As with Asus' other products, the LS221H makes the most of an elegant design with excellent build quality. The glossy screen is outlined by a band of dark brown plastic that almost looks like an artificial leather trim. The whole thing is covered by a clear plastic panel.
It's a very simple idea, and is effective at protecting the screen itself from fingerprints, scratches or other marks, and fortunately, it doesn't add a glossy layer to a matte screen. With the monitor turned off, it's certainly more prone to reflections from ambient light sources than conventional matte screens, but once it's turned it on, they largely disappear.
The only exception is if you're looking at the monitor with a very bright light source directly behind you.
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Even on dark scenes, reflections aren't visible
Connectivity options include analog VGA and digital DVI options, but the monitor lacks some of the extras we've seen elsewhere such as a rotating stand, card reader or webcam.
Gaming
Despite Asus' claims that this monitor has a 2 ms response time, the LS221H gave us a nasty surprise. The results were beyond doubt: reverse ghosting was very evident with particular shades. As you can see from this example of our ghosting test card, moving bright shades suffer a lot of ghosting against a dark background:
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It's a very simple idea, and is effective at protecting the screen itself from fingerprints, scratches or other marks, and fortunately, it doesn't add a glossy layer to a matte screen. With the monitor turned off, it's certainly more prone to reflections from ambient light sources than conventional matte screens, but once it's turned it on, they largely disappear.
The only exception is if you're looking at the monitor with a very bright light source directly behind you. Even on dark scenes, reflections aren't visible
Connectivity options include analog VGA and digital DVI options, but the monitor lacks some of the extras we've seen elsewhere such as a rotating stand, card reader or webcam.
Gaming
Despite Asus' claims that this monitor has a 2 ms response time, the LS221H gave us a nasty surprise. The results were beyond doubt: reverse ghosting was very evident with particular shades. As you can see from this example of our ghosting test card, moving bright shades suffer a lot of ghosting against a dark background:This problem is caused by the monitor's technology not working as it should. Asus has tried to push its components to the limit in an attempt to eliminate ghosting, but has ended up doing the opposite. What's worse is that it's impossible to turn this feature off using the OSD, meaning that this 2 ms screen ends up worse than a 5 ms screen ...
Colours, on the other hand, are well-handled, with a deep black and an excellent contrast ratio of 1000:1 with a very faithful representation of most shades. We also have to salute an excellent deltaE score of 2.2, meaning that colors on screen are very close to those requested by the graphics card.
Colours, on the other hand, are well-handled, with a deep black and an excellent contrast ratio of 1000:1 with a very faithful representation of most shades. We also have to salute an excellent deltaE score of 2.2, meaning that colors on screen are very close to those requested by the graphics card.Pros
- Accurate colours by default
- High contrast
- Screen covering
Cons
- TN panel, so poor viewing angles
- Slow response time
- Visible reflections if light sources in the wrong place
- Stand
Conclusion
If you're happy enough with its excellent colours, then this monitor will do for you, but, whatever you do, don't try and play games on it.
OUR SCORE
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