A Comprehensive Review of The Viewsonic VX2025WM

[skulkingghost]

I ordered this monitor wednesday May 31st and received it Friday the second (My graduation day from high school woot!) From newegg.

//all video and pictures temporarily removed for bandwidth reasons. sorry
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824116381
For $329 and $13 shipping.

First thing I noticed was the excellant boxing it came in. It was shipped tightly packed in foam with a clear plastic protector over the screen. I unpacked the monitor, set it up on my desk, and plugged it into my x1900xtx's Dvi port. Without any tuning the picture was already excellent!
I quickly set it to its native 1680x1050 resolution and fired up a 1080p (even though 1080 is 1900x1200) Wmvhd movie to test it out.

The first run was the dolphin video and flight video.
Excellant and vivid color reproduction was what I was soon awarded with. Video has never looked so good (especially alongside ATI's VIVO codec) Brights were bright, darks were dark, and only a minimal amount of backlight bleed (which is to be expected, and did not, nor does it bother me at all)

Next I booted up FS2004 (Flight Simulator 2004) because Im a flight addict, and it is also a good test of color reproduciton and banding. I maxed all the settings and ran the game at 1680x1050.
No ghosting whatsoever, and the cockpits and planes/airports have never looked so good! I cannot wait till FSX!

The next game on my list is Battlefield 2 (sorry ahead for the sub par pics) This game does not run natively in widescreen, so I went to widescreen gaming forum, and found a way to edit my shortcut to get the game to run in widescreen, sacrificing a bit of room at the top and bottom of the screen, and a stretched hud (not the monitors fault, blame dice for lack of widescreen support. However, the game itself was ot stretched, just the hud, and the games I played were great, ending me up 3rd and fourth in each map.

My Final game to test was Tomb Raider Legend, an equally dark, and bright game (from gloomy caaves to beautiful waterfall vistas! The game ran awesome, as it supported widescreen natively, and ran the game flawalessly at 1680x1050.

Next up came the net test, to see how hard on the eyes it was to read long posts in forums, and a general test of font clarity. The screen was excellant, no visible quality loss anywhere!
Finally I ran 3dmark 06 at 1680x1050 to see how it looks. Here is a video of the canyon flight at 1680x1050

Overall Im loving this monitor, I ran dead pixel buddy and came up with no dead pixels. I am very pleased and would encourage anybody considering a monitor to look closely at this model.
Additional pictures of the monitor can be found here:
--Skulk Out--


My Rig:
Amd fx-55
2gb Gskill 2-3-3-5 Ram
x1900xtx 512mb
Soundblaster Audigy 2
Gigabyte Nf4 Motherboard
Thermaltake cooler
8x Dvd-Rw
4x Dvd-Rw
Tycoon Fan controller
520w Ocz Powerstream Power Supply
2x120gb Wd Drives
Logitech g7 Wireless Mouse
Logitech Media Elite Keyboard (soon to be g15)
Lohitech z-640 5.1 surround sound
Viewsonic's VX2025WM 20.1 inch widescreen monitor

[Rattle]

man your the best this monitor is coming to my desk very soon, appreciate the in depth review with all the pics and video.

cheers

[lemings]

Thank you for this, brings a tear to my eye :)

EDIT:

I didn't get a chance until now to go through the whole review, and I must say... Thank you very very much. This monitor has become the question of a lot of people planning to buy a new monitor here lately.

[Mr.Guvernment]

let us know if you have the DVI power saving issue - it is killing alot of DVI port for people and they are needing to use a dell fix to get the DVI working again on the LCD / video card,


as far as i am concerned - it killed my x700 PRO that was working flawlessly until i rebooted on night and the card stopped - this was after i had the DVI power saving issue - i had to unplug the power from the LCD and DVi cable, reboot comp, plu monutor back in, and then it worked, 2nd time it did it i had to plug the LCD into my laptop DVI, turn it on in my laptop, then put the monitor back to my x700.


Also alot of people are having centering issues with NVIDI 7*** where if you go smaller then 1680 x 1050 res- the image does not scale, it streches looking like crap.



Dont get me wrong, i love mine, better then my 2005 was, but this DVI issue need to be resolved and i wont be buying my x1900 until Viewsonic acknowledges this obvious issue and fixes it.

[skulkingghost]

no dvi issue yet but I will let you know if one occurs

[Rattle]

so there's a DVI power saving issue WTF !! its always something with these damn LCD's if i could get a widescreen CRT i wouldnt even be contemplating this.

Anyone with links with in depth info on the power saving problem please share or fill me in, i was set on buying one of these but now I am thinking twice.

[veryhumid]

I'm not even looking for a monitor, but thanks for taking the time to post this :clap:

[Mr.Guvernment]

check out over on [H] search for the LCD and see.

not sure how wide spread it is - i know got my 2025xm running of a PCI g4 mx400 card via VGA and actually - i am REALLY suprised how good it looks on the desktop!

it is crystal clear!

[jjv687]

Yeah I've been looking at 20" LCDs to buy and was leaning heavily towards this ViewSonic, but what is this power saving issue and what exactly does it do?

[Mr.Guvernment]

the LCD goes into power saving mode, and basically the DVI out port stop working. This doesnt happen to everyone obviously, but is like the dell issues, happens to some but not others.

You then need to get this fix thatdell released, connect the LCD in VGA mod,boot from this floppy, then your DVI will work again

another issue is eople and NVIDIA cards not having games using smaller res then 1680 x 1050 scalre properly.

[jjv687]

Can you just turn off the power save mode and save yourself from this trouble?

[Mr.Guvernment]

when you reboot or turn off your comp your lcd goes into a power save mode.

this is what happened to me, i rebooted and POOF! didnt work anymore.

[Brahmzy]

Question: How much slower in real world gaming is this thing compared to the VX922? I'm REAL sensitive the smearing/ghosting and can't stand 8ms LCDs.

[larva]

I screwed up and didn't buy another 2005FPW when dell had them last. I bought the VX2025wm as an inexpensive alternative, and it looks exactly that. The DVI port is buggy. It won't do 1680x1050 via the DVI port when connected to the Chaintech GF4MX4000 that's in the machine I use it on. The card works fine with a 2005 or any other LCD I've hooked it to.

As also mentioned, at times the monitor can go into never-never land when using the DVI port, and I've even had it dissappear when using another PC on the analog input, and switch back to the DVI. I'd call the DVI input just plain buggy. Of course Viewsonic's cure for my situation was to run 1440x900 resolution (nevermind the card wouldn't go over 1280x1024). Just run non-native or VGA... great solutions.

Image quality is good, but not great. You'd think it was great if you hadn't seen a 2005FPW. Color is again, good, not great. Text quality? Good. Brightness? Only good. This monitor is a whole lot better than the average (2-8ms non-PVA or IPS 6-bit) crap that people run towards these days, but it's fairly underwhelming next to a 2005. Now that dell has replaced the 2005 with the clearly inferior 2007 I can't point to a superior alternative, however. The race to lower spec-sheet response time (lies) has taken the truly good panels off the market.

[jjv687]

Well. I can honestly say that I was planning on getting that Viewsonic today, but within about an hour after reading larva's post I did this..

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8820702610&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1

:) I think I'll be happy.

[Mr.Guvernment]

I screwed up and didn't buy another 2005FPW when dell had them last. I bought the VX2025wm as an inexpensive alternative, and it looks exactly that. The DVI port is buggy. It won't do 1680x1050 via the DVI port when connected to the Chaintech GF4MX4000 that's in the machine I use it on. The card works fine with a 2005 or any other LCD I've hooked it to.

As also mentioned, at times the monitor can go into never-never land when using the DVI port, and I've even had it dissappear when using another PC on the analog input, and switch back to the DVI. I'd call the DVI input just plain buggy. Of course Viewsonic's cure for my situation was to run 1440x900 resolution (nevermind the card wouldn't go over 1280x1024). Just run non-native or VGA... great solutions.

Image quality is good, but not great. You'd think it was great if you hadn't seen a 2005FPW. Color is again, good, not great. Text quality? Good. Brightness? Only good. This monitor is a whole lot better than the average (2-8ms non-PVA or IPS 6-bit) crap that people run towards these days, but it's fairly underwhelming next to a 2005. Now that dell has replaced the 2005 with the clearly inferior 2007 I can't point to a superior alternative, however. The race to lower spec-sheet response time (lies) has taken the truly good panels off the market.

I thought the opposite, i thought it blew my 2005 out of the water in all colors/ brighness etc, mianly cause this is an 8bit panel but the 2005 is only 6bit (or at least the one i had) - i know many people say you need to calibrate this monitor and it is then spectacular, i have been doing alot of high quality photo editing on mine and i am imrpessed beyond beleif, even on VGA i am suprised at how it looks.

Right now i have it running off a PCI GF MX 400 64mb cause my x700 died and i got no issues running 1680 x 1050.

If they fixed this DVI port issue, this monitor is 2nd to the $800 NEC i keep reading on many photography forums.

[larva]

I thought the opposite, i thought it blew my 2005 out of the water in all colors/ brighness etc, mianly cause this is an 8bit panel but the 2005 is only 6bit (or at least the one i had)I don't know if there are two panels used, but I think they are both 8 bit if there are. My unit uses the LG/Philips LM201W01 8-bit Super IPS panel.

- i know many people say you need to calibrate this monitor and it is then spectacular, i have been doing alot of high quality photo editing on mine and i am imrpessed beyond beleif, even on VGA i am suprised at how it looks.I don't see huge need for calibration. I use the sRGB preset on the VX2025wm, and the color rendition is pretty decent. The 2005 looks better, though, and matches my Pantone color pallettes and most accurate printers precisely, where the VX2025 appears slightly washed out in comparison.

Right now i have it running off a PCI GF MX 400 64mb cause my x700 died and i got no issues running 1680 x 1050.I assume the GF2MX400 lacks a DVI port. My GF4MX4000 (a vastly newer card) also works fine at 1680x1050, the problems manifest themselves only when using the DVI input. I purchased a new EVGA 6200 AGP w/DVI, and thankfully the VX2025wm works properly via its DVI port. The monitor was going back if it didn't. The GF4MX4000 that will not work with the VX2025 works fine with my and my friends 2005s, and all other LCDs I've tried (mostly dells, with a few viewsonics and planars thrown in).

If they fixed this DVI port issue, this monitor is 2nd to the $800 NEC i keep reading on many photography forums.I haven't seen the NEC, but if it doesn't seriously outperform the VX2025 I'd be surprised--and of course it wouldn't be worth anything like $800.

[BWR]

I did a quick googling of the problem and came up with this:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=1872226

Looks like the guy got the monitor to work. Does anyone see any problems with this other than the fact that you have to reset your configurations as well as do this everytime the DVI craps out?

[larva]

Yes, the DVI port is ungodly picky. Many users with anything older than a GF6xxx card either can't get the DVI port to work at all, or can't get top resolution through it. It appears in every case the cure is to buy a new video card, and the "incompatible" ones work with other LCDs just fine. The power-save feature is another issue (that a higher percentage of users note).

[BWR]

Yes, the DVI port is ungodly picky. Many users with anything older than a GF6xxx card either can't get the DVI port to work at all, or can't get top resolution through it. It appears in every case the cure is to buy a new video card, and the "incompatible" ones work with other LCDs just fine. The power-save feature is another issue (that a higher percentage of users note).
So if you have a card newer than the GF 6 series Ill be fine? Im assuming the DVI power save mode affects people no matter what video card they have. Other than those two gripes, its a good monitor?

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^ most people i have read have 7*** and newer ATI cards as well.

DAM YOU VIEWSONIC!! you better work on my x1900 XT!

[larva]

So if you have a card newer than the GF 6 series Ill be fine? Im assuming the DVI power save mode affects people no matter what video card they have. Other than those two gripes, its a good monitor?I can't promise you any particular card will in fact work. The DVI port is quite picky, and can pack it in in about any fashion at any time for any reason. The point I was making was that the overwhelming majority of users with DVI issues had older cards, usually of the GF5xxx, GFMX, or ATI 7000 flavor. I believe the cases I have seen with 7800gts have been fixed by a replacement monitor--something that cannot hope to rectify the compatibility issue I'm talking about. The power save issue appears to affect all cards.

Viewsonic doesn't seem to understand there is a real problem, and of course aren't going to listen to somebody tell them of such. I don't know if the problem is hardware or firmware, but I don't think the search for a cure is likely. In my case it meant replacing a gorgeous 300/512MHz 128-bit BGA ram Chaintech GF4MX-4000 that was ideal for my work machine with a 64-bit TSOP EVGA 6200 AGP. The card only cost $40, but adding it to the $344 I paid for my VX2025 I'm kicking myself for not jumping on the $400 shipped w/tax price that the last round of 2005s could be had for.

As mentioned, the VX2025wm is a good monitor. I'd call it great, but my 2005 is simply visibly superior. I don't know if the 2025 has any response advantage, I use the 2005 on my gaming rig and have no issues with 125fps online FPS play. The VX2025 may well be better, but I simply don't play games on the work machine and have no issue with the motion performance of the 2005 in practice (once I capped to 125fps, rather than the 250fps I was running with CRTs).

[jtlee75]

Got 2 of these viewsonics on my X1900XTX and loving it. First real lcd's I bought, now I wonder why I waited so long.

[Vengance_01]

I screwed up and didn't buy another 2005FPW when dell had them last. I bought the VX2025wm as an inexpensive alternative, and it looks exactly that. The DVI port is buggy. It won't do 1680x1050 via the DVI port when connected to the Chaintech GF4MX4000 that's in the machine I use it on. The card works fine with a 2005 or any other LCD I've hooked it to.

As also mentioned, at times the monitor can go into never-never land when using the DVI port, and I've even had it dissappear when using another PC on the analog input, and switch back to the DVI. I'd call the DVI input just plain buggy. Of course Viewsonic's cure for my situation was to run 1440x900 resolution (nevermind the card wouldn't go over 1280x1024). Just run non-native or VGA... great solutions.

Image quality is good, but not great. You'd think it was great if you hadn't seen a 2005FPW. Color is again, good, not great. Text quality? Good. Brightness? Only good. This monitor is a whole lot better than the average (2-8ms non-PVA or IPS 6-bit) crap that people run towards these days, but it's fairly underwhelming next to a 2005. Now that dell has replaced the 2005 with the clearly inferior 2007 I can't point to a superior alternative, however. The race to lower spec-sheet response time (lies) has taken the truly good panels off the market.
Sad to say not a single 20" WS is under 8ms and mostr are really 16ms. All LCDs have there problems some more than others.

[larva]

Sad to say not a single 20" WS is under 8ms and mostr are really 16ms. All LCDs have there problems some more than others.I didn't say there were 20" WSs with sub 8ms ratings. And yes, all LCDs have problems. My input into this thread was to provide some balance to the assesment of the VX2025wm, which is lacking without disclosure of its problems.

[BWR]

Now that dell has replaced the 2005 with the clearly inferior 2007 I can't point to a superior alternative, however. The race to lower spec-sheet response time (lies) has taken the truly good panels off the market.
Sorry for not asking this earlier and thread jacking but I dont understand that statement. I thought the 2007 fixed the banding problem and has improved image quality. :confused:

[larva]

Sorry for not asking this earlier and thread jacking but I dont understand that statement. I thought the 2007 fixed the banding problem and has improved image quality. :confused:You can't fix what isn't broken, but you can break it. The 2007 has good image quality, fractionally below that of the XV2025wm. Both 2005s I have for comparison are clearly better. All three of these are good-looking monitors, but IMO the 2005 is the pick of the litter. The 2007 exists for marketing reasons, not image quality ones.

[BWR]

You can't fix what isn't broken, but you can break it. The 2007 has good image quality, fractionally below that of the XV2025wm. Both 2005s I have for comparison are clearly better. All three of these are good-looking monitors, but IMO the 2005 is the pick of the litter. The 2007 exists for marketing reasons, not image quality ones.
So based on what I have read...
Image quality:
2005 > 2025VM > 2007
Ghosting prevention (on hardcore gaming):
?
Monitor features (adjustment, etc.):
2005 = 2007 > 2025VM
Lowest price:
2025VM > 2007

2005 is the best but no longer for sale
2007 has the worst image quality of the group but its negligable when compared with the 2025VM (?)
The 2025VM has DVI problems

:shrug:
Someone just HAD to make a monitor decision as hard as possible didnt they?

[ninthebin]

I got the VX2025WM the other day, amazing monitor, much better than the VP191 it replaced and i'll never be going back to a non-ws setup again, I was skeptical of WS to begin with but when my housemate got a ws mon and I seen him playing wow on it I was sold instantly and now im living the dream :)

I haven't seen this so called DVI issue yet though...what exactly causes this as I have tried restarting my pc, turning my pc off by the wall (leaving monitor on) and all manner of other ways of restarting and the monitor never plays up.

Also the infamous backlight bleed is only noticeable slightly in the four corners when a full black image is displayed...it isn't noticeable in any other situation, even where an image may be mainly black.

and yay to the cable tidying at the back - now viewsonic just need to tidy the empty beer bottles, moulding plates etc from my desk :)

[lemings]

Getting mine today, will let you guys know how it goes.

[lemings]

So far so good, no dead pixels, some black light bleeding. Loving it thus far, will report back with more info when I get to use it more thoroughly.

[Mr.Guvernment]

the "back light bleeding" is not like dell's - it moves as you move and is certainly more tolerable then i had on my 2005 i had a wile back as it is a X type of lighting, but as said, it is not noticable really, unless i turn off all lights in my office and it is night out, even with a black movie playing u cant see it.
Now, if viewsonic has of included an adjustable stand

[lemings]

Here is my review of the VX2025wm, posting here to keep from having to make a new thread on it...

Received UPS on a late wednesday evening box looked good and it was also light. So I take it out of the box, and the overall look is appealing, nothing fancy, but far from basic too. I hook her up, power her on, and at first I say to my self "Hmmm". I say this because the text looks all fuzzy, well problem solved, my resolution was set back to 800x600 for some reason, so I set it to 1680x1050 and my next reaction is "Whos flashing that flashlight in my eyes :P" so I turn the brightness down, and go through the process of color correcting the monitor. So I get it to where I like it, and I decide its time to do a trail run on gaming. So I load up Return to Castle Wolfenstein (I like to start with old games then work my way up to modern when im running tests/benchmarks). I had already pre-patched wolfenstein for the 1680x1050 resolution, so no problem there. I get into a server and I notice the blacks are not quiet as good as I would like them to be. I continued playing, noticing no improvement in widescreen. So I load up BF2 next, I again, had to patch this game to fit 1680x1050 (I was shocked at this.. because BF2 is in fact a modern game... thats dice for you...) So I join into the OBC server, and I right away when Gulf of Oman came on my jaw dropped, The image quality was a VERY big improvement over my previous monitor. I hop in a jeep and I notice some ghosting but its very minimal. Next I hop in a jet and I notice a bit more ghosting but to me it added a sort of realistic effect as if you were actually flying. So now I exit BF2, and load Oblivion with fear in my mind, why fear you ask? because im running on 3500+,7800gt, and 2gb of ram thats why :P I was worried it wouldn't even run in the native 1680x1050 resolution. So I load oblivion with a shaky hand, and I wait for the game to load. When it did load it was at night in Skingrad and im like "Aww crap" because I still hadn't gotten over the black level issue. So I go to one of my saves before this where its nice and sunny and again I wait for it to load.... and load it does! my jaw dropped extra foot when I saw it. It was like a dream come true :). At this point I had not even touched the mouse so I couldn't tell what kind of lag my pitiful system would suffer at this resolution, so again with fear I shook the mouse back and forth :( and.... WOW It doesn't run, but it'lll walk ;) lol. So I turn the grass distance down a few places, and I get it to a reasonable framerate outdoors, I spent the better part of that night doing nothing but walking around in the great forest just admiring the new found beauty because the imagequality was spectacular in this game.

So next its off to web surfing the next day (Yes I actually meant I spent the whole night just walking in the Great Forest :P). So im now noticing the monitor in a daylight environment, and I notice the strangest thing... it looks grainy on a white background, so upon further inspection I come to the conclusion its the anti-reflective layer most likely. So I try to ignore it, which pretty much works. Also another thing about this monitor... if you like looking at your self alot this is the monitor for you :P the protective sheet that came with it is reflective when the right ammount of light hits it (Not a problem for me as I usually am in the dark).

So I test it out for around a week, and come back to my notes I took on the flaws I had found in it when I first tested it. I came to realize my eyes adjusted to the blacks by the weeks end, and they were pretty decent. Also my eyes apparently adjusted to the ghosting in BF2 which I wish hadn't happened because I happened to like the blurry effect while in a jet going real fast :(. The grain on a white bg, I can't even notice it now. I notice black light bleeding when on extreme darks, but as the others say it has to be a pretty darn dark screen for it to be of any notice. The adjustable stand is a joke, but I have no big deal with it as it fits my desk perfect as it is. The speakers are "ok" I would listen to music on them, but never would I watch a movie on them. Well this is my impression of it after a week of playing around with it. Also, the DVI issue people seem to be having... I have not come across it yet, but I did realize most of the people with the DVI issue were using lower end cards (Coincidence?!?).

PROS:
Great image quality
Widescreen
NO EYESTRAIN <------ :thup:

CONS:
Blacks are acceptable but wish they could be a little bit deeper.
Speakers are not that good (Which shouldn't be an issue because who buys a monitor for its speakers...):P
Not enough games support wide screen :(.

[BWR]

snip
Good review. This certainly lowers the expectation bar for this monitor in my mind. This is especially true when all I have used in my life were CRTs.

About games not supporting widescreen, hit up the WideScreenGamingForums (http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page).. Im sure youll be surprised.

[lemings]

You can get mostly any game to fit the 1680x1050 resolution, only thing is they don't properly display it in wide screen format and in some cases (Such as in BF2) you actually have to sacrifice your vertical height just to get it to run in 1680x1050. I knew BF2 wasn't going to support widescreen before I got this monitor, but now that I have some experience with it, it just flat out sucks they did not throw in widescreen support.... its like they are punishing widescreen users for having widescreen monitors :confused:. Any how, thanks for the compliment :), I try to keep my reviews bias free. the vx2025wm is a decent monitor for its price, if your coming from a CRT then don't judge the vx2025wm, or any LCD monitor for that matter until you spend a week with it, takes time for your eyes to adjust.

[Mr.Guvernment]

any one change their color settings?

i set mine diff from the stock factory and it looks great, will tyr to post what i am using here

[lemings]

Yeah, I ran mine through the color calibration test by Nvidia, it looks perfect. I will post some screens later on.

[mortimer]

Mine just arrived. I have an EVGA 5500 with 256MB.

Caveats:
1) My vision is not all that good. I wanted an LCD so that I could move it farther away from me.
2) I don't play interactive games.

On the good side:
1) Looks nice, lets me move it away from me.
2) No dead pixels.
3) Stock colors are adequate (dark colors like black and blue seem light, light colors like yellow seem bright). As an example, this forum seems to be shades of gray other than the ad area at top. It is black. This should be fixable by tuning.
4) No backlight issues that I can see.
5) I don't see any ghosting.

On the not so good side:
1) The sofware that comes on the CD is crap. It actually tries to install Acrobat Reader 4.0. Declining on the Acrobat license agreement seems to prevent the LCD driver from installing as well. Download the driver from Viewsonic (www.viewsonic.com).
2) The DVI port is squirrely? I can only get 1280x1024 using it. Massive artifacts (unusable) at anything higher. Running at 1680*1050 on analog now.
3) Times New Roman really doesn't look very good. Changing fonts should fix this.

Edit: Ariel looks much better. Oh, the included software may have been responsible for an uncorrectable BSOD. It had been a while since I reformatted. :eek:

[skulkingghost]

it may be your video cards dvi port and not the monitor, try using a dvi-vga adapter from the port to check

[mortimer]

I'll try that when I get an adapter.

The monitor is *very* usable now.

Thanks!