Edge10 T223 review

A hardened glass sheet covers the Edge10 T223’s screen, so it’s ideal for environments in which it’s likely to be prodded, such as a household with young children.

The shiny glass really stands out, as most manufacturers seem to use a matt finish on their screens to reduce the glare from reflections.

While reflections were a problem in our brightly lit Labs, the glass screen will bring out colours and improve contrast in a study or living room where the lights are dimmer. Contrast was good, but colours were inaccurate, with a red tint. This looks fine when watching movies, as they tend to benefit from a warmer colour temperature, but it’s most noticeable in photos, especially with skin tones.

You can tweak the monitor’s colour levels to compensate, but the menu system is ugly and hard to control. The buttons, located on the bottom edge of the monitor, are too close together, so it’s easy to press the wrong one. Confusingly, there are two sets of directional buttons, one to navigate the menu and another to increase or decrease values. Some options are greyed out, which is frustrating, and there are no presets to let you switch quickly between settings appropriate for watching movies or reading web pages, for example.

As the T223’s picture quality is best suited for watching movies, it’s a shame it doesn’t have a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. More importantly, it doesn’t have an HDMI input and doesn’t support HDCP, so you couldn’t plug in a Blu-ray player if you wanted to.

The 1,680×1,050 resolution is disappointing, especially when cheaper 22in monitors are available with full HD 1,920×1,080 resolutions. The reduction in desktop space makes working on documents less comfortable.

The T223 isn’t a bad monitor and the red tint isn’t particularly noticeable for office use. That said, cheaper monitors with higher resolutions are available for less money, such as BenQ’s excellent G2220HD. The T223 will be of interest only to those who really need the protective glass display.