Home > Consumer Reviews > Compaq FP745A 15" LCD Monitor

Rather than replace a beloved desk which can't accommodate today's humongous monitors, I opted for a flat panel, and chose the FP745A after seeing several 15" and 17" models side-by-side at the store. Despite the steep price, I don't regret my choice.

The sharpness and color saturation are excellent (and can be fine-tuned by the user right down to specifying your own RGB values). The screen is so nonreflective that I can use it comfortably beside a sunny window (which was a major problem with my old monitor). Because the *viewable* area is 15", it doesn't seem that much smaller than the 17" (i.e., 16" viewable)Trinitron CRT I use at work, and I've found it more than satisfactory for everything from spreadsheets to simulation games. Plus, it weighs almost nothing, so I can easily shift it around as need be to make more room on my desk.

My one complaint is that the two of the cables that come with it might be adequate if the monitor were sitting atop a console CPU, but they're far too short to reach a minitower that sits at floor level. (However, a couple of inexpensive cable extensions solved that problem.)

One tip for the user: I connected mine to a new Compaq 7110US, which automatically set up the monitor using a preinstalled driver. Later, when I'd go to Control Panel>Display Properies>Settings, the monitor would flip out and I'd have to cold boot to get any image back. The problem was solved by (re)installing the driver from the diskette that came with the monitor. My OS (WinMe) balked, insisting I already had the optimum driver, but IT WAS LYING. Afterward, I was finally able change the palette from 16-bit to 32-bit (true) color, which made a world of difference.