There are plenty of TFT displays on the market that are little more than a panel mounted on a basic stand, with the whole shooting match built down to a low price. The Philips 190P7 stands out from that particular crowd in a number of respects.

For one thing it looks absolutely lovely, and that's not the sort of thing we often say about products unless they come out of the Apple or Sony stables. And for another thing it's packed full of features.

Let's start with the stand, which is so grand that it has the specific name of 'Super Ergo Base' and offers a full range of ergonomic adjustments which consist of tilt, swivel, height adjustment and pivot.

Unusually, the 190P7 has dual DVI inputs so you could plug in a laptop alongside your PC or, indeed, a pair of laptops, which might be handy if you're giving a presentation. Many laptops have a VGA output so it's good that Philips supplies a VGA-to-DVI cable in the box and also supplies the requisite USB cable for the twin-port USB 2.0 hub that is tucked behind the bezel.

Perhaps the most conventional aspect of the 19-inch screen is the 1,280 x 1,024 resolution, although the 300-nit brightness rating is also par for the course. The contrast ratio is fairly high at 1,300:1 and, while it's not the sort of thing that you can necessarily judge consciously by eye, we found the displayed image to be sharp, bright and clear. The viewing angle is a massive 178 degrees both horizontally and vertically, and that really shows as you move around at your desk; the image remains rock solid.

There's one final feature that isn't immediately apparent even though it is located on the lower bezel in plain view. This is the SmartBright ambient light sensor which adjusts the brightness of the screen depending on the ambient light level. When the light level is low the screen is darker but if the ambient light level increases then the screen gets brighter. This is especially welcome if you prefer to have your room illuminated by natural light from a window instead of artificial light. SmartBright can be enabled and disabled in the OSD.

All of this is not to say that the 190P7 is perfect, and we came across one especially silly, niggling fault. The pivot function requires you to switch the picture from portrait to landscape so Philips includes its SmartControl utility in the package. This piece of software hooks into your graphics card drivers so it is essential that your graphics card is on a list of approved models.

Unfortunately the list only includes ATi and Nvidia chips and while you might think that leaves Matrox, SiS and S3 graphics users in an unfortunate minority, that 'minority' also includes Intel graphics. In our opinion that's a major oversight.

Verdict
You pay a moderate premium over mainstream 19-inch TFTs for this model but Philips gives you plenty in return. Indeed the 190P7 comes very close to getting a recommendation, however we have reservations over the pivot function.

Company: Philips

Contact: 0870 900 9070

Tags: universal serial bus philips digital visual interface matrox nvidia video graphics array photodetector hardware