NEC-Mitsubishi LCD1501

Good looks and great colour in a compact 15in design.

NEC-Mitsubishi's LCD1501 is the first 15in flat panel screen that it has sold through PC World and Dixons. It is featured here in its black outfit, which makes a welcoming change from beige.

This little 15-incher has clean lines and, at first glance, no buttons. However, there are eight buttons cleverly mounted along the bottom in the narrow strip that surrounds the grey bezel.

These buttons give access to a comprehensive on-screen menu that not only carries the usual selection of adjustments for brightness, contrast, size and position, but also five user-definable RGB colour settings and an auto-adjust facility.

The latter adjusts the clock, phase and position, and worked rather well, even when we threw the settings way off.

Turning the display around you'll notice that the unit's chassis is rather chunky. This is down to the power unit being integrated inside the LCD1501, so there is no need for a separate power adaptor, thus leaving your desk free from sprawling cables.

A simple cable cover attached to the stand keeps your D-Sub and power cables neatly routed.

In use, the LCD1501 was quite a solid performer. The image is bright and there's plenty of contrast to bring out detail in complex images. Skin tones are realistic and colour fading is consistent.

The only gripe we had was the relatively narrow vertical viewing angle. In raising and lowering our eye level through approximately 15cm, we could visibly see a negative shift in illumination.

Nevertheless, this is a small criticism and overall the LCD1501 is a pleasantly designed, reasonably priced, gimmick-free LCD.

Specs

• 15in LCD flat panel
• 1,024 x 768 native resolution
• D-Sub input
• 355 x 166 x 345mm (w x d x h)
• Brightness 250cd/sq m
• Contrast ratio 350:1
• Viewing angles: horizontal 120 degrees; vertical 90 degrees
• 3.7kg

NEC-Mitsubishi 0870 120 1160