The EF240a is a 24in monitor that costs about the same as
other companies' budget 22in displays. It has a Full HD resolution and LED
backlighting, and comes with VGA or DVI inputs and a three-year onsite
warranty.
The plain design uses cheap black plastic throughout. It's
not very thin, but it does have VESA mounts on the rear of the case for wall
mounting. The stand only allows for tilting, and you'll have to adjust it
carefully to get the best angle because viewing angles are fussy.
EDGE10 EF240a
The menu system is crude and controlled by buttons below the
screen. They're marked by icons on the bezel above, but, confusingly, the
buttons don’t seem to match the icons.
Thankfully, there are lots of options to play with. Along
with brightness and contrast, you get three’ Eco’ presets, which simply dim the
backlight by certain amounts, and a dynamic contrast option that changes the
brightness of the backlight in response to the brightness of the currently
displayed image. This caused sudden and distracting changes in luminosity while
watching movies, so we left it disabled.
Control over color temperature is limited to a cold 9300K, a
more balanced 6500K and a User option that lets you adjust red, green and blue
values separately. The 6500K setting is fairly accurate, although in our
calibration tests it was only 84 per cent of sRGB, with blues and greens being
the most inaccurate.
Contrast is good. In the night-time airport scene in Casino
Royale, we were able to make out the seams in the bad guy's black leather
shoes, while in the sunny scenes in the Bahamas, the cloque pattern on M's
cream jacket was still mostly visible.
The EF240a has few niggles other than its fiddly menu
system. There’s no support for HDCP over DVI, so you won’t be able to play
copy-protected movies from a Blu-ray player. You do, however, get a set of
speakers. They’re not loud, but they'll do for YouTube videos.
However, such details are irrelevant. This is a 24in monitor
with acceptable image quality and a three-year onsite warranty for a low price.
It's unbeatable value, and it wins our budget buy award.
Technical data
Price:
$124
Verdict: A
24in monitor with decent image quality and a three year onsite warranty for a
low price
23.6in
widescreen LCD: 1920x1080 native resolution, VGA, DVI inputs
Part code:
EF240a
Details: www.edge10.com
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