Discussion
The panel is manufactured by AU Optronics. Never heard of it? You may be surprised to learn that the company racked up sales of around £7.5bn in 2007 and is one of the world's top-3 panel manufacturers.Based around TN (twisted nematic) technology that's used by the majority of displays, LG's in good company. Resolution is standard, that is, 1,920x1,200, and the 8-bit-per-channel depth gives rise to a displayable 16.7m colours.
There's no new-fangled technology at play here - the LG W2452T is a straight-up LCD display, and we'll have to wait a while before OLED-based displays become pervasive.
The PC-oriented resolution implies an aspect ratio of 16:10, meaning it won't be quite as good as a regular LCD TV (16:9) for playing back wide-aspect movies, with bigger borders on the top and bottom.
Manufacturers are now tending to quote the contrast ratio in dynamic (rolling) terms, and LG's no different, espousing a 10,000:1 rating. Putting the lightest and darkest colours on the same image - static contrast - drops this figure to an industry-average of 800:1. Brightness, too, at 400cd/m² , is average for this kind of display.
Response time from displaying grey-to-grey is 5ms, which, again, is the norm for a 24in display. Viewing angles can be a little shallow on TN-based screens but LG quotes a decent-enough ±85° angle when the contrast ratio is less than 10, which drops to ±80° at CR >10.
Input support is via DVI (with HDMI compliance) and D-Sub, and we'd urge all users to use DVI wherever possible.
The screen ships without 'proper' built-in speakers or a USB hub, and we've become accustomed to the latter from a bunch of Dell models.
Summary
LG's FLATRON W2452T boasts average specifications for a 24in display, so let's take a physical look and see if it passes muster.
