Acer anyone?

[BlindSpot]

I'm considering replacing my CRT monitor with an LCD monitor and did a lot of research on the currently available LCD's.
It's really hard to choose but I'm kind of leaning towards an Acer flat panel but I have seen no mention of Acer flat panels, which surprised me. Has anyone got an Acer AL732 or AL1731 flat panel? I'd love to hear how they perform next to the other few flat panels mentioned in this forum and in THG reviews.

 

[Ultrageek]

I had the same question. I'll be building a system soon and I was gonna go for the AL732. I've read a few reviews of it and from what I've read it seems like a great choice. The only small complaint was that for gaming at lower or higher resolutions slight ghosting was present but at 1280x1024 gaming was absolutely no problem and the image quality was excellent. Good price, great design, and great performance from what I've read. I haven't heard any other comments on it so I'm just stating what I've heard about it.

 

[nips]

Well i've had the ACER 732 for about 6 months so if u need any questions answering please let me know

 

[BlindSpot]

Ultrageek: Thank you for your reply. Do you have any links to those reviews? All I have been able to find so far are reviews in German and my skills in that language are kind of limited ;-)

nips: Thank you too for you reply. I'd like to know what you think of its performance in games and in general use. Does it have any problems displaying colours? Many have stated that colours on 16ms flat panels are not displayed correctly and often appear "washed out". Particularly in gaming. And what about Ghosting and Streaking? Ultrageek mentioned that it had problems in resolutions other than its native resolution. What is your experience with this on the AL732?

 

[JP5]

I think most LCDs stink out of their native resolution.

 

[Ultrageek]

BlindSpot here's a link I found. It's not an in-depth review but it gives you a users positive input. http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xPR-Acer_AL_732_17_in~RD-98583940740
I read a few dutch responses to the monitor and it seems like all the users agree on one thing for sure, great image quality amongst other things.

 

[BlindSpot]

Thanks again Ultrageek. It sounds like it's as good as a flat panel can get with the currently available technology.

 

[nips]

Sorry it’s taken a while to reply....well unfortunately in terms of games I can’t really help as I don’t really get that much time to play but I will do maybe over the weekend and let u know. But one thing I can tell you is outside the native resolution of 1280 x 1024 the picture becomes quite washed out, where anything below 1024 x 768 is not very pleasing.

But I can tell you about the general performance in windows which I would say is pretty good. Viewing movies and DVDs is not a problem with no such ghosting or streaking. But one problem I do have is viewing video when sitting right in front of the screen at the same level as the screen is fine, but say you are sitting below the screen then I find that the viewing angle is not good and you cant really see a picture as it dims out.
Also when moving windows around there is a certain amount of blurring, which is the best way I can really describe this which can be annoying.

Another fact that I wasn’t too happy with is the fact the screen does not ship with a DVI cable but only analog how much difference this makes is debatable but still one would assume digital would be better then analog.

Other than that I would say its an excellent monitor, if there is anything more you want know please let me know, otherwise I will post an update after testing in a few games.

 

[Phalanx01]

What should I choose; an ACER 732 or an ACER 1731m? I do a lot of extensive gaming and I need a flat screen that can keep up with my games.

Is it a bad thing if there is smoke coming out of my case?

 

[solomal1]

Hi all,

I have an Acer AL732. I play BF1942 on it extensively and have no complaints now it is setup properly.

What I did find a problem initially is that in very dark maps, the brightness needed adjusting, in fact, this could be said of almost all games screens. This was a problem then at the Windows Desktop and Word which was just plain painful to look at. The solution for me was to use the DVI, my Radeon 9800 drivers have options to change the ingame brightness separately from the desktop settings, this means you can increase the brightness in games without being blinded by MS Word!

One problem I do have is this though, occasionally I get a kind of shimmery effect in a 2 inch wide vertical band on the left side of the screen. This is normally only evident on bitmap pictures (such as the Dangerous Animals.bmp). What happens is around edges of certain shapes, there are areas of red or green pixels that flash on and off. I can force this effect to be even worse by setting the "Use lower frequency DVI for Higher Resolutions" and "Use alternate DVI..." option in the Radeon control panels.

I've tried another cable - still the same, and also connected to another screen with the same PC and Radeon and get no problems. It seems to be something related to DVI signal frequencies and maybe interference getting onto the Digital signal. I'm at the point of getting the screen swapped, but I'm not 100% sure that it is really the screen.


I have two friends who are also heavy gamers who have this screen (they don't have this problem though), they're happy also with the AL732.

Anyone any ideas about my strange problem?

"If it's lost, it'll turn up, things always do"
" I love it when a plan comes together!"<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by solomal1 on 09/08/03 06:57 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[BlindSpot]

nips: Thanks for your input. Sounds like it only has the same problems any other flat panel has with the current technology. I'd still like to hear your opinion on how it handles games

Solomal1: I've read that the early version of the AL732 has a problem with DVI. They have fixed it in the later panels (those released around late august 2003 if I remember correctly). You might have one of the early ones and your friends the later version. I read that those with the same problem called Acer and they replaced their flat panels without hesitation. I suggest you call Acer support and I'm almost certain they will replace you panel with one of the newer versions.

 

[solomal1]

Blindspot...thanks for the information. I mailed Acer already (same time as I posted this comment), so hopefully, if your information is right, I'll get a shiny new screen

"If it's lost, it'll turn up, things always do"
" I love it when a plan comes together!"