5 Widescreen HD Monitors

The last time we had done this roundup, our focus had been purely on the advantages wide-screen monitors offer us. We had also restricted the no of monitors we had featured, due to the immaturity of the market at that point in time to just 3. However a fair bit of time has passed since then. The popularity of widescreen monitors since then has expanded exponentially. This has happened simply due to prices dropping everyday and with the advent of Windows Vista which is optimized for use with widescreen monitors. Keeping all these factors in mind this time round we have decided to expand our list to 5 monitors, to reflect the increased choice and easier availability of these products.

Here is our pick of the 5 best widescreen monitors that are HD compliant and available right now.

Asus MW221


Though Asus is well known for its motherboard and graphic cards, its monitor range has not achieved the same level of brand awareness, due to the cost of their products in India. We had reviewed one of their previous flagship models the Asus PW201 and had found it to be a segment topper, with its great features and amazing picture quality. It however was priced at an exorbitant Rs. 38,000 which put it out of reach of 99 percent of consumers. That price-point also had put it directly in competition, with much larger monitors and totally negated any advantages it might have enjoyed over the competition.

However Asus looks to be changing this state of affairs, with the launch of their latest lineup of widescreen monitors. One such monitor is the MW221, a 22 inch wide-screen monitor with a native resolution of 1680x1050 (16:10 Aspect ratio and 720p compliant) and a fantastic 2ms response time, which will completely eliminate any issues with ghosting of images. Another advantage that the MW221 will enjoy over its competition is its above-average contrast ratio of 700:1 and a brightness level of 300 cd/m2. When you add these features together, you get a monitor that is capable of some very vivid color output with excellent sharpness and clarity and virtually no lag in video.

Priced at Rs. 24,000 the MW221 is one of our top picks for a widescreen monitor today.