-Hey guys.
This is Eric Franklin from cnet.com, and today, we're taking a first look at the AOC e2243fW.
The AOC looks like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey with its pale white chassis contrasted by its glossy black bezel delivering a clean, sterile look.
Continuing with that futuristic motif or at least what was to be the future in 1968, the foot stand is slightly dome-shaped, looking like a flying saucer.
On the bottom of the foot stand are four VESA-style holes, to mount the monitor on a wall or stand making the AOC's ability to tilt back 90 degrees, actually useful.
No other ergonomic options are included, but that's not too surprising given the monitor's low price.
When knocked from any side, the display wobbles and slides quite a bit due to its slight 6-pound weight.
The connections include only a DVI port and VGA port
with AOC deciding that one of the most coveted and ubiquitous digital connections a little HDMI was not worth including.
On the top front of the foot stand are sensors that make up the onscreen display array and power button.
The OSD includes typical controls for brightness, contrast, sharpness, color temperature, and red, green, and blue customization.
And depending on the application running, they do a fairly good job.
Navigating the OSD is a clunky process to say the least
with only right and left movement options available, maneuvering up or down in the menu takes longer than we'd like.
In movies, the AOC displayed dark detail as well as the Samsung PX2370 and we only noticed a slight green push that was mostly alleviated by a little massaging of the red, green, and blue values.
In games, with color boost on, we saw a very vibrant image, with somewhat washed-out color.
Still, we saw no hint of color tint problems.
In power consumption, the AOC would cost about $7.30 per year to run compared it with the Samsung PX2370's $7.65 per year.
It's not a pejorative to state that AOC knows how to make cheap monitors.
In particular, e2243Fw can be found for as low as 150 bucks, includes a fairly robust onscreen display, and performs well in movies and games.
Sure, there's no HDMI and navigating the OSD can be a particularly apoplectic experience at times,
but for 150 bucks, AOC offers a more than decent package.
We wish the warranty covered the backlight for more than a year, but that's not a major quibble.
For half the price of the Samsung PX2370, the AOC delivers a monitor that, though a step or two down in quality, is well worth its asking price.
Once again, this has been the first look at the AOC e2243Fw.
