NEC-Mitsubishi MultiSync LCD1770NX-BK review: NEC-Mitsubishi MultiSync LCD1770NX-BK

NEC-Mitsubishi MultiSync LCD1770NX
The NEC-Mitsubishi MultiSync LCD1770NX has a number of great features and it's well designed, and if that were all that mattered, it would be a great display for office and home users alike. Unfortunately, what's plain as the nose on our Labs technician's face is the 1770NX's disappointing image quality. For about the same price, you can get a better LCD, such as the Samsung SyncMaster 711t, or at the very least, you can get away with paying less for an LCD of similar quality, such as the ViewSonic VX710.

The LCD1770NX makes a great first impression. It's framed by an unobtrusively skinny bezel. Along the bezel's bottom edge are four rectangular adjustment buttons that launch and exit the onscreen menu and switch between analog and digital inputs. A tiny joysticklike wand handles intramenu navigation and makes adjusting the image easy and fun. There are five USB ports located on the back of the panel--one upstream and four downstream--and one USB cable is included, along with an analog signal cable.

The LCD1770NX inhabits a sparsely populated middle ground between highly adjustable LCDs and those with nary an articulation point to be found. Its base has a lazy Susan that allows for nearly 360 degrees of side-to-side swivel--an excellent range of motion that makes it easy for workers in open-plan office environments to share their creations. The neck can be raised four inches to accommodate users of varying heights, and the panel tilts about 30 degrees back and forth. The panel can be attached to a VESA wall mount, but it'll require some unscrewing. The only adjustment option not included is a Portrait/Landscape pivot. This feature is usually found in larger LCDs, though some 17-inchers, such as the Samsung SyncMaster 711t, can make the switch to Portrait mode. Where most LCDs have a straight up-and-down neck, the LCD1770NX's curves forward. This doesn't seem to serve any particular purpose, except make it hard to raise and lower the panel. The telescoping action is stiff, the angle is a bit awkward, and the base wobbles and kicks up a lot when you try to adjust the height.

NEC-Mitsubishi has put quite a bit of thought into the cable-feed system, something neat freaks are sure to appreciate. There are three plastic loops on the back of the display where the neck meets the panel and two more loops alongside the neck. The loops vary in size, so some of them can accommodate more or thicker cables. Once you have the cables all tucked in, you can snap the plastic cover over the back of the neck to cover everything up.

Through the onscreen menu (OSM), you can adjust basics such as horizontal and vertical positioning, menu timeout, brightness, and contrast. But the LCD1770NX also has what's called an AccuColor control system, which amounts to a few extra color temperature settings, including sRGB, which uses a standard red, green, and blue setting so that you can easily communicate color settings for consistency across different displays, and native, which is the original color presented by the LCD. Another touch we like is that through the OSM, you can set it so that the joystick button automatically takes you to brightness and contrast adjustments. If you don't like using the OSM, you can download NEC-Mistubishi's NaViSet software and perform all of your adjustments with your mouse and keyboard through a tabbed Windows interface.

We were considerably less excited about the NEC-Mitsubishi LCD1770NX's image quality. We tested it using CNET's DisplayMate suite at the monitor's native resolution of 1,280x1,024 with a 60Hz refresh rate. Text was somewhat faint and lacking in contrast, which made it less sharp than we like. The dark end of the grayscale took on a greenish tint instead of staying pure gray, which indicates color-tracking errors, and extreme black could have been a good deal darker. We also noticed that the screen was not uniformly lit: the bottom half was a lot lighter than the top half, and there was a bright edge along the top and sides of the screen. DVD playback was tolerably smooth but background colors and skin tones showed some digital noise.

The NEC-Mitsubishi MultiSync LCD1770NX comes with a standard three-year warranty on parts, labor, and the backlight. You can extend the warranty one year for $50 or two years for $80. Toll-free phone support is available 24/7, and live chat with a tech-support representative is available via NEC-Mitsubishi's Web site Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. MT.