ViewSonic VX2460H-LED monitor review: A great $200 value, despite shoddy build

The ViewSonic VX2460H-LED is a 24-inch monitor with a 1080p resolution and dual HDMI ports. With a price of only $200, the aforementioned specs alone are enough to recommend it to those looking for a general-purpose monitor. Luckily, it also has a bit more to offer.

The monitor's default settings don't do it any favors in the performance department, but the five color temperature presets and inclusion of full RGB adjustments mean you won't have to settle for what you're given.

Once tweaked, the VX2460H-LED provides appropriate colors and contrast for general-purpose tasks and surprisingly good performance in movies, with deep blacks and natural-looking faces and environments.

However, it's a $200 monitor, and its build quality feels like a $200 monitor with an incredibly wobbly screen and decidedly plastic-y feel. There's also no DVI port, and games lack contrast and color.

Still -- and just in case you missed it -- it's $200, and at that price, the VX2460H-LED's offerings outweigh its design and performance flaws.

Design and features
Thanks to an outer light gray trim and an overly wide bezel, the ViewSonic VX2460H-LED resembles a large photo frame at first glance. The side bezel measures a space-hogging wide 1.1 inches, with the panel's thickness coming in at a waif-like 0.6 inch. The entire panel is 22.8 inches wide and weighs a modest 7.06 pounds.

The screen is 24 inches in diagonal, with a native resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels. There's a 16-degree back-tilt option and 5 degrees of front tilt, but no other ergonomic options exist. The display sits on a "Y"-shaped foot stand that's 10.5 inches in width at its widest and extends back about 2.5 inches from its quite narrow circular neck. The screen wobbles something crazy when knocked from the sides and even a bit when accessing the onscreen display (OSD) menu or adjusting its tilt degree.

On the back are two HDMI ports, a VGA, and a headphone jack that all thankfully face the rear instead of down. I know not everyone appreciates this design as it may mean the monitor has to stand out a bit farther from the wall it's in front of in order to plug it in, but I think the convenience that back-facing connections provide in terms of being able to be accessed easily is more important for most users. Wall-mounters, however, may be disappointed to learn of the lack of built-in VESA support.

The OSD sits on the face of the bottom bezel and includes a menu button, enter button, power, and up and down navigation arrows. Options include contrast and brightness in addition to five presets: sRGB, Bluish, Cool, Native, and Warm. You also directly adjust the red, green, and blue color attributes.

Design and feature highlights
Connectivity:	VGA, HDMIx2
Ergonomic options:	13-degree back tilt, 5-degree front tilt
Resolution:	1,920x1,080 pixels
Aspect ratio:	16:9
Audio:	Headphone jack
VESA wall-mount support:	No
Included video cables:	VGA, HDMI
Backlight:	LED
Panel type:	TN
Screen film:	Matte
Number of presets:	5
Overdrive:	N/A
Picture options:	Brightness and Contrast
Color controls:	Color temperature and RGB
Gamma control:	N/A
Additional features:	N/A

Performance
I tested the ViewSonic VX2460H-LED through its HDMI input, connected to a Windows Vista PC with the included HDMI cable. The display posted a composite score of 97 on CNET Labs' DisplayMate-based performance tests.

DisplayMate: The VX2460H-LED displayed light gray up to level 254. Level 255 is considered white, and every level between it and 1 is a variation of gray. The VX2460H-LED's performance here indicates that the display will likely not be prone to washing out light colors; but in real-world tests, this proved to not necessarily be the case. More on this later. As for dark gray, the VX2460H-LED displayed down to level 4 while maintaining a fairly deep black, indicating that the display is fit for movie-watching.

The monitor excelled in nearly all of our color-scaling tests, which evaluate how smoothly it displays different shades of various colors with the VX2460H-LED yielding very few color abnormalities.

Text: Black text on white looked clear, without any obvious color tint problems. Fonts were clearly visible down to a 6.8-point size.

Movies: I tested the VX2460H-LED using the Blu-ray version of "Avatar." As for presets, Warm was the most appropriate to movie- and TV-watching, with faces carrying an effective amount of life, while not appearing oversaturated. However, there was still a surprisingly noticeable green push still prevalent. I had luck going into User color and adjusting to the following attributes:

Red: 82
Green: 79
Blue: 93
Contrast: 74

Games: When evaluating the look of games on a monitor, the two most important features to consider are vibrancy and color. If the monitor can display games with a bright and vibrant cleanness, this goes a long way. If colors also pop with fullness and depth, games will usually look great.

BioShock Infinite looked descent, but it lacked a level of contrast and color saturation that makes games really pop on higher-end monitors. The same could be said for The Witcher 2, which is a colorful game when I play it at home on a much higher-end monitor but has an overabundance of green and brown here. The games don't look terrible. They just don't look great compared to the way movies look on this monitor and to the way games look on monitors with better panels.

Viewing angle
The optimal viewing angle for a monitor is usually from directly in front, about a quarter of the screen's distance down from the top. At this angle, you're viewing colors as the manufacturer intended. Most monitors aren't designed to be viewed at any other angle. Depending on the monitor's panel type, picture quality at suboptimal angles varies. Most monitors use Twisted Nematic (TN) panels, which get overly bright or overly dark in parts of the screen when not viewed from optimal angles.

The VX2460H-LED uses a TN panel and sports a narrow viewing angle, especially when viewed from the bottom.

The merits of antiglare (AG) screen coating are much debated these days. Some viewers prefer that the coating not be applied at all; others favor only a limited amount. And others are completely indifferent. AG coating doesn't adversely affect a monitor's quality, and its benefits or lack thereof are strictly a matter of preference.

That said, there is a heavy AG coating on the VX2460H-LED's screen, reducing potential reflections while keeping very little of the contrast "pop" that glossy screens enjoy. A fully glossy display can increase the perceived contrast of a monitor screen -- which some people prefer -- but can also make it difficult to see what's on the screen in direct sunlight.

Juice box
ViewSonicVX2460H	Average watts per hour
On (default luminance)	21.6
On (max luminance)	21.6
On (min luminance)	11.7
Sleep	0.28
Calibrated (200 cd/m2)	20.5
Annual power consumption cost	$6.64
Score	Good

Service and support
The ViewSonic VX2450wn-LED comes with solid coverage, including a three-year warranty that covers parts, labor, and the backlight. The company offers a 24-7 toll-free technical support phone number and e-mail-based help. However, there is no Web chat support like some other vendors offer. Navigating ViewSonic's Web site and finding drivers and the monitor's user manual was easy.

Conclusion
Although its performance isn't stellar and its build quality isn't of the highest standard, the ViewSonic VX2460H-LED finds some success, depending on your needs. It works great as both a general-purpose monitor and as one you plan to watch a few movies or TV shows on. It's also fine for light gaming, but serious gamers have many more deserving options.

Those on a budget will most assuredly appreciate its bargain-basement $200 price.