Home > Consumer Reviews > ViewSonic VP181 Flat Panel 18" LCD Monitor

Almost bought this believing it was 1600x1200 but turns out this is marketing spin. The native pixel resolution is 1280x1024 - I happened to check the Viewsonic website thank goodness. It will map a 1600x1200 signal to 1280x1024 for you, but this is a lossy process. Hope this saves someone.

I've been using a VP181 for three months, now, and I never again want to use anything else. I have not used its fancy features yet. But I live on my computer doing email, spreadsheets, letters, and internet research. And for all of these activities I use the pivot capability (i.e., almost always vertically). Combined with the size of the high-resolution image, it seems to me that living in portrait mode rather than landscape mode is the way that life in the electronic zone was always meant to be. I can see so much more, now, in one rock-solid, clear vertical view that anything else feels like returning to the Dark Ages. And I still have most of the rest of my desk available for spreading out my piles of work right beside the screen.

I've always been looking for a flat panel monitor that can handle the high level 3D graphic. And this monitor is actually the first one i found more than satisfactory. The analog picture input really makes this an outstanding monitor. Plus it's integrated with Dual USB hubs, which allows me to plug all my portable usb devices right next to my monitor.

Simply awesome. The ViewSonic VP181 has turned my long hours spent at the computer into a pleasure. This monitor offers more saturated colors than many other LCDs I have tried and has one of the best contrast ratios of LCDs in this class. A feature I am especially fond of is the ability to easily switch between landscape and portrait modes when working with graphics or extensive business applications. Furthermore, because of the built in speakers, I was able to free-up additional space on my desk. On games, I found the video to be smooth, quick and just as rich as when I am running simple business applications. This unit is attractively priced for the features it delivers.

The Viewsonic VP181 delivered extremely high quality video when used at 1280x1024 resolution. Testing at 640x480 showed mediocre results. Using 1280x1024, the picture was very bright and readable from extreme angles (close to 180 degrees) from the top, bottom, left, and right. Sound from speakers was marginal when compared to good quality external speakers. No chance to test the landscape/portrait mode as the system failed on the third day. The few days that the VP181 was used with impressive results warrants replacing with the same product. We are looking forward to receiving the replacement unit. Had the unit not failed, it would have received 5 stars.