Acer FP563

WHAT'S HOT: The eye-popping image quality of the Acer FP563 outweighed this monitor's shortcomings. It rendered subtle differences in shade clearly, and vividly displayed both cool and warm tones in photographs. It also earned an excellent score for text quality, rendering letters sharply in documents. On our test Web page it handled blue text on a black background exceptionally well. Speakers are built into the bezel, saving even more desktop real estate. The auto-adjust function is hard to miss--it's the big purple iKey in the center of the lower bezel.

WHAT'S NOT: The quick-start booklet is poorly organized; you have to skip over the same instructions in multiple languages to work through the installation steps. Separating the booklet into different language sections would have been clearer. (A full user manual comes on a CD-ROM, with the English installation instructions consolidated into an easier-to-read format.)

The unorthodox controls include a thumbwheel located on the underside of the bezel that allows you to navigate through the onscreen controls. However, there is no indication on the bezel or in the onscreen instructions to direct you to use the thumbwheel. Acer warrants the FP563's backlight for only one year, in contrast to the three-year warranties of most other LCDs we've tested. (The backlight on an LCD monitor is one of the most likely parts to fail.)

WHAT ELSE: The FP563 has a slot for a Kensington lock, and a plastic panel on the back of the stand covers the connectors. You can choose from three preset color temperatures.

BEST USE: If you spend a lot of time looking at photos on screen and don't mind this model's interface quirks, its excellent performance with images and text would make it a good choice.

SUMMARY

Acer FP563 15-inch viewable area, 15.0 by 7.3 by 15.1 inches, 11.7 pounds, active-matrix TFT panel, TCO '99-compliant, three-year warranty, one-year backlight warranty, 24-hour daily toll-free support. $549 888/723-2238 www.acercm.com