14 DAY TRIAL // You'd think that we've moved past the times when people actually sold monitors with viewing angles narrow enough to cause annoyance, but it seems Iiyama has decided to make a blast into the past in this regard.
The new monitor in its ProLite collection, called ProLite E2483HS, is a 24-inch display with a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, Full HD as it were.
That's the normal part. The not so normal part is the TN-film LCD technology which only provides viewing angles of 80 degrees horizontally and 85 degrees vertically.
It's enough to make one boggle in bafflement, since that means that even the slightest tilt of the head, or if you decide to lounge on the arm of your chair, will mean a loss of image clarity and brightness.
Nowadays, TN panels can usually manage 160 degrees horizontally and 170 degrees vertically, making the difference between them and IPS screens of just 8-10 degrees.
Then again, if all of them were that good, there would not be much point in using IPS technology in the first place, especially since the wider viewing angles come at the cost of brightness and response time.
Not that the Iiyama ProLite E2483HS is that amazing in those regards. The response time is a normal 5 ms, while the brightness is of 250 cd/m2, hardly amazing.
It is obvious that the Japanese display maker was aiming for the low-end market, the segment composed of startup small businesses and owners of low-performance computers.
When looked at it that way, the new monitor is actually not that bad. After all, despite the poor viewing angles and mediocre brightness, it still has Full HD resolution and 1000:1 contrast ratio.
Moreover, the 24-inch display uses LED backlighting, which, combined with the ECO Mode, can bring power consumption to just 24W.
Furthermore, Iiyama installed flicker free brightness control (no PWM is used to control LED brightness), as well as blue light reduction technology. Both of them reduce the strain on the eyes, allowing you to work for longer stretches of time. Good at the office while you're drawing up a spreadsheet.
Finally, the newcomer has DVI, D-Sub and HDMI inputs, plus a stand with basic tilt adjustment, just to make sure you can make the best of the viewing angles. Unfortunately, Iiyama's ProLite E2483HS has not been given a price yet, and it's not clear if sales will start right away or in a few weeks.