Most people that know me know that I like my monitors, right now with the one that I’m reviewing today I’ve got dual 23”, a 22” and a 21.5” one. The two 23” one are 1920×1080 and so is the 21.5″ and the 22” is 1680×1050 resolution, so I’ve got a lot of screen real estate to work with, and you know what? I still don’t have enough…
Today for review I’ve got another products from our friends over at Geeks.com. It’s the ASUS VH232H 23” LCD Monitor and it’s attractively priced at only $149.99 It features full HD 1080P resolution and what Asus calls Splendid Video Intelligence Technology that supposedly will give you the best picture of the right situation. The VH232H has several connection on it, including HDMI, DVI, and VGA along with audio in and audio out and a SPIF connection as well. So read on to learn more..
Specifications:
23″ ASUS VH232H DVI/HDMI Blu-ray 1080p Widescreen LCD Monitor w/Speakers & HDCP Support (Black)
Enjoy high definition 1080p viewing on the 23-inch ASUS VH232H Widescreen LCD Monitor! It’s ideal for DVD movie playback, video gaming and work-related widescreen viewing!
This 23-inch 16:9 widescreen LCD monitor features a 1920 x 1080 resolution, 300 cd/m2 brightness and a 20,000:1 ASCR (ASUS Smart Contrast Ratio). The speedy 5 ms response time eliminates any blurring, making it ideal for fast action games. Get a great view of everything thanks to the 160° horizontal and vertical viewing angles!
General Features:
- 23-inch widescreen LCD display
- 16:9 aspect ratio
- 1920 x 1080 resolution
- 0.266 mm pixel pitch
- 300 cd/m2 brightness
- 20,000:1 ASCR (ASUS Smart Contrast Ratio) Technology
- 160° horizontal and vertical viewing angles
- 5 ms response time
- Supports 16.7 million colors
- 25° tilt angle (forward 5°, backwards 20°)
- Built-in hidden 2W x 2 stereo speakers (RMS)
- Analog Signal Frequency: 30 ~ 83 KHz(H) / 50 ~ 75 Hz(V)
- Digital Signal Frequency: 30 ~ 83 KHz(H) / 50 ~ 75 Hz(V)
- Kensington security lock
- Wall mountable: 100 x 100 mm / 3.93 x 3.93-inches
- Stylish and user-friendly design
- Lead-free
Video Features:
- SPLENDID Video Intelligence Technology
- SPLENDID Video Preset Modes (5 modes)
- Skin-Tone Selection (3 mode)
- HDCP support
- Color Temperature Selection (5 modes)
Convenient Hot-Keys:
- SPLENDID Video Preset Mode Selection
- Auto Adjustment
- Brightness Adjustment
- Volume Adjustment
- Input Selection
Connectors:
- One (1) HDMI
- One (1) DVI-D
- One (1) 15-pin VGA
- One (1) 3.5 mm PC audio in
- One (1) 3.5 mm headphone out
- One (1) SPDIF
Power Specifications:
- 100 – 240V, 50/60Hz, 1.5A
- Power Consumption: < 55-watts
- Power Saving Mode: < 1-watt
Unit Dimensions:
- With stand: 16 x 21.6 x 8.5-inches (H x W x D, approximate)
- Without stand: 13.5 x 21.6 x 2.75-inches (H x W x D, approximate)
Price: $149.99
Unboxing:
The Asus VH232H comes package very well with lots of styrofoam packing material.
Inside you’ll find the monitor itself, the base, VGA and DVI cables and of course the power cord, you’ll have to supply your own HDMI and audio cables sadly.
The monitor is basically all black, it has a glossy black bezel around it with the control button located at the bottom right corner. There’s a small blue LED next to the power button that comes on when you turn it on.
On the back you’ll find all of the connections as you might expect to.
Here it is with the stand attached:
Sadly there’s not much room for adjustments with this monitor, it only have front to back tilting and only for a total of 20 degrees, 5 forward and 20 back. So you can’t raise of lower it at all, but you can always stick a phone book under it if need be right? What else are you going to use it for?!
Installation, Performance, Comparison
Here’s the monitor, I’m using Windows 7 and I use a NASA space theme actually for my desktop. If you look closely you can see the little blue light at the bottom right of the monitor for power. One thing I can say is I like the LED, it’s there, but it’s not bright at all. On some of my monitors I had to put black electrical tape over the power LEDs as they lit up the room at night they were so bright.
Here’s the monitor next to my Hannspree HF237 23” monitor and under my 22” Envision monitor. My fourth monitor is to the left of the Hannspree one, and really didn’t need to be in the picture.
I found that when I turned it on the colors seemed fine, if a bit too white or too bright actually, I only had to lower the brightness a bit and it matched my other monitors fine.
There looks to be a lot of menu choices, but there really isn’t.
I found that navigating them was rather difficult, I’ve got several monitors obviously and the buttons just seems rather unintuitive. It’s hard to explain really unless you’re actually there pressing the buttons, let’s just say it’s not the best navigation system I’ve seen…
You can change the modes via the menu or by pressing the first button on the left to cycle through Standard, Theater, Game, Night View and Scenery Modes. None seem any good except for standard honestly, they all just seem to bright and with the contrast set to high even for Night View mode which you would think might be set lower. Some of the modes seems to make things too washed out, while others are just too bright with off contrast settings. I’ll stick with the standard mode and adjust it myself. I guess to use it as a single monitor you would be fine with changing modes etc, but when you’ve got several monitors you won’t them to be as close to the same as you can get.
Colors are excellent, blacks are nice and dark black and the whites are very bright, as I said I had to tone down the brightness because it was so bright.
There’s no backlight bleeding at all, the backgrounds I like to use are dark so that’s important to me, and I do like to watch quite a bit of Netflix. I have the Asus monitor on the right side of my main one, and I like to play a movie or watch some Netflix on that monitor while I’m working (…one of the benefits of working from home). I played both DVDs and Blu-Rays on the monitor and of course Netflix, everything looked beautiful. Before the Asus I was using the Samsung 21.5” 1080P in that spot, and there’s noticeable difference between them, the Asus is much better looking overall for movies especially.
I don’t do much in the way of gaming on this computer at all, but I loaded up a couple and switched to that monitor to play them. I’ve got an ATI 4890 video card in there, and games were fine, it is a 5ms response time monitor so it should be fine for any gaming. I saw no ghosting or anything like that, it was smooth and looked great really.
The audio isn’t the greatest, but that’s expected really with a monitor that has built-in speakers. I’ve yet to come across a speakers in a monitor that are decent sounding.
Overall it’s a great monitor and I’m very happy with it.
It would be nice if there were more adjustments to the base and the monitor itself, and it would have been nice had it comes with an HDMI cable and audio cables.
Conclusion:
So, for about $150 you can get a very nice 23” HD resolution monitor that is more than capable of playing games and watching movies and of course getting some work done.
Colors are great, nice and sharp and crisp there’s no backlight bleeding at all so movies look very good.
It’s not a bad monitor truly, yes the speakers aren’t very good, but I don’t many people that actually use the built-in speakers anyway…
Pros:
+Beautiful picture
+No adjustments really needed for coloring
+Inexpensive
+Lightweight
Cons:
-Not much in the way of adjustments with base
-Menus are tricky at best to navigate
-Speakers aren’t the greatest
-Doesn’t come with HDMI or audio cables
Ratings
Overall:4 out of 5
Performance: 5 out of 5
Aesthetic: 5 out of 5
Build Quality: 5 out of 5
Disclosure: http://www.bonafidereviews.com/disclosure-policy/
