Acer Ferrari F20 widescreen LCD

Competition

There are plenty of companies now getting into the 20" widescreen monitor market popularised by Apple and Dell. The first two are obvious choices: at £549 inc vat, the Apple is stylish and minimalist but too expensive for what it is. It has the same resolution, but lower contrast and brightness, and a slower response time than the Acer. It also only has DVI and as a pure monitor product, lacks a TV tuner.

Dell's 2005FPW is priced at At £387.69 here in the UK, though is often far cheaper in the US depending on which Discount Code applies that day. It lacks the Acer's visual flair, but is no-nonsense and features all the input of the Ferrari F20 bar the TV tuner. At the technical level, it has the same brightness of 300 cd/m2 but the contrast ratio is 600:1 (vs 800:1) and the response time is 16ms (compared with 8ms).


If you are more interested in watching TV and using the display more less intensive work or indeed, just playing games, then another option for around £500 would be an LCD TV. In fact, Acer make a 26-inch widescreen LCD, the AL2671W, which sells for £520 . It is lower resolution at 1280x768 and bigger in size, meaning the pixels will be a bit chunkier than on a monitor-class display. You can read all about it at our sister site, Trusted Reviews.

Pricing and Value

We found the Acer Ferrari F20 for £493.99 from eBuyer. This places it in between the Apple and the Dell. Ultimately, if you don't care about looks or the TV functionality and you're just after a 20-inch widescreen monitor for your PC, then you can just get the Dell and be happy.

However, if you're looking for something a little different, something to be a conversation piece, then you could do far worse than this. Since you spend the majority of your time at the computer staring at the screen, why not at least have a screen that's nice to look at? Detractors may moan that you're paying a premium for the Ferrari badge and you could add a TV card to your PC / 2005FPW combo for just £35, when the Acer F20 costs £106 more. While this may be true, it would be to ignore the fact that the Acer can function as a stand-alone TV as well as a monitor, whereas you would need to have your PC switched on to be able to watch the football on your Dell.

Conclusion

The Acer Ferrari F20 is undeniably a gorgeous monitor. It performs well, and the addition of a TV tuner makes it more flexible than your average LCD monitor. It's not as cheap as some competing displays, but the good looks and the badge on the front more than make up for this. Overall, it will make a well-performing, great-looking addition to the desktop of any style-conscious bit-tech reader. We can't give it an award for Best Value or Total Excellence, but it certainly is one hot piece of hardware.