Philips Brilliance 225B2C

Not everybody is looking for a monitor with great gaming performance or for editing their photos, which is why Philips has launched its 225B2C.  It's designed to appeal to people who just need to check their e-mail, edit a few documents and browse the web.

This is one of the few 22'' to still offer a resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels.  That isn't enough to show as much information as a Full HD display, but text is shown a little larger, which can be a bonus if your eyes get tired quickly. Build Quality and Design: we don't miss HDMI

With a height-adjustable, rotating stand, VGA and DVI inputs, a USB hub and a 2 x 1.5 W speakers, the 225B2C is about average compared to the monitors we've tested.  If the lack of a HDMI input might seem surprising, don't forget that this screen is mainly designed for office work, where a HDMI port is by no means essential.

Responsiveness: too slow for games

Colorées   Transparent
Average ghosting over ten frames

With a response time in the spec of 5 ms, we weren't really expecting to find an incredibly fast screen.  Our test results and own impressions confirmed that that the 225B2C can't produce fluid results with fast-moving objects on screen, which rules out good performance with games.

Just like its hardware options and resolution, the responsiveness is just what we'd expect from a monitor designed for office work and web browsing.

That's a shame, because the input lag is low enough to not cause any noticeable pause in the action when you're playing a multiplayer game.

Colours: accurate without calibration

Measured Colours

Ideal Colours Compare the Philips Brilliance 225B2C to other LCD monitors in our Product Face-Off

With its factory settings, the 225B2C only has a minimal distinction between the colours requested by the graphics card and those actually shown.  Its deltaE is 2.1, where we'd expect a value of below 3.0 to say a monitor reproduces colours accurately.  Our equipment revealed that some shades of grey were a little too dark, but this is a monitor that will be fine for enthusiasts who want to touch up their holiday snaps without the need to rely on a calibration profile.

The contrast ratio, though, is only just above average.  At 870:1, it's a long way from being one of the best screens out there, especially given that the contrast ratio tends to fall at you lower the brightness.