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Review: iiyama PLX486S-B1S 19” High Contrast LCD

by Nick Haywood on 15 February 2007, 11:14

Tags: Iiyama

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Come and meet the iiyama PLX486S-B1S



So let’s just take a quick tour around the iiyama PLX486S-B1S 19” and I promise, despite my ire, that’ll I’ll be nice. Ok, so if we’re honest, from the front, the PLX486S-B1S looks a bit chunky. The bezel isn’t the slimmest I’ve seen and I have to say I prefer my own LCDs over this. To be fair to the PLX486S-B1S, the wide bottom part of the bezel does house the speakers and the motion sensor, so of course it’ll need some more space. Obviously to save width, iiyama have chosen to house the speakers behind the bottom panel, shouting down at your desk. I’m not too sure if this is the best option... but we’ll talk more about that later.

Down the right hand side are the panel controls for iiyama’s super-easy OSD (On-Screen Display) to let you set it up to your liking. Just under these, on the side, are the USB port and headphone socket. Up on top is a small section of opaque plastic that you’d be forgiven for thinking as being the power light but you’d be wrong. The power light is down next to the controls. That bit on top is the ambient light sensor, which I’ll come to later.

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Round the back, hidden away under a clip-on panel are all the various connections. The power socket sits over the way on the left, with all other connections for DVI-D, D-Sub, USB and Line in all neatly grouped over on the right. Superbly, at the centre of all this, just below the cut-out in the hidey panel, is a cable tidy for everything, allowing you to clip it all neatly away. Oh, and there’s screw holes for the standard VESA mounting should you fancy lobbing this up on the wall.

Click for larger image


And that’s about it. Hang on, I forgot to mention the actual panel itself. It’s one of those glass like, highly shiny jobs. The technical term for them is a ‘High Contrast Glare Filter’. What that means to you and me is that it’s another shiny panel in which you can clearly see the reflection of everything behind you. Great if you live with an unstable housemate who has a propensity for axes I suppose.

The desktop footprint of the PLX486S-B1S is actually quite tiny, only about 18cm by 14cm in a smooth matt black finish. And it won’t clutter up space under your desk either as the power converter is built into the back of the panel, which given all the cables and transformers I have knocking about under my desk, is a real boon.

So that’s what you get with the PLX486S-B1S before even turning it on, let’s hook it up and have a look see what it can do.