Viewsonic VP2655wb LCD Monitor

After a long time we have one of Viewsonic's professional series monitors with us for review, the VP2655wb. Based on IPS technology, the monitor measures 25.5" diagonally and sports a full HD resolution of 1920x1200 resolution. Thanks to the IPS panel it boasts of a 118% NTSC color gamut and a very good viewing angle of 178-degree horizontal and vertical. The typical contrast ratio is 1000:1 and comes with a 400cd/m2 brightness, which is just what you need from a professional series monitor for graphics and multimedia. There are a couple other features as well which we'll see in a bit.
Bundle
The bundle includes the following;

• Instruction leaflet
• Power cable
• VGA cable
• DVI cable
• USB upstream cable
• Driver CD

Design

The VP5526wp sports the typical Viewsonic design we've seen over the years for their professional series monitors. In fact it does not look all that different from the old one that we tested over a year back. The bezel from the front is not very wide with the panel recessed a bit. All the buttons are lined up in the front with a blue power LED.

Like all VP series monitors, this one is also fully adjustable. You can adjust the height, pivot and swivel.

The stand is rock solid and very heavy but occupies quite a bit of space on your desk. The tripod like stand is very wide and provides good support with no wobble. The height adjustment is very simple once you remove the safety pin from the back. You can easily lift the stand with two fingers.  There are two loops in the rear for cable management.

There are just two display ports, VGA and DVI, and four USB downstream ports. The funny thing is that Viewsonic has chosen to place all of them underneath, where it's out of reach, instead of the sides.









Performance

Display Mate  

After lowering the brightness and contrast to acceptable levels we ran Display Mate to check for abnormalities in the panel. Apart from the usual HCR issue, the monitor breezed through all the color gradient tests and grey level test. In the multi color spectrum we did notice very slight banding issues among the yellow and red colors. This ideally shouldn't be present since it has a very wide color gamut.

General and Multimedia usage
When we first took the monitor out of the box, the contras and brightness was really high and we had to tone the settings down. Toning the brightness and contrast down to 50% made everything a lot more pleasant while still retaining the picture quality. The menu is really frustrating to use though, as it's too small and hasn't changed for the past five years or even more. The buttons are a bit stiff and cause the entire bezel to move when you try to press it. 
Since the size of the monitor and the resolution is not too high, Viewsonic has increased the pixel pitch a bit (which isn't mentioned on the site), so text doesn't appear that smooth, which is especially noticeable in Windows. Not to say it's blurry or anything; perhaps they should have kept the pixel pitch the same as a smaller sized monitor.

We tried a bit of gaming and HD movies as well, all of which was rendered beautifully. We have no idea of the response time of the monitor, as it's not mentioned on the site, but we didn't find any sort of ghosting or blurring in movies and games.

Power Consumption
IDLE -  01W
Default mode (70% Contrast, 100% Brightness) - 105W
Eco mode (Optimise) - 81W
Eco mode (Conserve) - 64W
Pricing and Verdict
At a price tag of Rs. 43,999, the Viewsonic VP2655wb is quite expensive. In this range, in fact for a lesser price, you can find Dell's ever popular 2408WFP monitor. It shares the same specs but offers better connectivity options including HDMI, DisplayPort, Component and so on. It's even got better aesthetics.

Viewsonic has a very solid performing monitor in terms of picture quality and viewing angles, but the asking price is a bit too much. They need to really work on the presentation of the menu and change the overall boring looks of the monitor. If you have to get a full HD IPS panel then Dell has better options.


Test unit sourced from Mutual PR