Having a sleek 22-inch LCD monitor perched on my desk certainly raised my workstation’s cool factor compared to its bulky and less fashionable predecessor.
The ViewSonic VG2230wm was surprisingly easy to unpack given its massive size didn’t at all correspond to its expected weight. And the ergonomics are cool. A 360-degree swivel, alarmingly tall height adjustment, and 20-degree back and five-degree front tilt. But admittedly, I probably would never need to raise the screen that high, nor have the sort of “collaborative” workstation to need my screen to swivel at that wide a rotation.
But aesthetics aside, it took several tries to get the screen resolution to “take”. My system required Windows XP and a fair bit of fumbling from IT. But finally with the right resolution and aspect ratio, it was like having my own mini movie screen!
The sheer size is great for multi-tasking with multiple windows open; I could work on two Word documents side by side. But the screen is unusually bright, something that even the lowest level of brightness couldn’t solve for me. And the buttons controlling the brightness and other settings were awkwardly positioned at the side of the monitor in a very unintuitive order.
For straight word processing, the size is an unnecessary luxury. But it’s not a bad investment for the professional creative designer who would benefit from the responsive screen and vast canvas for image viewing. Plus the built-in microphone is cool, although not entirely necessary.
After a month, I’m not sure I got used to its imposing size on my desk. I guess using it for simple word processing wasn’t enough of an ingredient to loving it.
