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Review of Asus MS238H 23” LED monitor
15 years ago
What are all you whipper snappers doing here...?
I’m not someone who needs a top-of-the-line high quality monitor. I don’t do photography or art, I play high end PC games casually and even my 10” netbook has plenty of room for word processing. But I’m also a tech junkie with a habit that won’t quit. I might not have the best but I’ll be damned sure it’s worth what I paid for it, even if that’s a hefty sum. So when I saw the Asus MS238H on New Egg I took the good with the bad.
The good: LED backlit display. 1920x1080 “Full-HD”. A nice 23” size. Controls that just “blend in” to the frame.
The bad: A weird “ring” stand that is questionably cat-proof. Reviews suggesting the display was a tiny bit unevenly lit and ever so slightly too green. Controls that just “blend in” to the frame.
Verdict: With in right in front of me that good outweigh the bad, so far. The image is wonderful and significantly better than the Sanyo/Seiko- Epson SEC3847 display built into the laptop just inches away from it. The high resolution, though “Full-HD” is questionably “high” in the computer world where my 2001 Dell CRT could do 2048x1536, gives me enough real estate to multitask on a single display. The ring stand seem sturdy enough as long as Mr. Loki the Cat doesn’t get a burr up his fuzzy little butt and decide to use it for a spring board.
Compared to the laptop the colors just look right. The colors are richer but not washed out, the grays actually gray and not a weird blue-green and you can actually view this one from angles that aren’t perfectly head-on. For the record the 6bbp TN Sanyo/Seiko- Epson display on my laptop was regarded as one of the many compromises made for it to hit the price-point it sold at back in 2008 and was considered a very poor part to be connected to the graphics card it was paired with.
For that matter, and this is entirely apocryphal, but when using the Asus monitor as the sole monitor (i.e. closing the lid) the graphics card seems to perform better. I can’t really quantify it, but it just feels like it.
The controls are a bit iffy. On one hand they look great. If it weren’t for the ugly foil label that that seems to be super-glued onto it you wouldn’t know they were there. On the other hand they’re difficult to use. They don’t respond as much to touch as a light brush, so pressing them like a button to change the settings doesn’t always work and the symbols are difficult to understand.
The foil label is a minor annoyance, too. I like my hardware to be as devoid of labels as possible. While I tend to keep the Intel, nVidia or Windows logo affixed I remove all of the showroom stickers that tell you what’s inside the machine or how to use certain controls. This display has a beautiful monolithic glossy black finish that that damn label interferes with. I don’t want to force it off or use a razor blade for fear of damaging the display, so I fear this hideous showroom “Try me” sticker will remain attached for the time being.
The good: LED backlit display. 1920x1080 “Full-HD”. A nice 23” size. Controls that just “blend in” to the frame.
The bad: A weird “ring” stand that is questionably cat-proof. Reviews suggesting the display was a tiny bit unevenly lit and ever so slightly too green. Controls that just “blend in” to the frame.
Verdict: With in right in front of me that good outweigh the bad, so far. The image is wonderful and significantly better than the Sanyo/Seiko- Epson SEC3847 display built into the laptop just inches away from it. The high resolution, though “Full-HD” is questionably “high” in the computer world where my 2001 Dell CRT could do 2048x1536, gives me enough real estate to multitask on a single display. The ring stand seem sturdy enough as long as Mr. Loki the Cat doesn’t get a burr up his fuzzy little butt and decide to use it for a spring board.
Compared to the laptop the colors just look right. The colors are richer but not washed out, the grays actually gray and not a weird blue-green and you can actually view this one from angles that aren’t perfectly head-on. For the record the 6bbp TN Sanyo/Seiko- Epson display on my laptop was regarded as one of the many compromises made for it to hit the price-point it sold at back in 2008 and was considered a very poor part to be connected to the graphics card it was paired with.
For that matter, and this is entirely apocryphal, but when using the Asus monitor as the sole monitor (i.e. closing the lid) the graphics card seems to perform better. I can’t really quantify it, but it just feels like it.
The controls are a bit iffy. On one hand they look great. If it weren’t for the ugly foil label that that seems to be super-glued onto it you wouldn’t know they were there. On the other hand they’re difficult to use. They don’t respond as much to touch as a light brush, so pressing them like a button to change the settings doesn’t always work and the symbols are difficult to understand.
The foil label is a minor annoyance, too. I like my hardware to be as devoid of labels as possible. While I tend to keep the Intel, nVidia or Windows logo affixed I remove all of the showroom stickers that tell you what’s inside the machine or how to use certain controls. This display has a beautiful monolithic glossy black finish that that damn label interferes with. I don’t want to force it off or use a razor blade for fear of damaging the display, so I fear this hideous showroom “Try me” sticker will remain attached for the time being.
