Asus PG221 22" widescreen

Conclusions:

Compared to what we’ve seen from other 22” widescreen monitors, the Asus PG221 fares pretty well. It’s got a great set of features on paper and it performs pretty well on the whole, providing you leave the monitor’s preset colour options alone and tweak the display yourself. Even if you manually configure the display’s colour options, there are still a few minor image quality issues and a little bit of banding in some of the DisplayMate tests but there was nothing particularly major. Certainly nothing to prevent this from being a ‘good’ gaming monitor.

One could argue that its looks are a little over the top, but remember that Asus is targeting gamers with the PG221, so something that breaks away from the norm could actually be considered a good thing. I actually quite like its looks and providing you’re using the screen in a dimly-lit room, you’ll not find the panel’s glossy finish an issue.

The speakers and connectivity options are also very good, with the speakers being the best in-built monitor speakers I’ve ever listened to. That’s not to say they’re going to replace your swanky 7.1 speaker setup, but if you’re short on space, they’re usable unlike most other in-built monitor speakers. The wide range of video input options will allow you to connect your PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and at least one (if not two) more devices to the screen without the need for junction boxes. This makes the lack of HDMI a non-issue in our eyes. Of course, it would have been nice to see HDMI on the screen, but that’s going to push the price up.

That’s obviously not all the monitor has to offer though, as there are headphone, microphone and USB ports and the webcam in the top of the screen. These all worked as well as one would expect and the drivers for the webcam were unobtrusive and weren’t resource hungry.

Final Thoughts...

Without firm pricing, it’s really hard to paint an accurate picture of the PG221’s value for money but I can’t help but think there are better all-round alternatives out there with the same resolution, even if they're slightly smaller. The biggest competition for the PG221 is arguably Samsung’s SyncMaster 215TW 21" widescreen monitor, as it has just recently received a price drop that makes it almost irresistible. At £240 (inc. VAT), you’d be hard pushed to find a better all-round widescreen monitor that performs incredibly well across the board.

Although Asus was unable to give us accurate pricing, the company did say that the monitor would cost more than its MW221U 22” widescreen monitor. A representative explained to us that the PG221 is a “premium” monitor, while the MW221U is a “mainstream” monitor, so there is no question that it is going to cost more. Given that the MW221U costs £226.72 (inc. VAT), the PG221 is going to be at least as expensive as the Samsung 215TW, if not more.

There are, of course, features that the PG221 has and the 215TW doesn’t, but it’s going to be a question of whether those features are needed by the potential buyer. In a pure battle between the 215TW and the PG221 on the image quality front, the Samsung was notably better than the Asus. But, after a bit of tweaking, the image quality delivered by the PG221 was still pretty good. I guess it’s a question of whether you need the extra features that the Asus provides, or whether you’re after a great all-round monitor at a fantastic price.

I can't help but feel that, because of the 215TW's aggressive pricing, the PG221 (even with its fantastic set of features) just doesn't do enough to justify spending any more than £240 on a 20", 21" or 22" widescreen monitor.

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Image Quality
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

What do these scores mean?

When final pricing comes through from Asus, we'll update the article with value for money scores.