Acer AL1732 Prestige

Starting by checking the viewing angles for the AL1732 Prestige, the 17" LCD has a typical viewing angle for both horizontal and vertical of 140°. While the horizontal viewing angle was not as wide as the AL1714, it did surpass the capabilities of this Value LCD when it came to the vertical angle. In our tests, we found these stated viewing angles to be representative of their real-world values, and we experienced no problems in these areas. We also experienced no signs of dead pixels, uneven brightness, or other potential imperfections.

For our additional tests, and those that are subjective, we performed a variety of operations within Fedora Core 5 and GNOME v2.14.0. These tasks varied from using OpenOffice and Mozilla Firefox to playing Enemy Territory, and finally watching a few DVDs using mplayer. Overall, we were incredibly pleased by the picture quality of the LCD and related characteristics. Of course, these pictures here today simply cannot do justice for the impressive image quality. When gaming we had noticed no ghosting or tearing issues, that are known to plague less reliable displays. Having multiple people view the Acer AL1732 Prestige in these various environments, the consensus was that the quality of the display was certainly superb for being in the sub-$200 price range. Although the visuals were excellent, there was some room for improvement with the integrated speakers. Listening to the DVDs and several FLAC audio files the mid-range frequencies came in clear and were reproduced appropriately, however, the low and high range areas were poor with these speakers. Of course, these speakers are both rated for 2W and users certainly expect much out of them unless they are the casual non-audiophile.