Planar Planar PV174

Planar PV174 Review

by By Rebecca Freed

- WHAT'S HOT: Planar's PV174 came in second for overall image quality among the 17-inch LCD monitors we tested in our March 2002 comparison, earning very close to the top score for graphics. Photos and illustrations looked bright and vivid, without any loss of detail. Its performance on text was also strong; it gracefully rendered the curves on large letters, which can look jagged on LCD monitors. A test screen of black-and-white vertical bars, designed to reveal any tendency toward flickering, didn't faze the PV174--it showed none. At 17.4 inches, this model offers a little more screen than other models in its class. The PV174 uses an LCD panel with multidomain vertical alignment, which provides a wide viewing angle (160 degrees vertically and horizontally, according to the vendor specs) and fast pixel redrawing rates.