NEC has built a very commendable LCD monitor that can compete very well against a CRT monitor of similar size. Its color representation and clarity were excellent for graphics work such as digital photography and even video playback. Ghosting was limited to a few applications such as scrolling the page in a web browser when a large amount of green was displayed. Using the monitor in non-native resolutions was trouble free as the monitor was able to display both text and graphics with no noticeable blurring. Its slim dimensions should allow it to fit into any desktop environment. The biggest complaint with the monitor comes from the fact that there are too many control buttons and an non-intuitive use of them for navigating the menus.

Color, Contrast and Brightness

Overall the LCD1760V did a remarkable job at representing colors on the display. Even after the auto adjust functions, little adjustment was needed to get the color calibrated. Color range was very good with little problems with low intensity colors and only a slight color saturation on high-intensity colors near white being displayed as full white. When viewing several digital photographs on the LCD and a comparable CRT monitor, the LCD was able to reproduce the colors extremely close to the CRT monitor. Black was represented without any color wash from the backlight giving it a true black appearance. One annoyance did come up when scrolling through text documents or web pages that used green colors. As the pages where moved up and down with the scroll bars, a very distinguishable green afterimage was apparent. This didn't tend to show up in any other applications featuring animation or video. The other problem came with the color when viewing the monitor at an angle. The screen has a 140 degree horizontal viewing angle, but when you look just a bit out of center on the monitor, the white colors tended to get an orange tint to them.

Native Resolution and Interpolation

The LCD1760V offers a native resolution of 1280x1024 at a range of 60 to 75 Hertz with 60 Hertz the recommended setting. During testing I would agree with their recommendation. When the monitor was adjusted to display at 75 Hertz, text on the screen became blurry. Attempting to adjust the phase control to compensate would correct one portion of the screen, but the rest would become blurry. Text and graphics were both crisp and clear when viewed in the native resolution. The display also did a very good job of interpolation at lower resolutions. Text was still legible without much blurry when run at the 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions. Graphics and animation continued to be fluid when running at lower resolutions.

Gaming

The LCD1760V performed admirably when used for gaming. Thanks to its good color range and excellent interpolation, it had no problems displaying the graphics and animation for the various games and tests. Motion was consistent and fluid with no noticeable ghosting of the images on the screen. While not as clear as a CRT monitor when it comes to displaying games, it is an acceptable alternative.

Video Playback

Video playback was done quite well, but with the lower color saturation to allow for the good contrast in the color representations some of the colors had a tendency to be a bit faded when compared to a color calibrated television set. This is not much of a drawback when considering the clarity of the color ranges and the fluid motion that the monitor was able to present during DVD playback. No ghosting was noticed at all while playing back the video samples.

Controls

This is one area that I feel the LCD1760V could use improvement. Controls for the monitor are all located on the lower right of the front panel of the screen. Including the power button, there are a total of 8 buttons. It could have been possible for the menu controls to be done through a fewer number of buttons. The other problem I had is that the "Exit" button is used to bring up the menu and to move back from the selection. The menu was brought up by either selecting this button or the arrows or plus/minus buttons, but this put you in the brightness control forcing the use of the exit to switch to the menu tabs. The tabs were intuitive to use, but the controls to get to the tabs was not. Also, why the need for a reset button on the screen that is right next to the "Select" and power buttons? This could have easily been accessed through the menus instead.

Fit and Finish

The LCD1760V is a very sleek monitor using only as much of a cabinet to hold the display as is necessary. The front face of the screen has a small border around the screen which was a grayish color for the white version of the monitor. The back panel is a ventilated cover that has tiny holes all over it to allow for airflow through the components for cooling. The power cord and VGA connector were easily accessible and did not get in the way of the including desktop arm. The arm allowed for both horizontal and vertical movement giving it a wide range of motion. The cabinet also allows for the mounting of a VESA compliant arm for wall mounting.