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>> Hey guys, this is Eric Franklin from CNET.com and today we're taking a first look at the Asus MS238H. From the front, the Asus looks like a typical display. But seeing it in profile, we get a glimpse of its unique, cylindrical footstand. And, as you might expect from a display that's perpetually tilted back at least 10 degrees, the Asus tips right over when knocked from the front, falling over faster than Mike Tyson's opponents in the '80s. From the sides, it's pretty stable, though. No height adjustment, pivoting or swivel options are included. Connection options include VGA and HDMI with no DVI. But Asus thankfully, includes an HDMI to DVI cable. To the right of the VGA input is a headphone jack labeled "For HDMI." Asus forgoes buttons in favor of touch areas for the onscreen display or OSD, which illuminate when touched. The OSD includes five basic presets and a number of color modes including color temperature options as well as SRGB. When watching movies in a cinema mode preset, we found that dark detail was lost in dark scenes. In the standard preset, this improved, but was still not as good as the Samsung PX2370. Color quality was good if slightly green. In games, we found colors in the game preset to be oversaturated and distracting, and eventually we settled on the standard preset with the color temperature set to warm. This diminished the color saturation, but unfortunately, the vibrancy as well. In power consumption, the ASUS would cost about $8.55 per year to run compared with the PX2370's $7.65 per year. Although it's difficult to find significant fault with the Asus thanks to its low $109 price, the monitor does give you ample opportunity to do so. However, its overall performance is good, and the footstand, for better or for worse, mostly for worse, has a novel design that adds to the monitor's aesthetic appeal. If paying no more than $200 for a new monitor's a priority for you, we can recommend the Asus, thanks to its overall satisfying performance. If you can afford another $100 or so, both the Samsung XL2370 and the PX2370 are better choices thanks to their superior performance. Once again, this has been a first look at the Asus MS238H.
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