IT Pro Verdict
Verdict: Though LG’s 10,000:1 contrast ratio figure is rather fanciful details in darker areas are above average at this price and overall the Flatron W225TE delivers good image quality. In our tests it lives up to its claims as the monitor with the world’s lowest power consumption but while the picture will give sterling results for general office use, the styling is unlikely to sit well in a business environment.
There's no doubt that green IT is one of the buzzwords that's making the rounds this year and with good reason. Companies who pay attention to the earth's needs will not only be saving their corporate souls, but they could also be saving themselves a sizable amount of cash.
But while most of the attention is being fixed on servers in data centres and sophisticated techniques such as virtualisation, there are power savings that can be made on the client side. Every generation of desktop and laptops based on Intel's new Centrino 2 brings with it improved manufacturing techniques that can do more with same - or even lower - power envelope. However, the monitor on the desktop is clearly a forgotten component in this and LG has stepped up to the plate to address this with the W2252TE.
LG claims that this monitor offers a 40 per cent reduction on power saving over other 22in displays and over the course of a lifetime of a display, that's a considerable potential power saving - especially if you're looking at multiple seats.
For this reason, we thought it was worth taking a look at the W2252TE to see if it lived up to its claims and to see if it was a monitor that offered good enough quality to warrant a place on a business desktop.
Taking the W225TE out of the box and I was surprised by its lightweight feel, which often doesn't bode well. Once set up on its stand, there's an alarming amount of wobble if it's brushed.
The display clips onto the stand easily enough, but there's no height adjustment, pivot or rotate. With that in mind, it's a lot more basic that the rather feature-tastic L2245w 22in display we looked at a while back from HP. That said, it sits at a good height on the desk and does tilt forward and back.
It also, it has to be said, looks rather more like a television rather than a conventional monitor. That's not really surprising as the design is consistent with the styling LG carries across its television and its mobile phone range. This means lots of shiny black plastic with curved edges, which in this case is offset by a silver curve at the base of the unit. This contains the OSD controls on the left and a very pretty curved blue power light on the right. It's attractive, but the shiny shiny' look might not be suitable for those wanting a more corporate feel.
