This is the one I've been waiting for.

This is the first LCD monitor I've purchased (but I do have a 15.4" widescreen on a Compaq laptop). I've been looking at buying one for several months now but this is the first 22" LCD monitor I've found at $300. I've had a 21" Sony Trinitron CRT for over 5 years and it has served me well, but I wanted a more 'modern' looking monitor but didn't want to get anything smaller. Even the new 20" LCDs didn't have the viewing area I wanted. This one gives me only 26 more pixels in height but the width is 400 pixels wider; that's about 33% wider over the 1280 I had before.

I've not bought an Acer product before but recently my son bought a 24" Acer monitor and it is huge and beautiful so I thought I'd give Acer a try. So far I'm not disappointed. I was most worried about dead pixels but there are none out of the box and since they are usually a result of a manufacturing defect, I don't expect any to show up. It has a 3-year warranty that covers parts, labor and backlight. There is no explicit statement about a dead pixel limit in the warranty booklet but I'm sure they have one just like all the other manufacturers.

I think the color rendition is accurate; it looks as good as the Sony. I mainly use my system for writing software so my experience with its color is fairly limited. I do view my pictures and an occasional short movie clip and they look just as good as ever if not better. I don't play games or view full length movies so I can't talk about that.

I had to adjust the color, brightness and contrast settings out of the box, but I think that is to be expected since it's a personal thing.

Installation was easy; didn't have to do anything but plug it in with the included DVI cable (it also came with a VGA cable). No driver updates were necessary for my ATI Radeon 9600 video card.

It came with a 2-page quick start guide. The quick start guide is actually about 38 pages but only two are in english while the rest must cover about 18 other languages. It also came with a CD but I don't see any reason to use it although it does contain a full User's Guide.

If I needed another LCD for another computer I would buy another one of these. To me that's the real test: Am I pleased enough to buy it again? and the answer is yes.