Quick look (Review) at View Sonic vx1945wm 19″ HD WideScreen with ViewDOCK

The View Sonic vx1945wm, 19″ HD WideScreen TFT

Once again I find my self testing another vx series product from View Sonic, ever after I have crowned the super flop View Sonic vx1932wm one of the worst purchase of my life…

Lets quickly go with the specifications of the product…

Details of the Product

Product Name

View Sonic vx1945wm (version -3)

Product URL

vx1945wm VIEWDOCK LCD

Price

Rs. 10500/- + 4% VAT (USD $311)

Specification

• 19″ HD WideScreen
• 1440×900 resolution
• 280-nit brightness (300 cd/m2) and 700:1 contrast ratio
• Windows Vista / MAC OS X certified
• Response Time 5ms
• DVI / Analog (Both cables are supplied as standard)
• ViewDock (iPOD Dock / 4 USB 2.0 (3 A Type and 1 B Type) / 8 in 1 Card Reader)
• 2.1 Onboard Speaker System (Speakers 2×2-watt / Sub-woofer 1×3-watt)
• Three-year limited warranty.

Read more >>

Product at a Glance

The ViewDOCK

The ViewDOCK USB and head phone and MIC in

ViewDOCK 8 in 1 Card reader

Testing Setup

Hardware 

Onboard G965 (GMA x3000)
Onboard G99 (GMA x3100)
Onboard MCP73 (Nvidia 7150)
Onboard AM 690G (ATi x1250)
Onboard Nvidia 6150
8400 GS
8600 GT 256mb
8800 GTS 320 MB

Notebook Compaq V6608AU <- Analog
Notebook Acer 4710z <- Analog

Frontech External TV Tuner Card

 Software

Windows XP Pro SP2 (x64 / x86)
Windows Vista ultimate / Home Premium  SP1 (x64 / x86)

HD 720p / HD 1080p
VCD / DVD
700 MB xvid / 1400 MB xvid

Fear / NFS MW / NFS Pro Street / UT 2004 / Bio Shock Demo / Counter Strike / FIFA 2007

The Packaging

All required cables like Adapter / DVI / Analog / Power / USB B Type / Audio Jacks are  bundled, which is a major + point over the vg1930wm where you may have to buy the cables like DVI from out side…

Performance

Before going on to the panel it self, lets view the details of the ViewDOCK…

The ViewDOCK needs a separate Power Adapter which comes in the package… So not only a 3 pin jack you need for the panel, you may also need another 2 pin jack for the ViewDOCK adapter… Also the ViewDock connects it self with the System via a USB Type B to Type A connector cable…

8 in 1 Card Reader

Nothing special about it, a simple 8 in 1 card reader.. Supports SD / MMC and such card formats… It is a handy tool when you have a Digi Cam around which comes with SD / microSD / MMC or such card… You can quickly plug this in for picture transfer !!!

Performance is just same as any other external card reader..

The Front Panel USB

As the USB ports at ViewDOCK draw power from the external power adapter so they don’t put much for a pressure on the Computer PSU or the notebook battery backup… But do note, that, its an USB expansion, means the 3 USB of ViewDOCK actually communicates with single USB of the PC, so if you are using all the 3 at once for heavy data transfer (suppose all 3 are running 2.5″ Portable HDDs), the load would slow you down…

The Speakers

Its a moderate one.. I cant compare them with 2.1 dedicated Creative which is Rs. 1000/- or USD 25… But having said that, the 2.1 speakers really play a vital role when you are using the TFT with an external TV tuner card for TV viewing !!!

This is not a bad option considering the price which is Rs. 10500/- + TAX in India… As the TFT / LCD TVs are really costly in local market, it can act as a good alternative.

The iPOD docking

Once again, no something you may want with a PC as the speaker performance is not up to the mark of an USD $ 25 Creative !!! But as you move towards TV platform, where you are suing the TFT with a TV tuner Card for TV Viewing purpose, the speakers matters then…

There are now other popular MP3 players such as Microsoft Zune / Creative ZEN, so it would have been far more effective if ViewSonic could have included support for those as well…

The TFT Panel

It looks the same as vx1932wm lets take a look at vg1930wm / vx1932wm /vx1945wm

vg1930wm

vx1945wm

but the big question is hows the performance ?? and I must admit that its far far better than that older superflop vx1932wm….

I have played HD 720p / 1080p and some games as FEAR / Need for Speed MW or Carbon or Pro Street / BIO Shock and the TFT doesn’t seem to give any ghosting issue or any other performance related issue…

The TFT is flow less with any graphics platform such as any onboard video chipset or the dedicated cards which I have tested…

How ever the brightness is too good for reading and Internet surfing or office jobs… It puts a lot of strain on eyes so I have found my self reducing the brightness / contrast a lot when it comes with reading and every day job…

The Panel reacts quite good with Nvidia or ATi color management panel,

Which allows you to save different profile for Movies or Reading and such, so according to your needs, you may change the TFT brightness and contrast or color calibration with single click on your desktop rather than with TFT on board buttons…

I also must mention, though the TFT performs really good with HD content, but all these large screens are not so good when it comes to play VCD… The lower resolution of the VCD video would not allow you to watch full screen… The Picture would be pixelized when you run a full screen Video CD with a 19″ TFT Panel…

This is not some thing which you may face with View Sonic vx1945wm, rather its a problem with all other large TFTs..

Same lower resolution issue pops up with YouTube too…. As for higher resolution the default size of video is shrunk so, it get hard to enjoy the content !!!

But the good news which you may like is, 700 MB or above xvid RIPs are watchable !!!

The Major Benefit of a Large screen display with you PC is, the ability to multi task… View the Web page on a side, where as you may continue to chat on another corner where as a video may run on the lower right side !!

With large display its the Windows Vista which makes the most out of it, rather than the Windows XP…

Negatives

• By default its too Bright for test reading / web browsing / office working
• Low resolution Video such as VCD is not watchable with full screen
• ViewDOCK is quite useless as its only supports iPODs / Needs external power

Verdict

It is certainly a better product than vx1932wm, however ViewDOCK isn’t some thing which i find useful for PC usage… Still only factor which would put it ahead or VG1930wm is the 2.1 speaker which is indeed better than the vg1930wm and also unlike vg1930wm it comes with DVI cable bundle !!!

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