LG has taken high-res IPS monitors to a much more affordable level with the 23 inch Super LED IPS LCD Monitor, with impressive viewing angles and contrast to compliment the multimedia desktop.
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The LED-backlit panel is thin and attractive in a very minimalist design with a thin bezel rather than broad borders. The power supply is housed in the cable rather than the monitor itself, lending itself a bit more slimming power. The monitor doesn’t play nice with adjustments though, with a stand that will only tilt a few degrees up and down. It won’t swivel left or right or pan up and down in height, which is a major drawback if you’re not usually sitting directly in front of your monitor.
A viewing angle of 178 degrees does its part to make up for this though. From wide angles the screen maintains its picture without glare until you hit the far reaches of each side of the monitor. The same goes for viewing top-down and vice versa. If you’ve got a group of people around the screen, you won’t have anyone left out.
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While the IPS236V may save some power, it does so while kicking back the brightness to 250 nits. The maximum brightness setting, set by default, is fair game for most uses, though if you sit next to an extra bright, sun-saturated window, you might want something a tad brighter at 300 nits. In darker locales, you won’t really notice the difference.
Add-on features like the cinema view actually tailor the brightness to work dynamically on the screen to suit home movie-goers. The bordering of a video clip played on-screen is dimmed by cropping it out in this mode, making the video brighter than its background and reducing visual distractions. Features like this aren’t extensive, though they’re practical and simply accessible through a well-designed menu.
Across the lower front face sit five sensitive touch buttons for navigating the settings menu, with a small dot for each button. A small credit card-sized window pops up above the buttons, bringing up typical settings like brightness, colour and contrast tweaking as well as other display modes.
The 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio on this monitor really pulls its weight, and the grey scale is noticeably defined. Stand-out, primary colours are natural rather than oversaturated and details are well-defined across similar, flatter colours. The blacks are deep while the whites are strong but not eye-melting. All-round, it makes for a great monitor for looking into smaller details on pictures.
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The 16:9 aspect ratio and 1920 x 1080 resolution make it a perfect size for watching movies or playing games, with an HDMI port for slotting in Blu-ray players or consoles simply. The connections are limited at DVI-D, D-Sub and HDMI as well as an earphone jack around the back, though at this price point it’s hard to mind the single inputs over multiples.
Despite its 5ms response time, the screen flew through 1080p videos and high-motion car-chase sequences without a hitch. While we didn’t test the screen on a game, the similar content we through at it should vouch for its high frame-rate processing.
At $279, LG’s IPS236V offers great value for a monitor that throws in IPS display and LED backlighting. Some of the details are fleshed out that would otherwise make it a top-notch screen, but on visuals alone this display is a winner worth your budget buck if your desktop needs an upgrade.
