Philips Brilliance 190P5ES

The Philips Brilliance 190P is the latest 19in TFT to reach our desks but, despite the contemporary silver finish on our review model, it doesn't make a particularly good first impression.

It has a relatively thin bezel along both sides of the unit, but the effect is spoiled by the thick bottom edge. This houses the 190P's stereo speakers and control buttons, but given the lacklustre performance of the audio output, we couldn't help but feel this space could have been used more wisely.

To its credit, the 190P is a well-built unit with a sturdy, if somewhat large base. It is also very flexible and can be rotated approximately 180 degrees along its horizontal axis. The vertical tilt range is fairly limited and it is not height adjustable, but the screen itself can be rotated between portrait and landscape modes.

Philips has put a lot of work into making sure the 190P is a strong performer. It has a wide viewing angle, so if you're using it with a group of people, they won't have to huddle towards the centre of the screen in order to get a good picture. The fast 16ms response time means it is equally at home displaying static office documents as it is playing games or DVD movies.

Overall image quality was also of the highest order. Natural tones were recreated realistically and the contrast between hues was noticeably better than many TFTs we have seen before. There was also no noticeable variation in brightness across the panel, as is common on many cheaper monitors.

The price tag isn't too exorbitant for a monitor of this size, although people looking for a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 will have to opt for a larger display, as few 19in models support this mode.

Contact: Philips 0870 900 9070
www.philips.co.uk

Specifications:

• 19in panel
• 1,280 x 1,024 native resolution
• 16ms response time
• 700:1 contrast ratio
• DVI-D and Analogue Inputs
• 170 degree viewing angle(horizontal and vertical)
• 65 degree swivel