Sony SDM-X75K

The SDM-X75K is one of the latest additions to Sony’s range of 17in flat-panel
monitors for the home office. According to its makers, it is designed to offer users a more comfortable viewing experience, which is crucial considering how much time we spend looking at them.

One of its biggest assets is a height-adjustable base. This allows users to easily position the screen regardless of desk height, and it can also be tilted vertically by a few degrees.

Our first impression was that the screen was far too bright, as our test images appeared overly harsh. However, an automatic screen adjust mode adjusts the brightness of the display depending on how much light is in the room. This is arguably more useful for the general home user, who may use their PC in a variety of lighting conditions during different times of the day and night.

A manual-adjust feature lets you change the brightness according to
taste. There are three steps (low, medium and high), but on our review sample the low brightness setting caused the monitor to emit a highpitched whistling sound. Hopefully this won’t be the case with all models.

Despite our issues with its brightness levels, the SDM-X75K has very good image quality. We put it through its paces and it reproduced images with good clarity. It also proved adept at reproducing tones that are almost but not quite white, and almost but not quite black, indicating it could cope with DVD movies and games, as well as office and internet applications.

Like most 17in panels,the SDMX75K has a native resolution of 1280 x 1024, which may restrict those who like to have multiple window panes open side by side. It doesn’t support a true widescreen mode either, so DVD movies will have be viewed in the standard 4:3 screen ratio.

The SDM-X75K won’t win any awards for design, but its outer bezel is quite slim, which makes the screen look a little larger. Our only other gripe was that this
model doesn’t have a USB hub, hough it does have DVI and VGA connectors.

The SDM-X75K is a commendable display. It isn’t the best screen we’ve seen or the cheapest, but for all-round computing, it’s not a bad choice.