ADI is a respected brand in the CRT and LCD monitor markets, so you’d expect this LCD display to be pretty good, and first impressions don’t disappoint. It’s a 15-inch display, with a screen area that’s approximately equivalent to that of a 17-inch CRT monitor. The fixed resolution is 1024 x 768, which is a good match for the display size; higher resolutions are not supported, but lower ones are, although inevitably you end up with pixel blocking in most of them, as is the case with nearly all LCD displays.
One area in which this display is considerably more impressive than most CRTs is brightness. Even in full sunlight, the display can be adjusted to compensate, outperforming two CRT monitors that we tested alongside it. Another good point is the option to wall-mount the display. The MicroScan 6L is supplied with a desk stand, naturally, but the wall-mount feature will be of interest to banks and other financial establishments where desk space is at a premium.
Display adjustments are made using three buttons along the bottom of the screen, via an on-screen menu system that’s very easy to navigate and, importantly, has an ‘auto-adjust’ function that should find the best settings for each mode. The MicroScan 6L supports DDC for Plug and Play operation, and comes with a pretty good user manual. A four-port USB hub is available as an optional extra, and ADI backs the display with a three-year, next working day, on-site warranty.
The downside? Well, although ADI claims a ‘simulated’ colour depth of 16 million colours from its 18-bit processor, we found that there was some posterising of complex photographs. To be fair, though, we’ve yet to see an LCD screen that doesn’t exhibit this behaviour, even using a digital graphics adapter.
Company: ADI
Contact: 020 8327 1900