Acer AL1715b 17" LCD Monitor
Our testbed that we had the dual Acer AL1715b setup to was composed of the following parts:
| Hardware Components | |
| Processor: | Intel Pentium 4 530 (3.0GHz) @ 3.2GHz |
| Motherboard: | Tyan Tomcat i915 S5120 |
| Memory: | 2 x 512MB Corsair XMS PC4400 |
| Graphics Card: | Gigabyte 6600GT GV-NX66T128 |
| Hard Drives: | Western Digital 160GB SATA (WD1600JD) |
| Software Components | |
| Operating System: | FedoraCore3 |
| Linux Kernel: | 2.6.10-1.741 |
Initially, we decided to check out the OSD (On Screen Display) and see exactly what settings could be adjusted. Contrast, brightness, focus, clock, horizontal position, vertical position, warm, cool, user defined, language, OSD position, auto configuration, information, reset, and exit are the menu options available with the Acer AL1715b OSD. One menu item we were pleased with was the ability to change the location of the OSD on the screen, along with adjusting how long the OSD will remain seen before it times out. Due to image compression, camera lighting, exposure/refresh rate, and capture angle, some of the photos aren't truly representative of real world viewing of the Acer AL1715b 17" LCD monitors.
After turning on these monitors and using them for a while, we were impressed that no pixels were dead or damaged! Both monitors were free of visible imperfections. Before jumping ahead with any gaming, we began with some general productive tasks. These items included Adobe Photoshop 7.0 (using Wine), AbiWord 2.2, and Mozilla Firefox 1.0. During all of this testing, both monitors were running at their native resolution of 1280 x 1024.
Although these office applications weren't very demanding, these LCDs worked extremely well and we suffered no setbacks with using these LCDs for the office tasks we mentioned. Next up on our agenda, was to evaluate the performance while watching a couple DVDs. We settled for Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, and We Were Soldiers. To round off our testing, we played some America 's Army Special Forces 2.2 and Doom 3. We also decided to settle for a few rounds of BZFlag and Tux Racer.
Overall, we were most impressed with these Acer 17-inch displays. Pictures simply can't do justice for showing the stunning quality of these competitively priced monitors. The auto adjustment feature with the LCDs worked great, adjusting the viewing position and settings, for optimal viewing pleasure. We experienced no troubles, especially when gaming, with any "ghosting" or refresh problems.