>> Eric: Hi everyone, this is Eric Franklin from CNET.com and I'd just like to say that I don't like half of you half as well as I should like but I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve, so mull that over. Today we're taking a first look at the Planar PX2611W and as you can see it's a behemoth with a 25.5 inch screen and a huge circular foot stand. [Inaudible] display from the sides produce only minimal wobbling as, again, hello, wide foot stand and its 24 pound weight helps keep it put. The screen height is adjustable by about 2 inches and the neck of the display is designed with a hinge at its base and at the top; this allows the screen to tilt all the way back so that it's actually facing directly up. We're not sure exactly what the practical use of this feature is. We do appreciate the panel's ability to swivel 180 degrees to the left and right though.
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>> Eric: Video connection options include a DVI and VGA port with one USB upstream port. On the left side of the panel are 4 USB downstream ports, there's no HDMI port, however. The OSD includes controls for brightness, contrast, sharpness and color temperature plus 6 video presets. The PX2611W scored well on most of our color tests but really faltered in our 2 color ramp tests which look for an LCD's ability to render gradations of primary colors smoothly, uniformly and consistently. In our test the monitor wasn't able to show these gradations smoothly at all. We played movies in the Planar's Movie preset and appreciated its deep lacks and ability to achieve accurate and vibrant colors. Games look great run it at 1920 by 1200 with a nice contrast between the dark colors and the light colors. We didn't see any blurring or evidence of input lag. We also looked at a number of high resolution photos with the Display Mate photos addition in each monitor's Photo preset and the Planar delivered more accurate and unsaturated colors. We also used Display Mate Motion Bit Maps addition to test the refresh speed and noticed that the Planar had more trailing than the HP did. In a power consumption test based on our formula the PX2611 will cost you about $28.00 per year to run compared with the HP W2558HC's $29.00 per year to run. The 25.5 inch Planar PX2611W is heavy, stocky and at an average price of about 800 bucks should only be considered by professional artists who required an in Plane Switch or an IPS based panel. While the monitor features 5 USB ports, excellent reproduction and viewing angles its feature set doesn't come anywhere near what's being offered by the HP W2558HC. For more information check out my full review at CNET.com. Once again this is Eric Franklin this has been the first look at the Planar PX2611W.
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