ViewSonic VX2452mh

Price: $169.99

In the perfect world, or at least that of a modern day sensible PC gaming enthusiast, we would all have 27” UHD monitors. These would not only be G-Sync enabled, but would support active stereoscopic technology such as 3D Vision. In addition to this they would be IPS or PLS displays with 1ms response times and all the latest input methods including, but not limited to HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.3.

Unfortunately, no such monitor exists today and even if it did, it would cost well over $2,000 (given the price of the closest thing to such a display on the market). In the real world, most people can’t immediately justify paying more than $200 for a monitor and this is where products such as the VX2452mh hope to make an impression. At $170 (price at the time of writing on Newegg) you should not expect much from a monitor because that is a very low price for what is essentially a gaming monitor. Even at the normal* $200 USD list price, it’s still not much at all to pay for a gaming monitor. Logic would dictate that if you’re the owner of any of the mid to high end graphics cards on the market; you’d want to spend at least double this amount on a monitor to match your hardware investment within the computer. However, an investment of double the amount would not get you double the monitor at all. By double the monitor I mean, not UHD/4K but a QHD monitor with a 120Hz refresh rate and a comparable response time. Hard as I looked I could not find such a monitor from any of the major vendors. Even when I thought I had found something via QNIX, it was sadly a 4ms monitor and one that was not guaranteed to be without any dead pixels or meet the claimed 120Hz sync rate. As such, before one makes any judgments about this ViewSonic’s efforts. It is worth keeping in mind that where value is concerned. You’re not likely to find a better monitor, especially one that performs as well as this one does.

ViewSonic VX2452mh

Size: 22 x 14 x 2.1 in. / 559/2 x 356/7 x 53mm
Weight: 3.8kg (8.3lbs)
Viewable area: 23.6” (59.944cm)
Resolution: 1920×1080 (FHD)
Response Time: 2ms (GTG)
Refresh frequency: 60Hz
Inputs: D-Sub | HDMI | DVI-D (HDCP)
Speakers: Yes 2x2W
Tilt: Yes (0 ~ 20’)

This is standard 24” monitor dimensions as you can tell. There’s nothing out of the ordinary here and it has all the necessary input connectors for today’s computers and consoles. We’d have liked to see DisplayPort support as well. Given that it is royalty free unlike HDMI and this is a budget monitor after all, why not have that display mechanism which had more bandwidth. With that said, there’s nothing preventing you from using your Display Port device with this monitor provided you have an adapter. We’d also have wanted more freedom in the tilt angles and some other viewing options but those are nowhere to be found. For that you’ll have to resort to ViewSonic’s higher end models. What is a diminishing connection mechanism that we are happy to see here though is DVI-D. With so many graphics cards still featuring DVI output and given that just about every “gamer” has this cable, and ViewSonic does not bundle an HDMI cable. This is great to have as you’ll not be relegated to the inferior VGA input which just doesn’t look as good.

General Impressions

Specs aside, how easy it is to both play and work on a monitor determines how much value it really has outside of the financial commitment you make to purchase. There’s some sensibility in having two separate monitors, one for gaming and one for work, but the truth is that most people can only really spend on a single monitor. Again, it would be ideal to have a work monitor where you don’t care about refresh rates and response times, but comfort and colour accuracy. Then for your gaming opt for a high performance TN panel where you’re more concerned about input lag and delivering the smoothest and highest frame rates possible. This isn’t the situation however, especially if you’re looking to buy a sub $200 monitor.

In the time I spent with the VX2452mh, was put off initially but it grew on me and by the time it was returned, I had grown to love its fairly bright colours and relatively crisp image (for a TN panel that is). I did not care much for the tiny speakers as they are only useful for watching your odd you-tube video or something of the sort. For your gaming, you should pretend they don’t exist much like all other speakers on any monitor you can buy. This is perhaps another thing this monitor didn’t’ need, but instead an HDMI cable would be more than a fair trade. Given how mass produced goods are, it is likely more costly to remove the speakers than to leave them there for this particular model.

What I did appreciate about this monitor as well is that it overclocked fairly easily and reliably. This is not a guarantee for every monitor out there, but using 75Hz was very simple and it is just that much smoother and easier on the eyes. There was no image distortion as a result either. 15Hz more on a 120Hz monitor isn’t anything to write home about, but on a 60Hz panel it makes a world of difference. Combined with the 2ms response time, gaming on the VX2452mh was much better than I had anticipated. I was already more than satisfied at 60Hz, but I was even more impressed with the higher refresh rate especially during my second Borderlands Pre-Sequel play through. I liked that this monitor was very easy to assemble as well, just click the base in place and that’s it. It takes less than five minutes to put together. The power supply is built in and needs on a standard kettle cord. It really doesn’t have a whole lot of fuss to it.

Image quality is adequate, if not relatively bright. I did find that yellow and cyan were slightly muddy and some inconsistency from top to bottom. However, this is when you’re viewing a test pattern and not when using normal programs or on the desktop. Backlight bleed is there especially at the bottom of the display but it is uniform and not patchy and as such it’s fairly easy to get used to and soon enough you’ll not notice it. You may improve the standard image quality via the buttons on the underside of the monitor as well. This will further improve image quality, but not by a whole lot. If you’re a stickler for such things and do want the best from this monitor though, you’ll take the time to adjust it for your light conditions and extract even more from it. The one annoying aspect about configuring the monitor is that the buttons as stated above are on the underside on the right. Thus you can’t see what you’re pressing (a shortcoming of many other monitors from other vendors as well) and because of how the stand is pretty much a two piece affair. Pressing the buttons causes the monitor to wobble or rather rise on the right with each press. That is arguably the least impressive part about this monitor which is not much of anything really; because you’ll adjust this monitor once or twice and these buttons are not something you need to access every day. This is a fairly impressive monitor for the price. It won’t set your world alight, but for under $200 it shouldn’t. It delivers exactly what it should and as far as gaming monitors goes, it’s right up there with the best of them in the value department. The VX2452mh gets more things right than it does wrong, especially the things that matter, which to me are the properties of a worthwhile product.

Conclusion

It would be unjust to compare this monitor with a $900 behemoth that houses just about every gaming display technology on the market. This is not what the ViewSonic monitor is attempting to be. When it comes down to it, it’s a sub $200 monitor that packs in as much as it can, without sacrificing too much if anything at all. As stated in the beginning, finding a monitor that’s twice as good for double the money is very hard if not near impossible. There’s no beating the VX2452mh as it delivers more than its price would suggest. If you’re on the lookout for an affordable game capable monitor, this just might be what you need.