Iiyama Prolite B1906S

The Prolite B1906S from Iiyama is a 5 ms TN monitor with a resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels.  If you hadn't worked it out already, that means it has a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Screens like this are now more common in offices than with consumers.  However, if your main is typing and editing documents, then this form factor is well-adapted.

Hardware: a nice surprise

Iiyama is trying very hard with this 19'' monitor.  It's on a rotating stand, is height-adjustable and pivots round to portrait mode.  There's a DVI input as well as VGA, and the manufacturer has even though to include a pair of speakers.  There's no HDMI, though, but is it really needed on a 19'' monitor?  That leaves the Prolite B1906S with three starts in this section, where plenty of 22'' monitors don't get more than two.

Average colours, nothing more

With the default factory settings, we noticed a slight blue tinge, which we measured as a colour temperature of 7300 K.  If your eyes aren't used to this sort of thing, you probably won't notice it.

Default Colours

Ideal Colours

If, on the other hand, you like to do a lot of photo or video editing or just prefer to have accurate colours, you'll need to calibrate the monitor as you can't get things right using just the menu.

The contrast is pretty good with a ratio reaching 900:1--we didn't expect it to be as good.

Response Time: demanding games should steer clear

Coloured    Transparent
Average ghosting over ten frames

We didn't notice any particular problems, but this is still a 5 ms screen.  Its limited reactivity means it will struggle to keep up with fast moving FPS games.  For office work, on the other hand, or games like World of Warcraft it will be absolutely fine.  It's even better as its input lag is under one frame.  That's great for online gaming or LAN parties as the gap between the action and seeing it onscreen will be invisible. 

Films: 4:3 aspect ratio is behind the times

Well, it has to be something different for once: here the main problem isn't the lack of an image correction chip, but the aspect ratio of the screen.  In fact, it's hard to find much content today that's in 4:3, as it's largely been replaced by 16:9.  For films, everything will look squashed, so you should avoid this format if you're ever likely to want to watch a movie on your computer.