Philips 150P 4CB 15

Ironically, although the 150P4 has an industrial design that is simple to the point of clumsiness, it has some sophisticated adjustment software. And most importantly, this monitor comes through where it counts--the screen quality is quite good. The 150P4 did well on all of our or test screens and earned word scores of Outstanding for text and Very good for graphics quality. The well-designed and useful software includes a wizard-based application with a series of adjustment screens. Most of these are for improving performance with an analog connection (such as tweaking phase and clock settings), but the one for brightness and contrast also works in the digital mode we used for testing. The other extra is the LightFrame hardware and software feature that lets you pick a section of screen to highlight with different image settings such as higher brightness or contrast. (You can even specify the level of enhancement for each parameter.) A button on the monitor toggles this feature on and off. In contrast to the sophisticated software, the 150P4 offers only limited physical adjustments. The tilt mechanism does not move smoothly, and the height adjustment is so stiff as to be almost useless.