LG Flatron W2252TE: Greenest monitor in the world?

So you wanna save the Earth, huh? You've got two options: you can visit the Surya nightclub in London and dance on its electricity-generating dance floor, or you can buy an LG Flatron W2252TE monitor.

It might sound like some sort of futuristic tank, but the W2252TE is reportedly the world's most eco-friendly monitor. LG reckons it sucks just 22W in use and as little as 0.3W in standby mode. We tested these claims, and to our delight, it drew just 18.8W in use and less than 0.1W in standby mode. To put things in perspective, other 22-inch monitors tend to draw somewhere in the region of 40W.

So it's genuinely green, but is it any good? Well, yes. The 22-inch panel runs at 1,680x1,050 pixels, the screen isn't horribly glossy, it has a 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 2ms response time, an HDCP-compliant DVI port, and the image reproduction is very, very good. Don't think for a second that LG is simply scaling back the brightness of the backlight to save power -- the W2252TE beams very solidly despite its claimed maximum of 250cd/m2.

One thing we're not sure about are the ridiculous photo effects that can be accessed via the monitor's 'Fun' button at the front. This lets you activate monochrome and sepia tone modes, and -- most bizarrely of all -- a Gaussian blur mode. Yes, the Flatron W2252TE has a blur mode. You can intentionally blur everything on the screen so you can't see anything properly. Seriously, LG, WTF?

The Flatron W2252TE is available later this month for around £200. -Rory Reid