NEC AccuSync LCD24WMCX

The AccuSync brand traditionally designates NEC’s inexpensive monitors, yet the LCD24WMCX is hardly cheap, being considerably more expensive than most other TN-based models. Let’s see if this price is justified.

The monitor’s specs are ordinary enough. It is based on a TN matrix without Response Time Compensation.

The case is black and glossy (but the LCD matrix itself is matte). The exterior design is not exceptional, but the black coloring conceals small details, resulting in a nice appearance overall.

You can change the tilt of the screen. The stand can be replaced with a VESA mount.

The LCD24WMCX has a gorgeous selection of inputs. Besides analog and digital PC inputs, it has component and composite video inputs, and a HDMI interface. There is an audio input and a headphones output (the latter is located inconveniently at the back panel, together with the rest of connectors).

The control buttons are centered below the screen. Quick access is provided to switching between the inputs (this operation is rather slow – the screen fades out for a few seconds after each press), to the auto-adjustment feature, and to the sound volume setting.

The onscreen menu is extensive and overall easy to use. It works somewhat sluggishly, but remembers the last changed option. For example, if you change the color temperature option, the next time you open the menu you’ll find yourself in the same menu section.

There are quite a lot of various additional settings. Besides adjusting brightness and contrast, the first menu screen (see the picture above) allows you to adjust the gamma, to choose a DV mode and to enable the dynamic contrast mode (“DCR”).

Quite untypical for low-end monitors is the option of manual setup of color temperature using six (rather than three as usual) color coordinates. You can also choose the interpolation mode: stretch the image out to full screen or restrain proportions.

The menu also offers an abundance of image-enhancing features but nearly all of them produce a picture with unnaturally saturated colors. The practical value of this enhancement seems to be low. There is also an interesting, but not very practical, feature called BrightFrame: you can select a rectangular area on the screen, defining its size, position and color reproduction parameters in the menu.

Notwithstanding the numerous video inputs, the monitor doesn’t have a Picture-in-Picture mode.