Home > Consumer Reviews > Acer - MSH X243W 24IN WIDE-TFT ANA 3000:1 400CD 5MS GR ET.FX3WE.017

I have lived with my X243w for 3 months now and overall am fairly satisfied with this monitor. Picture quality is good but under closer scrutiny a slight colour fade out can be discernible at the ends of the monitor and there is a slight difference in resolution as you move from left to right, i.e. it becomes sharper to the point that you can see horizontal pixel lines (albeit very faintly).

Picture quality on films and games is superb for a monitor of this price range though and when displaying these, it quite belies its budget price.
However, I would recommend going for this monitor in black, as the silver paint on the one that I have is not particularly refined and unfortunately cheapens the overall aesthetic.
Would have preferred to have a DVI input as well but mine only has an analogue input available.

Summing up though, picture is very good for the price and you get a large 24" screen for a relatively small outlay.

This is a big monitor with very nice looks in all mat black. Typical Acer adjustment functions. Monitor suffers from backlight bleeding like most low end Acer Monitors. Biggest issue: Colors are extremely uneven, very typical of a low end TN Panel. Just looking at the Explorer webpage
toolbar you can see the colors change going from left to right. To me, this reeks of low-end panel quality. Acer does not state the color gamut on this unit in any of their literature; its probably below 72%. 16.7 Million Colors HiFRC actually means the panel is only capable of 256K, and is engineered to Fake the rest of the colors by combine pixels to create the illusion of 16.7M colors. Interesting enough, games and movies still look decent, although the lack of color is evident. After spending time with this unit, I'm convenced its withwhile spending the extra money for a better quality monitor. This unit is targeted at gamers and movie buffs. Photo and graphic pros and semi-pros need not apply.

I run 2 computers with 2 monitors side by side. So I have continual comparison. My old CRT monitor display started to get really faded compared with the WJ1980PI LCD 19" TFT/ATI Radeon 8500 64mb card one so I decided to get a new monitor. Went to PC World with the idea of getting a Samsung - they get good reviews. When I got there I was able to see several running side by side. I was attracted to the Acer because it is the only one I saw with a really bright, white display. It also looked less "foggy" than the others. Although I use my PC for all sorts of things including games and video etc. I spend a lot of time with Excel spreadsheets and Word documents and need good contrast black on white. It was also £70 cheaper than the Samsung that looked pale in comparison.

This monitor practically set itself up. There is a manual on CD, but I followed the quick instructions on the bit of packaging plastic protecting the screen with no problem. I was a bit apprehensive with the suggested setting of 1920 x 1200, having had experience of difficulty reading small print on screen. I know I can adjust it - but I need not have troubled. The picture is stunning ! The contrast is perfect, the focus really sharp, the colours excellent. My web surfing experience transformed. Being used to needing monitors run at 100% brightness I was pleased that I even had to reduce it a fraction here. This is the only adjustment I have had to make. The 5 quick access presets are a good feature too.

I noticed there are some reviews containing negative comments. I can find nothing to complain about at all. I have never been more pleased. One of the things not mentioned is which display card is in use. I do not see how anyone can review a monitor without this information. I have a ATI Radeon X1900XT 256mb card running on a 1.86 mghz dual processor computer, so it is probably this that makes a difference. My other monitor is looking a bit "foggy" now. Ho hum ....

This monitor was bought as part of a pair for business use, not for intensive graphics or gaming. They were easy to set up and install. The only down side - doesnt come with an Acer driver so you have to hunt around on the internet for one - the Acer site itself isnt the most helpful either, otherwise it installs as a Generic monitor using the Microsoft drivers. Overall, colour and brightness are good and menus for setup are easy to use.