Our tests didn't show evidence of excessive overshoot; that's one positive point.

In Use

Video games are perfectly playable on this type of monitor. But this one is far from rivaling the performance of the ViewSonic VP191b or the VP930. In spite of the claims made in the manufacturer's specifications, latency remains a problem with this panel.

Video Games

Working with office applications on this monitor was very pleasant. The brightness is correctly regulated, for once. And the 1680x1050 resolution is really ideal for working on several text documents at the same time. Paradoxically, working on text is better on a movie-format screen than on a standard 4:3 monitor.

But video performance, unfortunately, wasn't tops either. Video noise was fairly evident. We could see a good deal of sparkling on large color masses. On the other hand, the viewing angles were nice and wide. Latency wasn't that much of a problem on the AL2032W, except when we connected via the S-Video input. Oddly, it increased the appearance of "trails," without apparent reason. The sound reproduction was quite decent. In fact this is the monitor that performed best in that department, by far.

Conclusion

We see the AL2032W as a monitor that's acceptable, but no more. Acer's efforts to make their product really multi-use are laudable, but the fact remains that the performance frankly isn't there. Mediocre gaming qualities would have been acceptable, but we have a right to expect better video performance.