Philips 200W6CS 20" Widescreen, mini review.

Dark_Angel · 15 Apr 2006 at 20:02

Hey,

I just recieved this monitor, and have been playing around with it all day. First up, I am sorry for not being able to provide any pictures. I dont own a camera

this is my first review, so please be kind

The package contains the usual things:

Monitor
1 VGA cable
1 DVI cable
Power cable
Drivers

After almost throwing the old 15CRT accross the room in happiness, and moving my main 19" CRT in its place as the secondary monitor, I then hooked up all the connections to the philips. I am using the DVI with the an X800XT, and the VGA is sitting my xbox 360.

I fired up the 360 first, mostly just to test if the thing worked without having to wait for my PC to start up. I quit in to the guide, and set the resolution to 1366x768, chose the option "fill" in the size menu of the monitor, so the image will be a tad "stretched" but take the entire screen. As some of you may know, I hate borders with passion.

I loaded up DOA4, simply because of the high amount of vibrant colours that are in the game, and loaded the las Vegas stage to see how the monitor handles blacks. I have to admit, I was astounded to how crisp everything looked. I had previously been using my 19" CRT for my 360, but this just made it look bad in comparrison. Colours and textures where crisp, and I then loaded the temple stage. Once again, it looked amazing. I then switched off the 360, and turned on the PC.

The 1680x1050 resolution was not available at the start without the drivers, but I ignored the CD and simply downloaded the latest drivers off the website. After I download the 7 or so KB file and installed it, I chose the resolution and was amazed at the difference in windows. Using Ultramon to run dual monitors with my 19" CRT (a Samsung Synvmaster 957P in case anyone is wondering). Text now looked amazingly crisp and sharp, colours perfect. Before I got to any gaming, I decided to quickly check for backlight bleed problems, and done the normal technique of using a completely black screen and looking for any bleeding. Sure enough, there is the very slightest amount, but you have to look VERY hard and at certain angles to be able to see it (if you are looking directly at the monitor, you basically can not see it). Excellent I thought to myself. Now for CS!

CSS played wonderfully, I turned it to 1680x1050 and was amazed, the whole screen seemed massive, and I am happy to find I am not one of the people that is bothered by playing on a TFT screen. I then fired up CZ, and set the resolution to the monitors native. Um... what is happening here I thought in a panic.. why is it jerking and running like trash? I rushed back to the desktop, and looked thru the settings in a panic. Sure enough, I found I had left "force 75HZ" on the ATI tray tools. I turned this to "same as desktop" and loaded it once again. AMAZING! problem went away completely, and I was soon running around like a mad man, turning quickly to see if I could notice lag. Perfect!

Finally, I would like to point out that if you are wondering if you can scale images to fit using DVI, for the most part it seems no. HOWEVER, I was delighted to find that by right clicking on desktop, properties, settings, advanced, displays, and then FPD, you can enable "scale image to fit panel size". I quickly fired up oblivion, and change from 1680x1050 to the 360s resolution of 1366x768. Happily the image was still full screen, and the monitor seemed to do a rather decent job of upscaling the image.

I hope this helps anyone thinking of the monitor. I am at the moment playing with colour settings to find the very best possible image colours. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know! I am hoping this review was not terrible, and once again I apologize for the lack of pictures.

*EDIT + update*

I forgot to include a small section on the Screen Menus.

First up, the monitor has the aspect controls, which I have already discussed. in VGA mode, you also have the vertical/horizontal selections. With DVI, the image is auto centred for you. Though you can change things in windows control panel if you chose.

Colours, you can chose between "original colours" (how windows is sending them) 9300K, 6300K, or "user defined" which you chose the RGB values you want.

Personally, I have mine as 9300K at the moment. Brightness and contrast, I have Contrast at 75, and brightness at 35. I have left windows Gamma at defaults. As I stated, I am still playing

frogboy · 15 Apr 2006 at 20:44

When using the Xbox 360 with this monitor, is it possible to fill the screen without stretching the image? If not and there are borders, how big are they?

ATI · 15 Apr 2006 at 20:56

@ dark angel

excellent review and 10/10 for effort, i,m think about this or belinea 102035, and i cant make up my mind as they are both have the same spec and same price.

just curious is yours 16ms or 8 ms, could post the full spec and any reviews with pics of an item if you can or have any.

thanks

Dark_Angel · 15 Apr 2006 at 20:57

Well basically.

If you chose Native mode, then you use JUST the amount of pixels that are in the source media.

So in other words, its a 1 to 1 map. So if the image is 1366x768, then you will see borders on ALL sides, because the monitor has 1680x1050 pixels, and the monitor is only using 13x7.

Fill with aspect means that the monitor will fill the screen until one of the images "hits the end" so in other words, it keeps the aspect of the media, but just stretches it as much as possible. This means that you get small borders at the top and the bottom of the screen. This is the best option in terms of quality vs size.

Lastly, there is Full Screen. This is the option I personally use. It basically says "sod the pixels ratio". It will fill every single pixel of the screen, making sure there is NO borders at all, however the image is a stretched a little vertically. I dont mind this though, I personally prefer the slight vertical stretch than borders.

Does that answer your question?

*EDIT*

I made this image, to give you an idea of the differences (bare in mind, its only a quick effort, so excuse the fact its a bit wonky).

Dark_Angel · 15 Apr 2006 at 21:06

ATI said:
@ dark angel

excellent review and 10/10 for effort, i,m think about this or belinea 102035, and i cant make up my mind as they are both have the same spec and same price.

just curious is yours 16ms or 8 ms, could post the full spec and any reviews with pics of an item if you can or have any.

thanks

Hmm.

Well, I run a program linked in the stickys to be sure, and it go the 10MS mark. So I am guesing I have the 8MS model

Once again, I am sorry but I dont have a camera

I personally grabbed the philips because of the ability to change aspect rations how you want, plus it is VERY easy to switch inputs.

frogboy · 15 Apr 2006 at 21:14

Yeah, that makes sense, thanks. I would probably use 'fill with aspect' as I don't mind borders as long as they are small. I've seen this monitor for a good price elsewhere, think I might get it as it seems to be the best 'bang for buck' screen. The Viewsonic I don't like becuase it's black and looks a little dated design wise. The Philips seems like a great multi purpose screen.

ultim · 15 Apr 2006 at 21:56

was thinking of getting the NEC but after reading this, might get this one and save a few bucks.
thanks for the review

ATI · 15 Apr 2006 at 22:57

Dark_Angel said:
Hmm.

Well, I run a program linked in the stickys to be sure, and it go the 10MS mark. So I am guesing I have the 8MS model

Once again, I am sorry but I dont have a camera

I personally grabbed the philips because of the ability to change aspect rations how you want, plus it is VERY easy to switch inputs.

could you not do it on nother screens in particular the belinea 102035

is basicaly out of this and the belinea and i,m stuck in the middles as they both very similar there are extensive reviews on the belinea but not the philips.

how old is this model by the way

ATI · 15 Apr 2006 at 23:03

could anyone confirm

there two models one with 16,s and other is 8ms, how could you tell which one is which?

thank

Dark_Angel · 15 Apr 2006 at 23:47

As far as I am aware, and you cant scale images with the Belinea. (can someone confirm that? I am like 85 percent sure).

As for the response times, all of OCUK's stock is 8MS. One thing to think of though, although response times are important, the dell series of monitors has a reponse time of 16MS and they are still awesome for gaming.

Obviously though, lower is better if possible.

ATI · 16 Apr 2006 at 07:12

Dark_Angel said:
As far as I am aware, and you cant scale images with the Belinea. (can someone confirm that? I am like 85 percent sure).

As for the response times, all of OCUK's stock is 8MS. One thing to think of though, although response times are important, the dell series of monitors has a reponse time of 16MS and they are still awesome for gaming.

Obviously though, lower is better if possible.

@DarkAngel

thanks for that, how can you tell on the monitor its self?

Dark_Angel · 16 Apr 2006 at 11:15

I am not totally certain on this, because truthfully I did not really take a good look.

I am guessing though, you want a later date of manufacture. You get a model name Philips 200W6CS 00 OR 05 OR earlier. I think the 05 and 00 are the 8MS model. Though to be perfectly honest, I am not 100 percent sure. If anyone actually knows please let us know!

ATI · 17 Apr 2006 at 09:02

Dark_Angel said:
I am not totally certain on this, because truthfully I did not really take a good look.

I am guessing though, you want a later date of manufacture. You get a model name Philips 200W6CS 00 OR 05 OR earlier. I think the 05 and 00 are the 8MS model. Though to be perfectly honest, I am not 100 percent sure. If anyone actually knows please let us know!

thanks for that could anyone confirm this please

frean754 · 17 Apr 2006 at 11:43

This is how to tell if your screen is 8ms or 16ms, confirmed from Philips Scandinavia after lots of email
You should check the serialnumber on the back, the 4th and 5th digit are the year of production (ie 06 for 2006), number 6 and 7 are the week of production (06 = week 6). For my screen it's 0604 - 2006 week 4

Philips said that all screens after week 50 2005 are 8ms so just check the back of your screens.

ultim · 17 Apr 2006 at 12:29

thanks frean754 for the info. Think i better email a couple of retailers before buying.

ATI · 17 Apr 2006 at 14:37

frean754 said:
This is how to tell if your screen is 8ms or 16ms, confirmed from Philips Scandinavia after lots of email
You should check the serialnumber on the back, the 4th and 5th digit are the year of production (ie 06 for 2006), number 6 and 7 are the week of production (06 = week 6). For my screen it's 0604 - 2006 week 4

Philips said that all screens after week 50 2005 are 8ms so just check the back of your screens.

thanks a lot for that just what we needed

ATI · 17 Apr 2006 at 19:00

ATI said:
thanks a lot for that just what we needed

i wish ocuk would have these for £285.00 inc del week special

hint hint

would anyone pay that amount for this screen

come on anyone wouldnt you like to see this monitor or pay £285.00 for it