LG Flatron M227WD - 1080p TV/Monitor mini review

[elpedro]

Similar to the LG M2394D 23" sold at OcUK, the M227WD offers a full 16:9, 1920x1080 resolution but in a compact 22" display. It sports some of the best connectivity options available that are usually reserved for the larger more expensive products, shown here below.

List of connections:
D-Sub VGA
DVI-D
Composite
S-Video
Component
2x Scart
2x HDMI
CI Card
RCA
3.5mm Audio jack

Outputs:
3.5mm Headphone/Speaker
Optical audio

The M227WD also features a DVB tuner for digital freeview and radio stations. Automatic tuning is very straightforward, select your language and timezone and the tuner scans for any available DTV and Radio signals. The graphical menu makes the M227WD a delight to setup. There are a vast amount of picture and audio settings available such as the 'gaming mode' display setting, backlight adjustment and a list of pre-set sound configurations.

A common problem with smaller sets is with their sound quality. Unfortunately the M227WD isn't much of an exception. The built in 3W speakers are adequate but lack any base or depth. Thanfully, the audio output enables you to connect your existing speakers, giving you full control over the volume with the remote.

Furthermore, if using the screen as a PC monitor, the 3.5mm audio input allows you to play your PC audio through the TV and out of any external speakers connected via the output jack. This feature is extremely handy, allowing you to mute and change the volume from your PC with the LG remote.

The panel itself is fantastic. Many LCD owners using an ATI or NVidia card will be aware of the 'Saturation' and 'Digital Vibrance' control for enhancing dull displays. This on the other hand needed little to no amendments in the settings to get the best picture. Colours are sharp and vivid, the brightness is superb and has a very clean look.

The screen has a standard contrast of 1000:1, this is further improved with a dynamic contrast of 20,000:1; capable of improving the depth of darker shades.

The TV has a glossy black finish which in a dusty environment may require a little extra cleaning; a small price to pay for such a beautiful design. The bottom of the TV is completed with a 'wine red' panel, an eye catching contrast against the black.

Overall this is a tremendous TV monitor and with a price tag of less than £200, incredible value for money. All this and piece of mind knowing its made by a quality manufacturer.

~elpedro

 

[elpedro]

thanks for the review mine is beeing delivered friday

can the screen support the full 1920x1080 via HDMI ?
I have HDMI out on my graphics card.

I'm also going to connect my Xbox360 via component so hopefuly this will look nice.

whats the built in freeview picture like ?

some people have said 22" is to small for a 1920x1200 res ?
i will be sitting 1ft away from the screen.

Yes, 1920x1080 is supported via HDMI although not in PC mode. If you want to use your PC, you should use the DVI or VGA connection (comes with VGA cable).

I take it you have the older Xbox, if not, there are two HDMI connections.

The TV picture is perfect, like I mentioned, loads of settings for you to play with to get it looking how you want.

22" is definately not too small, ideal for a PC monitor and for use as a small TV.

 

[elpedro]

ok thanks.
my xbox360 has hdmi out so i will use that.
i wonder if the pc would look better via vga or dvi.

i have a dvi to vga adaptor but do i lose quality that way ?

im coming from a 26" samsung tv (vga 1360x768) so i hope i get used to the smaller screen lol.

Definately use HDMI for you 360. As for the PC, DVI is a superior connection to VGA. DVI is a digital video signal whereas VGA is analogue.

 

[elpedro]

How are the vertical viewing angles mate? Do you know what type of panel it is? Looking at getting the 27" version...

I lie on my bed at the back of my room watching TV and sit right up close when I'm on the PC and have no problems viewing it from either angle/distance. The stand does tilt also.

The connectivity on this looks ridiculous for the price.
Have you been able to test all of them?

might very well chnage from my hp w2207, seems to have held its value relatively well and would cover majority of the cost of one of these.

Built in speakers any good? lol

I have used the HDMI, DVI and RGB inputs along with the audio in for my 2:1 speakers, no problems at all.

The inbuilt speakers are acceptable for a small TV with plenty of audio options to fiddle with. Personally, I've hooked up my wall mounted Logis. Because the audio is going through the TV, you can adjust volume with the remote and don't need to use the speaker's adjustment.

Similarly, I'm using the audio in on the TV for my PC, so when I'm running DVI, the audio through the speakers is from my PC, then when you switch to DTV, it swaps to the TV audio.

Mine arrived yesterday, bought from the largest river in the world. If OC sold it I would have bought it from them as I like the company but hey ..
Perfect for the bedroom , really can't recommend enough

I'm the same as this guy, shame OcUK didn't stock this. Picked mine up for £198 inc delivery online. Insane price for such quality. I had the older LG 22LS4D before this one, the improvements LG have made are astonishing whilst keeping the price down!

One thing about this for the gamer, with it being only 22" and full 1080p, you can get away with less anti-aliasing with the pixels being that bit smaller so jaggies are far less noticeable. Colours are out of this world, you sometimes want to pick stuff out of the screen it looks that good

 

[elpedro]

Just ordered one of there based entirely on your brilliant review! Thanks for uploading the pictures as well

Hah, thats great to hear. I was looking all over before I bought mine for some piece of mind; thankfully I took the plunge and wanted to let everyone else know how good it is

i might consider buying this also when i come back from holiday

is there any ghosting ingames with the 5ms response? and can u post some more pics

Nope, response time really isn't an issue at all.

looks like a very good multifunctional screen, want one defo.

but which one 23" or 27" both have the same resolution. seeing as its primary use will be as a television and some people said tv picture is ok nothing special, surely its going to look much better on the smaller model?

The DVB tuner is superb, standard TV hasn't looked so sharp and vibrant.

Anyone who has purchased one of these, would be great to hear your opinion or anything you may want to add!

 

[elpedro]

elpedro, have you tried connecting it to the pc using hdmi cable? What was the effect? Does it run at lower resolution?

Thanks

Hard to describe, it doesn't lower the resolution but the picture isn't as sharp. My old LG set, when you ran HDMI, you could chose between a PC and a Video setting. The PC setting made it pixel perfect sharp, the video setting is what this set (M227WD) looks like. I can't really explain it, but its not as good as the DVI connection for use as a PC monitor.

Maybe someone can better explain this than me who knows what I mean Failing that, I could take a photo with my dSLR which should be able to show the difference.

 

[elpedro]

I'd be grateful if you could take those pictures

OK, sorry that the angles aren't exact, but it is still clear to see the clarity difference between the two connections. If someone could explain this, I would be grateful as I cannot understand why a 1080p signal can appear different on a native 1080p set

Like i said, previously I used a LG 22LS4D, when connected via HDMI, you could toggle between a PC mode and a Video mode, the video mode looked blotchy like in the photo above and the PC mode was pixel perfect like the DVI photo. I have no idea why LG haven't incorporated that feature in this newer model; made me have to buy a DVI cable having already forked out for a gold plated HDMI

And anyone who is wondering, my desktop background is a carbon fibre custom Bugatti Veyron, my one ofc

 

[elpedro]

thanks elpedro i have ordered one of these 22" LG monitors & your mini review helped me make the final decission.

Ha awesome, what's even cooler is I'm guessing you found this review via google as that was your first post on this forum

 

[elpedro]

Just received mine and I am very impressed! The amount of inputs this thing has for the price is great. The picture is very good quality, especially when watching blu-rays. The digital signal quality is also pretty good as well. The only drawback are the speakers that come with the television, they are tinny, hardly any depth to them. It doesn't matter though because I've connected my computers audio out into the audio in on the monitor, and then put my speakers through the headphone socket on the TV. Overall it does the job very well, and i highly recommend it, especially for £190!

Great stuff, exactly what I've done with my speakers too Can't believe the prices are dropping, mine was £203 when I wrote this review

 

[elpedro]

2- my screen suffers from a slight backlight bleeding on top & bottom of the screen only visible on my black wallpaper (changed it for this reason to colorful wallpaper which looks so beautiful),its not a problem really because it doesn't affect anything (watching tv,playing games...etc) but my Dell didn't have such a thing,is yours the same if not should i return mine for replacement?

All LCDs suffer from some form of backlight bleeding, but in all honesty what you mentioned isn't obvious at all on my set. I viewed a solid black image on full screen, there's the smallest amount of bleed on the bottom, next to nothing from the top or corners.

I'm not sure what LG's warranty is like with backlight bleeding, and it could just be your eyes are more sensitive to it than mine. Like you said, unless you have a solid black image on the screen, you cannot see it.

Anyway, other than that, I see there are a whole load of positives you've taken from this set. Most 1920x1200 16:10 screens are 24", with this being the same amount of pixels wide but only 22", you get a sharper image I feel. I went from a 22" 1680x1050 to this and I cannot tell you how much cleaner it looks. I agree with the colours being superb, we have a 37" Philips 1080p TV in the lounge, the colours aren't as good as the LG's.

 

[elpedro]

returned mine to E***** because the backlight bleeding got worse so they sent me a replacement & to my shock they sent me a customer's returned monitor with a dead pixel in the middle & finger marks all over the screen & a long scratch at the bottom.i'm really upset with this kind of service,them trying to sell me a customer's return is not on. now i'm going back to my 24" s2409w Dell monitor until i see the LG on good offer from a decent company.

Thats pretty rotton luck. As I and someone else mentioned on this thread, the backlight bleed is barely noticeable so you must have been pretty unlucky. I hope it was by accident they sent you the B grade monitor

 

[elpedro]

I saw this TV the other day and I'm really tempted to get it as it looks great for the price. Your review has really made me want to get one now

I have got one question though. You say that it's possible to output audio from PC to the TV then connect your speakers to the TV. Does it have outputs for 5.1 and what form of input for this does it have?

Thanks

I'm not too sure how the audio works. I know it outputs Dolby Digital via the optical out connection. Hope that helps

 

[elpedro]

(For my first post) I have a quick question - can the base be removed if I plan to wall mount this TV? I would assume so, but from the photos posted, I can't see any obvious screw holes or any other way that it might slide off. Has anyone wall mounted theirs?

Thanks for any info.

Yes, the base stand is removable and yes it is VESA mounting compliant

Cummon OcUK - you must have noticed the views this thread has, get them in stock

 

[elpedro]

I just received my M227WD, thanks again elpedro for your review. It is really the only one i've found on the net.

About the monitor itself, what can i say.. It's beautiful, the image from PC is great even on VGA (haven't tried DVI yet), the view angles are very good and the remote control is just the right size. What i don't like is the backlight bleeding on the upper side, and the speakers. But overall it's a great monitor.

Another satisfied customer, I hope LG find this thread

 

[elpedro]

how does it look when a tv is connected to it?
really want one

If you talking about the built in digital TV tuner, the picture is superb for standard definition. Plenty of options in the menu to play with to get the picture how you want it.

 

[elpedro]

my advice is not to use the monitor's audio output or input,the sound processing is very poor even when using headphones or speakers,what i do is use the M227WD as a display only (which is great) & for audio i use the original source (like ps3,pc) connected directly to external speakers or headphones,the only time i have to use the built in speakers or headphones connected directly to the monitor is when watching freeview channels (which is very rare).bottom line any audio coming out of this monitor is very poor even when connecting external speakers using the monitor's audio 3.5m jack unless you only watch news channels.

I would have to disagree, I have the audio going from my PC, into the TV and out the external 3.5mm jack and its sounds perfect! Definitely no different to directly connecting the speakers to the PC.

I've even hooked up my Sennheiser to the headphone jack and it sounds perfect. I would agree the in built speakers are poor quality, but all the other features make up for this common problem on small sets.

 

[elpedro]

NEC is better brand thats why they charge a lot more money but the NEC 24WNGX3 is not necessary better than the LG m227wd plus you have 3 year warranty on the LG so you shouldn't worry about quality,
if you're console gamer like me (ps3) & going to use hdmi for your console then BUY this LG monitor i have no doubt it will beat any high end monitor,picture quality simply brilliant.i love it so much,my ps3 never looked this good not even on our 37" hdtv.really glad this monitor has 2 x hdmi ports.

I wouldn't say NEC is better brand, especially when it comes to TVs. The reason for the NEC's expense is due it being an A-MVA panel.

MVA (multi-domain vertical alignment) was originally developed in 1998 by Fujitsu as a compromise between TN and IPS. It achieved pixel response which was fast for its time, wide viewing angles, and high contrast at the cost of brightness and color reproduction. Modern MVA panels can offer wide viewing angles (second only to S-IPS technology), good black depth, good color reproduction and depth, and fast response times due to the use of RTC technologies. There are several "next-generation" technologies based on MVA, including AU Optronics' P-MVA and A-MVA, as well as Chi Mei Optoelectronics' S-MVA.
Analysts predicted that MVA would dominate the mainstream market, but the less expensive and slightly faster TN overtook it. The pixel response times of MVAs rise dramatically with small changes in brightness. Less expensive MVA panels can use dithering and FRC.

 

[elpedro]

My netbook (Asus N10J with nVidia GeForce 9300 GS Graphics Controller) has an HDMI port but not a DVI port. Do you think I could use a HDMI-to-DVI cable (really cheap) with the LG M227WD monitor and get the clear image you obtained with a DVI-to-DVI cable?
.
Thanks!

Thats exactly what I'm doing, I've got an HDMI to DVI adapter on my graphics card and a HDMI/DVI cable (it was cheaper than the straightforward DVI cable).

It works absolutely fine, just remember there will be no sound transferred to the TV though, HDMI carries audio and video but DVI only carries the video.

 

[elpedro]

Hi everyone, after trawling this thread I'm being persuaded by this monitor.

Borat style: "Is NICE!"

The main problem for me is how well it scales down to 1680x1050. I want 1920x1080 for desktop space, but the lower resolution to game on so that it doesn't crush my graphics card.

Does the LG scale down well? I mean, does it look as sharp as 1920? Any info on this would be really helpful.

Cheers

It adds black bars either side of the picture as 1680x1050 is 16:10 aspect whereas 1920x1080 is 16:9. You should be able to disable the scaling to force it to stretch however.

I would just go ahead and try gaming on the full res (doing the monitor justice) or at least shrink the res down to a 16:9 aspect such as 1600x900

EDIT: Just looked at your sig, you will be doing your 4870 a massive favour playing @ 1080p, that card and this res are made for each other!!!

 

[elpedro]

Could someone who has this monitor please explain how it is like when using as a TV, is it a good TV to watch freeview on. I want to use the monitor mainly for 360 and TV, i don't really have a desire to connect up the computer to it, so i am worried i will be disappointed with it's TV capabilities, plus, when using a monitor people sit close to screens so does this look good from a few meters away like a TV would, i don't want to sit to near the screen like i do when using computers.

Thanks.

I sit about 7 feet away when watching normal TV, no problems whatsoever. The digital TV listings are very sharp, easy to navigate and has all the usual features like favourite channels, auto timer, quick view on the remote to swap between last two channels viewed. Really, for the price the features are really generous.