WHAT'S HOT: True of most Sony displays, the SDM-HS73 has a snazzy, chic appearance. The screen rests in a thick, semigloss black frame that lends the monitor an aura of sophistication. A bow-shaped bracket catches the bottom two corners of the screen and links the panel to the round pewter-color base. Clearly labeled buttons on the bottom of the bezel provide access to a well-illustrated on-screen menu featuring advanced controls for features such as the color temperature and gamma curve. The menu also allows you to adjust independently both the overall backlight intensity and the brightness for any given backlight level. A handy button under the lip of the front bezel allows you to toggle through high, medium, low, and user-defined backlight levels.

WHAT'S NOT: Using factory presets and the auto-adjust function, we found a slight grayish tint on our white test screen and in the background of Microsoft Word and Excel documents that made them a bit harder to read. On our gray-scale test screen (designed to evaluate how well the monitor displays varying shades of black, white, and gray), many lighter shades disappeared while subtle shades of gray picked up a greenish tint, and screen brightness fell off considerably when we viewed the panel from slightly below. While images on any LCD will deteriorate when viewed from above or below, the degradation on the HS73 was more pronounced than on several other 17-inch LCDs in our lab, suggesting a relatively narrow vertical viewing angle (though we did not formally measure it).

In contrast to the rich set of available image adjustment controls, the monitor has limited physical adjustment options. With a little effort, you can tilt it far back and slightly forward, but you cannot change the height or swivel it from side to side.

WHAT ELSE: Our judges found most text screens easily legible, and we were also pleased with the colors of photographs and other graphics. In contrast to the deficiencies in the vertical viewing angle, the horizontal viewing angle was slightly above average for 17-inch LCDs we've tested. The black bezel, though attractive, produces an annoying glare and distracting reflections when you view the screen in an office environment.

We noticed one defective pixel on our model--a rare find on LCDs these days--in the upper-right portion of the screen. When we asked Sony about it, a representative could not confirm that the company would automatically replace such a panel, saying only that the decision is on a case-by-case basis.

In addition to a basic setup guide and spec sheet, the HS73 includes a CD-ROM containing a detailed Acrobat PDF manual. The disc also carries a small application that runs an on-screen wizard to help users correct possible glitches in the analog-to-digital signal conversion. (Models with a digital input, when hooked up to a graphics card with a DVI port, do not have such problems.) In our case, however, the wizard was superfluous because the screen geometry looked fine right out of the box. Sony does not include a color calibration utility with the HS73.

UPSHOT: The HS73 would be a flashy complement to an office, or even a living room, and its image quality is sufficient for basic computing or entertainment.