The Envision G2016wa is a 20-inch wide-screen LCD monitor with some impressive specifications and features. It boasts a low sticker price, a fast 5ms pixel response time, 3,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, and built-in speakers. Unfortunately, the two speakers are passable at best, and the text appeared a little fuzzy in our tests.
Setting up this thin-bezel, all-black display was a snap, literally: the base comes disassembled and requires you to pop it on before setting it down on your desk. This plastic display is very lightweight, but it looks a little cheap. It has two one-watt speakers built into the front, just below the screen. They sounded OK.
There are two inputs, one digital DVI and one analog port. When I connected the Envision to my 2.66GHz Mac Pro, it booted up automatically into its native 1,680-by-1,050 resolution. I used a Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Display 2 to calibrate the monitor, but the display offers color controls, including three presets (Cool, Normal, and Warm) and a User mode that can be customized using the onscreen menus. After calibration, the colors looked good, but not as pleasing as some other displays we’ve reviewed. Text was a little fuzzy, but legible. Our panel of Macworld editors gave it a Good rating for both color and text. The Envision didn’t fare as well in the viewing angle test, with color shifts and loss of contrast setting in quickly as you move your head either left or right of center; it earned a Fair rating.
The display advertises a dynamic contrast ratio, a technology that lets the monitor examine incoming images and then adjust the backlight to increase the range between light and dark areas on the screen. It also has a fast, 5ms pixel-response time, which is good for keeping up with action onscreen. But while movies and games looked good on the Envision, they didn’t really look any different than they did on monitors in its category without dynamic contrast. And 5ms is about average for these types of displays.
jury tests
| Viewing angle | Fair |
|---|---|
| Color fidelity | Good |
| Text legibility | Good |
Scale = Superior, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor
How We Tested: We connected the display to a 2.66GHz Mac Pro with 1GB of RAM and an Nvidia 7300GT graphics card, running Mac OS X 10.4.10. We noted the performance of the display with its default, out-of-the-box settings and then calibrated it to 6,500 Kelvin with a gamma of 2.2, using a Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Display 2 colorimeter. The Macworld Lab viewed a number of on-screen test images and rated each display as Superior, Very Good, Good, Fair, or Poor on its color, text, and viewing angle compared with a sampling of similar displays.—Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith
specifications
| Size | 20 inches |
|---|---|
| Native resolution | 1,680 x 1,050 |
| Connections | 1 DVI, 1 VGA |
| Viewing angle | 160 degrees |
| Brightness | 300 cd/m2 |
| Response time | 5ms |
| Contrast ratio | 3,000:1 |
| Dimensions (height x depth x width, in inches) | 15.0 x 8.3 x 18.6 |
| Special features | Built-in speakers |
| Warranty | 3 years |
Macworld’s buying advice
The Envision G2016wa is a fine, inexpensive, 20-inch wide-screen LCD. Colors looked better than average right out of the box, but onscreen text was a bit fuzzy. If you’re in the market for an affordable LCD, the Dell E207WFP ( ) costs just a few dollars more and performed better in our tests.
[ James Galbraith is Macworld ’s lab director. ]
Envision G2016wa