A Monitor for Multimedia

Sony has combined a brilliant LCD panel with connections to a panoply of media devices to create the SDM-V72W, billed by the company as its first "personal entertainment display." The resulting 17-inch flat-panel monitor not only plays movies and games beautifully, but supports clear presentations of workaday office applications, too.

This model has a 16-by-9 aspect-ratio screen that is 14.66 inches wide and 8.79 inches tall (most 17-inch LCDs are 13.5 by 10.5 inches), so it can comfortably display about 15 percent more spreadsheet columns than a comparable standard LCD. Another advantage is that you can use the extra screen real estate to arrange two portrait-mode windows side by side--which is useful for viewing two documents or two Web pages at the same time.

At a native resolution of 1280 by 768 pixels, the display showed graphics with good color fidelity and detail. Text looked clean and sharp down to about 8 points; below that size, letters became blocky.

The screen displayed images from the game Carmageddon 2 with good detail and fast response times. I saw no artifacts or blurriness while viewing the movie Titus, and colors looked saturated but not too dark. One caveat: The SDM-V72W doesn't include a TV tuner, so you must route your video signal through another device such as your computer, DVD player, or VCR.

Unlike most LCD monitors, the SDM-V72W comes with a backlight level control. Besides saving energy and backlight life, this control lets you adjust the display for different situations. I found that the highest setting looked great for DVDs, but I lowered the level for computing.

Finally, the unit's integrated speakers are easily the best I've heard, and the included headphone jack is so well hidden in the design that I had to consult the manual to find it.

The big drawback of this slick unit--and you just knew there had to be one--is its racy price of $1000. Still, that's comparable to the cost of other hybrid displays, and well-heeled AV aficionados and design fanatics may well prefer the SDM-V72W.

SUMMARY

Sony SDM-V72W If you think good design is worth paying for, this sleek beauty may be the LCD for you. List: $1000