio can be boosted by a dynamic backlight there are limits to what can be achieved through such methods.

Still, this is no better or worse than a multitude of similarly priced monitors and colour production, though never particularly vibrant, is nonetheless competent. Transitions are largely positive and though you'd never want to use the E2208HDS for colour sensitive work (i.e. image editing) for gaming and video it's perfectly acceptable. Viewing angles are similarly reasonable and Iiyama should be praised for offering up more realistic figures, namely 85 degrees horizontal, 85 degrees up and 75 degrees down. As ever there's some colour and contrast shift, but it's no worse than any monitor in the same price bracket.

Perhaps more pertinent to the E2208HDS, though, is its text production and here it's faultless. White level purity and overall brightness is pretty decent, provided you use the correct settings, while text is razor sharp and easy to read all the way down to 6.8 point Arial font. This makes it ideal for reading long documents and spreadsheets and only the most short-sighted are likely to encounter problems.

If video and gaming is more your thing, this Iiyama also performs well without ever astounding. Being based on a TN panel response times are low, just 5ms grey-to-grey, so ghosting and input response are as good as you're likely to get on an LCD display. Video is produced smoothly and high definition video is suitably sharp and detailed, though you'll always need a larger screen to see the true benefits. It's only the dark level detail that lets the display down in both regards, but for noticeably superior performance you need to be spending at least twice as much. Thus, for the resolution and the price, you can hardly complain. In fact, you should be rejoicing.

Verdict

All told there's little not to like about the ProLite E2208HDS. It might lack the image fidelity of more expensive offerings, but it isn't more expensive and it also offers an obscenely high Full HD resolution on a 22in screen. For under £150 we can't imagine finding more desktop real-estate and if you're tight on space but don't want to sacrifice productivity, it will fit the bill perfectly.

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