by ZaAndrei Zaharia

Created on: May 25, 2009

Optiquest is a rather unknown LCD producer. People tend to go for products they have always known and trusted. For example, when a buyer goes out to purchase a product they would rather choose Samsung over Optiquest. The truth is that most people miss out on great deals and great products.

When I purchased my Optiquest Q2162wb 21.6" wide-screen monitor, I was having second thoughts. I had a choice between this or another Asus 21.6" screen. The Acer one was $20 more expensive. I checked out the specifications, so I could get a better idea. Same contrast ratio (1000:1), same response time (5 ms), identical native resolution (1680x1050), both had good looks and steady bases. In my opinion, I would rather not pay an extra $20 for the "better" brand. After all what was the difference! I checked out the warranties... identical, 1 year part and labor on each monitor. One specification, which made me lean toward the Optiquest LCD, was the fact that it was EnergyStar certified! It consumes a maximum 45W.

The monitor is a good, robust, strong-based, beautifully designed and ideal LCD. It has a thicker frame than most LCD, which makes it looks slicker. I goes great with a black pc and/or black speakers. I personally own the Apollo Black Case as well as the Z-560 from Logitech, and let me tell you... they look like they were made for each other! The buttons are nicely laid out on the bottom of the screen, where they fall out of the field of view of the user. They are placed on the underside of the monitor with faint grooves to indicate their function. The settings are simple and useful. You can choose between color temperatures, color corrections (brightness, contrast, color adjustments, vertical and horizontal alignment, as well as clock rates to sharpen the pixels. The most useful feature it possesses is the feature that allows it to auto-adjust itself! It detects the screen, and aligns the picture to fit within the frame without even losing one pixel! It also fixes the color, based on complex features of detection.

I purchased this monitor well over 2 years ago, and it's still going strong. No dead pixels, no problems, resisted strong bass from the sub-woofer, and never changed color. I use it to play games, and I can say that I see no visible ghosting or trails on the screen. The colors look pure and vibrant (can be set with Nvidia's control panel). The standard black color makes it blend in and complement other accessories you might have alongside it.

Overall I would rate this monitor a solid 9.5/10 because of its lifespan and cost-effectiveness. Bringing money back into your money has never looked so great!

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