It is brown colored and that is, if anything less, strange color selection for a computer component. Over the screen and its frame is put firm safety plastic, for which Asus has nothing but praise.  We believe in its firmness and scratch resistance, even though we didn’t manage up to now to break or scratch nor unprotected panel. Base is ring shaped, doesn’t allow swivel movements, but from inside it is lighted with multiple color light emitting diodes. What color will be active, depends from active mode – internet, multimedia and similar. When the monitor is in stand-by mode, this light “breads” and if all those lighting activities become boring, you can turned them off through OSD menu. By using this menu you can also set picture display mode when it has different format than screen. Connectors, D-Sub, HDMI and input for external power supply are placed in monitor’s base, which contributed in very thin screen case. Connection with graphics card is achievable through enclosed HDMI/DVI cable.

Shaded transitions are not perfect on LS221H but these faults are hardly noticeable. This narrow and smooth banding is hard enough to see even during our tests and not to mention during practical usage. With default settings, light shades are little bit more intense that they should to be, probably because of “smart” contrast (ASCR, Asus Smart Contrast Ratio). Display of completely black screen is almost perfect and it is hard to determine are minimal deviations from uniform display caused from backlight or from panel itself. Still, this is for certain impressive result for such a thin monitor. You cannot expect excellent view angle form TN panel, but still it will be quite satisfactory for average user. Gray-to-Gray response time is excellent and completely matches modern “colorful” games but in scenes with high contrast, sharp transitions light shades can be noticed that are without doubt by-product of overdrive technology.

		Asus LS221H
		Screen Size	22" Wide
		Resolution	1680 x 1050
		Pitch [mm]	0.282
		Panel	TN+Film
		View angle H/V	170°/160°
		Response GTG [ms]	2
		Brightness [cd/m2]	300
		Contrast	ASCR (Asus Smart Contrast Ratio)
		Inputs	HDMI (DVI), D-Sub

Conclusion

Speaking strictly technically, unusual implementation of overdrive technology is reason for not recommending this monitor to all “kids”. Still from the moment we took LS221H out of the box it was clear that this product isn’t attended for them. Manufacturer obviously attended this model to someone who expects more than utilitarian functionality. We’ll hold on to old maxim and restrain from dispute about tastes, but if you liked Asus LS221H you will be satisfied also with performances in most disciplines especially if screen uniformity matters to you.

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