Interested in a workhorse PC monitor for working first, gaming and watching movies second?

NEC’s businesslike new 17in product, the boxy Multisync LCD1770NX, doesn’t have a widescreen display.

But it is relatively cheap for the brand, whose screens are more usually targeted at professionals.

It has a native resolution of 1280x1024, the standard 16.7 million colours and a good brightness rating, along with two fair speakers, but a below average 800:1 contrast ratio. You do, however, get both analogue (VGA) and digital (DVI) inputs for connecting to all computers.

Though its dimensions are a modest 367x363x198mm, and the width of the bezel a slender 14mm, the 1770NX is surprisingly hefty at 6.1kg, suggesting it’ll withstand a certain amount of desk thumping, which is handy for those easily frustrated by Windows.

While its solidity is reassuring, another bonus given its price is that the height of the 110mm stand can be adjusted, the screen itself angled backwards or forwards from and the whole thing rotated in any direction using a fairly large wheel at as its base.

One let-down is a rather flimsy joystick control at the front for making screen adjustments and changing menu options, and three adjacent buttons that could have been better incorporated into the overall design.

The mains power switch at the rear of the screen, plus the separate on/off button at the front are an unnecessary doubling-up.

Fortunately, screen quality is actually pretty good, visibility crisp and sharp at its factory default, so little manual tweaking, if any, is required when setting it up.

Unlike most consumer screens, however, there are no optimised presets here for games or movies. Surprisingly that's not an issue, as colours are noticeably rich and skin tones flatteringly warm when watching movies or viewing photos, and darker tones deep and velvety. Game play is also fluid, thanks to a fair 5ms refresh rate.

The 1770NX may look boring, but for those who don’t need a large or widescreen monitor, it feels built to last with a performance that betters initial expectations.