Product Reviews

This leaves us with the £275 Acer AL2216WSD, which offers a good compromise in terms of quality. Like the Dell, it has an HDCP-compliant DVI port and a bundled cable, but the stand is less sturdy

and the styling a little plain. The on-screen controls are also a little clunky when compared to the Dell and the surface of the display has a distracting mottled effect,

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although you soon get used to it.

Our review model also showed unevenness in the backlight, with faint dark patches in the corners, but it handled our technical tests more comfortably, with particularly smooth colour blending and absolutely perfect grey tones. Plus, the 5ms response time means that, as with the other two monitors, there are no problems in fast moving games or movies.

Buying decision

You must remember that 22in TFT monitors are still relatively new, so if you want fully-adjustable stands and integrated speakers, you're better off sticking with a 20in model for the time being. But if you're happy to take the plunge and your budget can stretch to over £300, the Dell is a superb monitor with quality throughout. If not the cheaper Acer is almost as good and the HDCP-compliance makes it future-proof, but the VGA-only BenQ simply doesn't offer good value when you compare it to the equally cheap, but digital, Mirai DML-522W100.