Philips 20" 200W6CS Widescreen TFT LCD

Yeh at last !! :D

I thought it was sat here waitingm but I had to then go to CityLink and pick it up.
Well I'm just looking at it now and I just dunno what to test first. Just stuck the Matrix's lobby scene on (it's the law) and it looked great.
 
okay.... secondary impressions....hmm

There is backlight bleeding, but it's only been really apparent when in a black loading screen in a game, and not really when there is just a black screen in windows.

I just loaded up Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and the backlight didn't seem to be a problem in-game, but there was what I guess is referred to as 'tearing'. This happened when moving from left to right. I need to test it a lot more. I'll update later.
 
Mine arrived today!

Right, well I ordered this monitor yesterday and it arrived today. So here's my mini review of it so far (bare in mind I've only had it running about 2 hours since I've got in from work)

Packaging

The box said it was 16ms and the 05 model on the outer packaging. However, the monitor was well packaged. First thing I noticed was the weight. It feels solid and the plastics used at first felt like a metal, nice and sturdy. As mentioned it is quite weighty, but 90% of that is the mental in the base to keep the monitor secure. On the back however the sticker states it is the 00 model. So maybe they are just using older stock of boxes but putting the newer 00 model inside?

Setup

Setup couldn't really have been simpler. The DVI cable is already connected to the monitor, so I just plugged it into my graphics card. The monitors VGA connector right next to the DVI, which my X360 is now connected to. Then switched PC on, booted fine. Changed the res to 1680 x 1050 @ 60Hz. First impressions was rather shocked at how clear text was! So much clearer than my 17" Mitsubishi 740SB CRT monitor. Colours were great out of the box too. However I popped the CD that came with it in and installed the drivers. It just limited the refresh rates and resolution. I also installed the program FPAdjust that was on the CD, which guides you through a monitor calibration wizard, which was pretty painless, but it didn't change the settings much. I then went mooching on deviantart for some juicy wallpapers! So far I haven't noticed any dead/lazy pixels either which is a bonus!

Connections wise there is as mentioned DVI, VGA, a usb input to enable the usb on the front left side of the unit. Audio wise there is an audio input to use the monitors speakers (haven't tried them yet) and a headphone socket.

OSD

I then went fiddling with the OSD menu. The only settings (as with most monitors) you can mess with when your in DVI mode is contrast and brightness. I changed the brightness to 36% and contrast to 50% for now, which seemed to take the "glare" off the whites. From the OSD you can change the input on the monitor from DVI/VGA, adjust brightness/contrast. You can adjust the colour temperature from 6500k, 9300k, sRGB, Original colour and user define. You can also as mentioned earlier by Raymond lin that you can set the way the monitor scales. This allows you to run in a lower resolution without having it streched across the screen and making it look blurry. You can also set the audio for the screen up and adjust the image placement (i.e. up, down, left, right)

Gaming

PC - Right the most important section :p The only game I have played on this so far is HL2. First thing i said to myself was wow at the clarity of textures etc, nice clear, vivid colours, looked far less washed out than on my CRT. I then went round running like a headless chicken trying the response times. Going from a CRT with virtually no ghosting, I did notice slight blurring of textures when moving extremely rapidly over walls with my cursor, but I don't normally do this in game. There is slight ghosting, mainly in the dark/black areas of the games, although not enough to stop you seeing what you're doing!. In the lighter areas it wasn't really too bad. It wasn't enough to put me off the game, put it that way!

Xbox360 - Only thing I have tried on here so far was FNR3 demo, and woopey, no black borders! This was using the VGA cable, set at 1360x768 - widescreen. I'm yet to try PGR3 to see what that looks like. I'm glad I went widescreen now though! No real ghosting noticable in this game, but its not that fast paced.

Misc stuff + pictures

Right odds and sods time!

Viewing Angles - Although nowhere near as good as CRT, the viewing angles are pretty good. You can still see a nice clear image from both sides, although it at extremes the screen has a white wash over it. Horizontal and Vertical angles were also pretty good, again at extreme angles (Which i'd never view my monitor at anyway) there was a white glare over the screen but more apparant on these angles.

Here is some pics

Reference picture, head on viewing angle
angle3.jpg


Top down view
angle1.jpg


Top right view
angle2.jpg


I couldnt get a good lower viewing angle shot due to there not being enough room below the monitor to fit the camera, but its about the same as the top down view.

End of part 1 lol.....
 
part 2....

Another biggy - Backlight bleed. This was putting me off the Belinea, hence I went with the philips set instead. Again picture is slightly exagerated (Sp?) and it is hardly noticable in normal use.

Lights off, black background -
blbleed1.jpg


Same shot but lights on, taken from side as not to get the flash on the screen! (looks more like this in the above shot in real life)
screen1.jpg


Last piccy - Just a macro shot (Excuse the flash to the right) of how clear the text is on screen!
text1.jpg


Hope this helps anybody who is thinking about this screen. I'd certainly recommend it!

Thanks

Lee
 
ljt, looks like there's pretty much no backlight bleed on that one, maybe a little leakage but slight uneveness of backlighting is common on nearly all TFT's. Looks like you have a good one there :)
 
well it's down to build quality and eveness of the alignment of the panel to the backlighting. Stock can vary because they can be assembled in different batches or from different factories. As with the 2005FPW, it's down to pot luck, and some just tend to show the issue more than others really.
 
Okay my tearing seemed to be due to my frame rate on Splinter Cell being above 60 fps. I'm quite suprised it is so high with my 6800GT AGP.
I'll check it again.

edit: yeah. I've got fraps running now and if I ramp up the detail so my fps is low then I don't get the tearing that I did get.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Right. I loaded up the Quake 4 demo and I have to say that this screen is perfectly fast enough for me. I don't play these twitchy games myself though.
SP was great, lots of dark corridoors and the back-light was not detracting from my enjoyment in one bit. I have to say if I was very honest that it probably can be seen though, I mean on non-black colours. With one corner ever so slightly lighter than the other. You really have to be looking for it to notice it mind!
I had the same tearing effect on Quake 4 but using Vsync completely sorts it (sorry to flog the obvious but I'd never experienced this effect before).

I'd say that the blacklight bleeding is only going to be an issue if you like using a black wallpaper, or watch many very dark films...etc. It's a bit annoying to see it on the dark screens bit I think I can live with it.

The worst point about the screen so far is a fear of having to possibly upgrade my graphics card!!

I'll continue to update after I mess about more and more.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
i'd agree about the backlight. i've been trying it out again tonight (work has kept me in the office so i haven't had much time to play) and it does only seem to be an issue when gaming/viewing in the dark with a dark/black background.

i've had the light on tonight, and it's not really that noticeable unless you go deliberately looking in the corners.

and i think the problems with backlight bleeding is there in pretty much all the current generation of screens (to a greater or lesser extent) - but the philips' colour reproduction, speed and general good design/build quality do make it a real worthwhile investment.

(as a note, a designer friend of mine who is a real "truecolour"/"i hate LCD" freak has seen the screen now and is contemplating getting one, as after some calibration it really is very very good for the £££)
 
i borrowed my mates pantone huey - whack the brightness up, stick the huey to the bezel of the screen... au voila, a few minutes later, you have a perfectly calibrated screen. great device for the price (if you leave it plugged in somewhere on the desk - ie, not still on the screen - it even adjusts the brightness and contrast on-the-fly according to the ambient light level)

i tried using software calibrators, but to be honest they always make my screen look like it's in photoshop's CMYK mode!
 
I've been reading this post for a week or two now and ljt's review and pics have sold it for me. I am ordering now and will let you all know how things go.

Hopefully OcUK will get it delivered by tomorrow.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom