Digimate L-2362WD review

If you want to buy a large screen with a high resolution, Digimate’s 23in full HD L-2362WD is tempting. It looks great from the outside, and its thin bezel and teardrop-shaped stand belie the budget price.

Unfortunately, there’s no getting past the fact that this is a budget monitor. It doesn’t have HDCP support, so you can’t connect a Blu-ray player. Considering the screen’s full HD 1,920×1,080 resolution, this seems like a missed opportunity.

If you want to watch Blu-ray movies, you’ll have to connect your PC to the screen over the analogue VGA input (these films won’t play over an unprotected DVI connection). Still, none of this is a problem if you just want a screen to use with your PC. We’re pleased to say that the L-2362WD’s picture quality is good. Colours tend to be a bit cold, and whites have a bluish tinge when compared side by side with other monitors, but this is hardly noticeable in everyday use. The backlight is mostly even, apart from a couple of darker patches along the bottom edge.

Adjusting the picture settings involves using the rather crude onscreen menu. There are four preset picture modes, but it’s best to adjust the contrast, brightness, colour temperature and sharpness manually to get the best results.

We were surprised to find that the brightness control was set to 50 out of 100 by default – for most monitors here, the default setting is closer to full brightness. The reason for this soon became apparent, as turning up the brightness started to wash out the image, until at 100 the screen was completely white.

The built-in 1W speakers are the usual monitor affair: good enough for basic sound, but if you want thumping bass and fine detail, you’ll need a dedicated set.

Whether this monitor’s worth buying or not really depends on what you want to do with it. If you just want a fairly large monitor with a high resolution to use with your PC, this is a good buy. If you don’t mind a slightly smaller display but would rather have greater flexibility and better image quality, BenQ’s 22in G2220HD is hard to beat.