The LM-500 comes in a box less than half the size of a typical monitor. It seems difficult to let go of the old CRT size even at this point... Unlike most monitors it was really easy to get out of the box (the LM-500 only weighs about 10Lbs). Setting up the LCD display literally consists of snapping on the bevel base and plugging in the power cord. No more, no less. The display uses a 15-pin DSub Video cable to connect to a standard graphics card.

With the support base of the LM-500 having a foot print of just 7" by 12" it frees up an amazing amount of desk space. The entire display itself measures only 3" thick, and roughly 16" across. The power cord connects to the back of the base, and being that the entire unit weighs in at around 10Lbs it's easily portable about the desk, home, or even office.

We found it extremely useful for working with, and fixing some computers which normally operate without a monitor. In the typical scenario some lucky soul would get to carry over a 17" CRT display and hook it up to the computer in question. It was a lot easier to carry over this flatscreen than to hook up one of the CRT fellows. Naturally, this isn't going to be something the average home user has to think about, but if any computer repair guys are reading this, and know what I mean about moving monitors around, or bringing the customers' system to one central monitor you'll know what I mean!

The Details are in the display

There are a few things that anyone moving from a CRT display to a LCD display will notice, regardless of manufacturer. First, if you are unaccustomed to the sharpness of the LCD display, the picture will seem amazingly sharp - no matter how good your previous monitor was. Second, you'll notice that the screen seems to be curved inward. Hunh? Well, unless you've been shelling out for really high-end monitors, you have been looking at a screen with curved glass. Oddly, the eye tries to compensate for this out of habit, and thus for the first little while the LCD screen may look somewhat concave.

We've been working with the LM-500 at a resolution of 1024x768 thus far as this correlates to the physical number of pixels well. If the resolution is changed to 800x600 or 640x480 the pixels don't line up perfectly and you get a sort of dithering effect. It is not especially bothersome, or really even a problem, but for comparisons sake take look at the examples below.

The first image demonstrates what the screen would display with a resolution of 1024x768. Keep in mind the pixelation and colouring you see is because we have the lens of our digital still camera about 2mm away from the surface of the display (the Sony Mavica MVC-FD73 uses camcorder optics and can focus on objects as close as 2-3mm away).

At this maximum resolution setting the pixel to pixel ratio is exactly 1:1, and the resulting image is very crisp. At a slightly lower resolution the image is slightly larger so it is spread out over multiple pixels, rather then exactly one. The pixel to pixel ratio in this instance would be along the lines of 1:1.28. Finally with the display set at the lowest resolution, 640x480, the dithering that was evident in the second example we talked about is more balanced. In this last case the pixel to pixel ratio is on or about 1:1.6.

Resolution effects on type
1024x768	800x600	640x480

The backlight on the display is good for about 10,000 hours before the manufacturer recommends it be replaced. We found that the intensity of the backlight was very even. White pages were evenly toned throughout. A solid black background showed a bit of shadowing from the backlighting in the corners, in a sort of large "X" pattern, but this is apparently normal to the technology.

The LCD display is not as flexible as its' CRT counterparts, but the LM-500 does offer a very comprehensive list of settings. Due to the graphics adapter we were using for our tests, we were only able to test out the three settings above (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768).

The full list of resolutions and frequencies are listed below:

The On Screen Display for the LM-500 is one of the more unique ones we've seen as on screen displays go. Why? Well the interface is rather well thought out and very simple to use, and secondly, there are a few settings on a LCD display that simply don't exist on CRT displays...