My New Monster Monitor - Benq FP241W

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I purchased a Bell ExpressVu 9200 since I lacked a HDTV PVR. I really couldn’t resist since the audiovisual manager at London Drugs offered half price on it for me and, let’s face it, half price for just about anything awesome is just a good deal regardless of what it is. No, really…if it’s worth buying, you can offer me just about anything at half price and I’ll take it. I don’t mean like damaged fruit, dented cans or Vietnamese karaoke DVDs. I mean if you offered me a new Ferrari at half price tomorrow, I’d buy it immediately so a small purchase like a PVR was a no-brainer.

The problem after that was getting a TV to match it but I discovered that there really was no good place to put the 32″ TV I had planned to purchase. The only real option was to mount it on the wall but if I did that, it would not be at a good viewing angle or height.

The solution was to purchase a new computer monitor. One that has the inputs for all my stuff and big enough so I don’t feel like I’m watching a ghetto TV. I was a couple minutes away from purchasing a Dell 30″ monitor but after reading a bit more, I discovered it only had dual DVI inputs and nothing else! What good is that? The 27″ Dell was simply too expensive for what it was since I would always feel like I’d rather have a 30″. So my choices after that were all 24″ monitors.

Initially, I was just going to purchase the Dell 24″ since it was a bargain at $699. However, I had read all kinds of things about how it doesn’t perform all that well as a TV or a display for my Xbox. There were better options, including a Gateway monitor at the same price but was sold out at Future Shop when I went to purchase it.

With all my options rather exhausted, I decided to wait awhile…and then after some routine browsing through NCIX, I found the Benq FP241W…a 24″ monitor that can handle 1080p HD and was the only monitor to have a HDMI connection. Perfect! So I drove down the street to NCIX (which is literally down the street from my house) and picked it up. At $875, it was the most expensive 24″ LCD out of the few I had narrowed down to but with the extra options, 1:1 pixel mapping and HDCP, it was well worth it. I was lucky enough to get one with zero dead pixels too! Here it is on my desk along side a 17″ LCD that I use as my second monitor.

After hooking it up, I was rather impressed with the 1920×1200 resolution. Although the 30″ Dell’s 2500xsomething would have been more impressive, 1920×1200 runs on a single DVI connection rather than two. The Benq’s colors were a bit washed out out of the box but after a short routine calibration with a Spyder 2, the colors were vibrant and the blacks and whites were…well, really black and really white.

It’s only my first day with this beast so maybe I’m just a bit over enamored with it to give a proper objective opinion but for now, I’d recommend it to anyone as long as you make sure you get the 1:1 mapping fixed (done with the latest firmware update. All of them at NCIX are updated) and you don’t mind spending the extra $200 over the Dell. If anything important comes up, I’ll be sure to update this post but with all the buzz on net regarding this display, I seriously doubt it.

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