Comparison of 15" LCD Monitors - Part II

Continental Edison LCD 15

Continental Edison's 15" LCD screen has multimedia capability, with good luminosity (250 cd/m²) and contrast (350:1). It is also inexpensive. On paper, it does better than the Belinea and Hercules monitors, but it is only of interest to a narrow sector of the computer-buying public because it is only distributed in France. Its availability elsewhere is limited at best, if not non-existent.

Continental Edison's screen is aimed at the general public. The manufacturer also decided to go for the simple option when seeking a name for the product. While Iiyama opted for outlandish names (AX3815U and Consors) and Hercules tried to look towards the future with ProphetView, Continental decided to go back to the basics. Its 15" screen is simply called LCD 15". Short and sweet! It would have been nice, however, if the manufacturers had been a little less reticent on the subject of the characteristics of their product. All it says on the box is "operates at 1024 x 768 pixels." Apparently the contrast rate, brightness and response time are specifications that the manufacturer feels we do not need to know. We were therefore forced to embark on an expedition to reveal this data to the world.

Let's start with the gaming tests. The screen showed its speed at refreshing the pixels. This leads us to believe that the response time is good. There is a barely imperceptible afterglow that was confirmed when testing the screen by scrolling web pages as we read them. The characters remained sharp, however.