The most significant factors for most people when buying a monitor are size and price. For some, particularly gamers or entertainment buffs watching movies through their PC, features such as resolution, response time, inputs and quality can also come into the equation.

Philips has added another factor worth considering with the launch of the 225B1 Brilliance LCD monitor, namely power consumption. This monitor uses the company's PowerSensor technology to put the screen into a low power mode the second you move away from it, making it ideal for environmentally and budget conscious users.

Apart from this feature, the 225B1 is a pretty standard 22in LCD display, with a 16:10 widescreen aspect ratio, typical contrast ratio of 1,000:1, an average 5ms response time and a native resolution of 1,680 x 1,050. This puts it squarely in the middle of monitor specifications, so gamers and users requiring very high quality displays will probably want to look elsewhere.

Philips has an excellent reputation for building high quality displays, but we were a little disappointed with the picture from the 225B1. It wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a little below what we would usually expect from the company.

Useful presets
That said, the specifications highlight that this monitor is aimed primarily at fairly standard users, and it is certainly up to the tasks required by most people. It does include a number of useful preset configurations for use in the office, watching video or other typical scenarios.

The build is solid and the 225B1 uses an adjustable stand, so that setting the optimal height and angle isn't a problem. Input can be from a VGA or a DVI cable, but there is no HDMI, component or s-video input, once again highlighting the entry level nature of the model.

The 225B1 embeds a pair of 7W speakers in the base of the display, although the lack of a headphone jack means that only home users or those with their own office will probably connect them up.

Strangely, while Philips has included USB support with the 225B1, it has only built in a single USB socket rather than the usual two. This means that, aside from a bit of extra convenience, little benefit is gained as you have to use a USB port on the PC to run the cable connecting it to the monitor.