Great Design: 2 New 17" LCDs from LG

In Practice

Since the ergonomics of the L1780U are nearly perfect, this monitor was a real pleasure to use with office applications, with extremely sharp text using both the VGA and DVI inputs. The automatic pivot function will be very practical if you work on text documents all day long.

With games, the L1780U put in an honorable performance. While not the best on the market in this area, it does have an advantage over its competitors: its excellent interpolation performance. The loss was minimal in 1024x768, and the image quality was still good at 800x600. This is probably the best interpolation on a 17" monitor on the current market.

Unfortunately, performance was not as good with video, and if you're a professional video editor, the L1780U may not be the ideal candidate. The viewing angles are narrow, and video noise is fairly perceptible.

Conclusion

So should you buy one of these monitors? Yes, if you're sensitive to the design of the objects around you. The L1740P and the 1780U are definite candidates, especially since their performance is acceptable, if not "state-of-the-art." They don't revolutionize the concept of flat-panel displays from a performance point of view, but the effort LG has made in design and ease of use deserves to be recognized. My preference would go to the L1740P, if I had to choose, even though its price is high for a 17" monitor. Its static qualities are a notch above those of the L1780U and I find the design more innovative.

Some of you will say you don't care about design and that only performance counts. The success of the iPod is proof that that's not necessarily so. But as always, the choice is up to you...