3 Comments to “Acer S243HL bmii 24-Inch Widescreen Slim WLED Display – Black”

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1. Philip Kingston
   June 10, 2010 at 11:33 am | Permalink

   I bought this for the soul purpose of playing video games. It done its job really nice. The screen and everything else is very nice. The controls are little bit odd but you can get used to them very quickly.
   Rating: 4 / 5

2. M. S. Books
   June 10, 2010 at 2:05 pm | Permalink

   I used this monitor for gaming, surfing the web and watching TV and movies. It does them all just fine. My only gripe is that when I’m looking at websites it can appear “grainy” there’s no real grain there it just isn’t as crisp as a 1080P LCD TV would be if you were to use that as a monitor.

   As a monitor though it’s awesome.
   Rating: 4 / 5

3. Maestro
   June 10, 2010 at 3:56 pm | Permalink

   Pros:
   
   Accurate colors
   
   Low power consumption
   
   Slim
   
   Sturdy aluminum base; very easy to attach
   
   Even backlighting; very little bleed (if any at all)
   
   Bright
   
   No bad pixels
   
   2 HDMI inputs
   
   Small power supply
   
   Comes with an HDMI cable
   
   Inputs are in the base

   Cons:
   
   Menu controls take some time getting used
   
   Off center mounting does cause slight sagging
   
   Only 1 speaker (non-issue for me though – didn’t even listen to them)
   
   I find the Acer software tools for tweaking colors and such…odd
   
   Took a lot of time, resources, and patience to calibrate
   
   Usual deficiencies of TN panels which I won’t rehash
   
   No direct input buttons; have to dive into the menus to change inputs
   
   Stated 68% color gamut
   
   Inputs are in the base
   
   Shipping packaging had me worried

   This is my first home LCD and is replacing a 17 inch CRT; I still have it and will dual-display them to compare side by side. Also, I haven’t had a chance to do any gaming yet but if there’s anything out of the ordinary I’ll post an update.

   I’m still in the process of fine tuning because I started calibrating with my old card (Nvidia 6800 GS via analog) and then got a new card (AMD 5870 via HDMI) but this is basically what I have experienced:

   I don’t find the LED indicators distracting; very simple and effective, almost elegant.
   
   Inputs – you’ll either love or hate the placement (they are in the base facing outward, not down) but I bought an HDMI port saver from Monoprice. It’s basically a 90 degree adapter; worked perfectly for this input configuration. I can push the display as far back as possible with no worry about bending the cable.
   
   The power supply is very small, which is nice.

   You really have put some time in to get this monitor looking its best. Out of the box the colors appeared a little washed out. So I first calibrated by eye then used video calibration discs and color filters with just the display’s controls to get it looking its best. At first I adjusted RGB levels in the “user” mode for color temperature but actually preferred the warm (D6500) preset after I A-B them; white looked more white. (I think this monitor’s D6500 setting is accurate but I don’t know for sure.) I then used a combination of the AMD Catalyst controls (side note, Nvidia software is better), the Acer software, and even some Windows 7 tools. Try to get the gamma set correctly first and then tweak from there. Rinse and repeat.

   To me the brightness and contrast controls on the monitor didn’t seem to have as much of an effect as they do on my other displays (HD or otherwise); perhaps due to the white LED backlighting?

   After all that, I think the monitor looks good. My initial observation of seeing washed out colors when I first hooked it up, using right-out-of-the-box settings, was gone. I used a couple of Blurays to check out colors etc. and everything seemed fine. I think they key is adjust as much as you can using the monitor controls (or don’t and just use 50% settings or default settings) and then adjust using software. I seemed to have better results with software-based tweaks. It’s not “perfect” since I’m not a professional calibrator and thus can’t test it with a colorimeter, etc. but it looks good to me. Others with better calibration skills may have a different opinion so YMMV. But all things considered I like this monitor.

   Other stuff:
   
   The preset modes (standard, text, movie, etc.) just pump up the contrast and saturation to varying degrees. Some may find them effective but I will likely never use them.

   Not sure if the lower than average color gamut is noticeable to me; I guess I’ll find out when I A-B with my CRT; not really doing any “serious” photo/video editing so it might not matter.

   When hooking up via HDMI, my desktop was too large (icons off the screen, etc.). I finally figured out that AMD software allows for multiple color space settings with this monitor (I saw four choices). I think I chose the 4:4:2 PC Standard and it fixed the problem.

   Amazon shipped the monitor double boxed; however the outer box was much larger and they only used large pieces of rolled/folded brown paper as filler. No peanuts or other additional packing material. Thus the monitor box inside had lots of space to bounce around during shipment. Thankfully Acer packed it well. However, nothing appeared damaged and the monitor is working fine.
   
   Rating: 4 / 5

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