AOC Zifas 2218ph LCD monitor
By Dave Jansen, 9/1/2009 4:48:53

The AOC 2218ph is a 22 inch LCD monitor designed with entertainment in mind.  It has a slick and sophisticated look and rock-solid build quality as well as easy to use calibration controls and a good range of connection options.  It delivers excellent image quality but only if you take the time to find it.

Pros: Attractive design, Excellent image quality, Swivel and pivot functionality, HDMI connection
Cons: Needs to be calibrated upon setting up, no USB ports, only one HDMI port, Minor backlight bleeding.
Contact: http://www.aocmonitor-anz.com

Price: AU$439

Score: 4 out of 5

Out of the box it will need to be calibrated as the preset picture modes don’t do it justice.  In our tests we also found a few minor flaws in the panel itself but they weren’t anything to be overly concerned about.

The outer casing of the monitor is made from solid brushed aluminium with a flexible zinc stand.  It can be tilted or rotated with ease and has touch sensitive buttons on the front to access the calibration options.  At the rear there is an analog D-Sub connection but no DVI connection.  Instead it has a HDMI port and comes with a DVI to HDMI cable. It also has audio connections for the in-built speakers.   The speakers don’t offer the best sound quality though but it is rare to find a monitor that does so this isn’t unexpected.

We tested the 2218ph with various games like Far Cry 2, Fallout 3 and World of Warcraft.  With action oriented games like first person shooters we found the reported 2ms refresh rate to be consistent with our experience.  We didn’t experience any tearing or lag as the camera was rotated or during periods of heavy action.  We also tested using DisplayMate Video Edition at the native resolution of 1680x1050.  It passed the colour and resolution tests without a problem, without any image noise or undue pixelation.

When we first set up the unit, we instantly noticed that the desktop icons were blown out with way too much brightness and not enough contrast.  Even after adjusting, the colours still looked washed out so we changed the gamma mode and tinted the colours with a little blue which brought them to acceptable levels.

There are preset modes but they tended to have more problems than they were worth so we avoided them and used the custom mode instead.  The black levels were the most impressive thing we noticed with pure black without being washed out by the back lights.  That being said, there was a small amount of back light bleeding at the bottom of the screen but it isn’t noticeable unless you are looking at an entirely black screen (or when watching letterbox movies).

We liked the idea behind the HDMI port as it allows you to connect any HDMI device directly to the monitor but since there is only one of them you will most likely use it to connect to the PC.  A second HDMI connection would have opened the monitor up and allowed you to connect a DVD/Blu-Ray player so you can watch movies on your monitor as well. 

Verdict: The 2218ph is, without a doubt, an attractive monitor with a high level of performance.  We would have liked to see a USB hub included as similar monitors now tend to have USB as a standard feature but considering the price point we aren’t too disappointed. 

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