The 17-inch BenQ FP767 presents many trade-offs. It sells for a reasonable price but doesn't have a digital connector. It includes two built-in speakers, but they aren't suited to playing music. And though it performed well on some tests, it had trouble with others.

The FP767, an off-white monitor with a built-in AC adapter (no power brick!), fares well when displaying ordinary office apps. It correctly displayed subtle shades of color on our low-saturation color test, matched only by Sharp's 17-inch LCD.

Unfortunately, the BenQ unit's peak brightness and contrast ratio measurements were well below average. It had trouble displaying close to 10 percent of the shades at each end of the gray scale, and when we adjusted the brightness levels, we saw almost no performance change. It also suffered from contrast reversal, with light grays becoming darker than dark grays, and it showed significant pixel jitter.

The FP767 also had a few problems displaying high-quality photos. Details were often lost in shadows, and colors shifted. Of course, the everyday user may not notice these flaws. The FP767 is no less than average--and no more.