ViewSonic VP2250wb

The VP2250wb ($430 street) is one of three new additions to ViewSonic's recently refreshed Professional series of desktop LCD monitors. This 22 inch model, geared toward the arts and engineering crowd, uses wide color gamut technology to achieve bright, bold colors, and it features a relatively fast pixel response and an adjustable ergonomic stand.

The display suffers from a few flaws though, including a terrible vertical viewing angle issue.

The 1,680 by 1,050 resolution widescreen panel is framed by a narrow, matte black bezel, which matches the rest of the cabinetry.

The sturdy base is also black, with a thin slice of silver trim around the bottom.

A telescopic mounting arm provides 4.7 inches of height adjustment and 270 degrees of swivel.

The screen has a tilt range of 5 degrees backward and 20 degrees forward. You can also pivot the panel 90 degrees for portrait mode viewing, which really comes in handy if you'd prefer to view documents from top to bottom rather than side by side, or if want to view Web pages without having to scroll down.

At the rear of the display are two PC inputs (DVI and analog) and five USB ports (one upstream and four downstream). I'm always grateful when a display features USB connectivity, but it irks me when the ports are hidden away on the back of the panel where they are hard to reach, as they are on this panel.

Side mounted ports are much easier to access and usually do not detract from the overall look of the monitor. Also missing is an HDMI port, which should be standard fare for any monitor that claims to be an HD display. The DVI port is HDCP compliant, though, so you can watch high def Blu-ray or HD-DVD movies without worrying about copy protection.

Four small function buttons located along the lower bezel are used to access the on-screen display setup menu, where you can tweak settings such as color temperature, brightness, contrast, and image size and position. There are also fine tuning and sharpness settings that let you adjust image focus.

The VP2250wb comes with Portrait Display's PerfectSuite Plus software, which provides access to many of the above mentioned settings via your keyboard and mouse, and it has a calibration wizard that makes it easy set up the display correctly using the resolution, brightness, and color temperature controls.

Love that fact that you can enable an auto pivot function from within the software that changes the image orientation on the fly. There's even a theft deterrent option that when enabled, requires the user to enter a PIN number when connecting to another system. Also included in the box are analog, DVI, and USB cables.

As always, ViewSonic backs the VP2250wb with a generous three years warranty covering parts, labor, and backlighting.