Lenovo ThinkVision L220x LCD: true high definition monitor with HDCP

While thin might be in, Lenovo eschews this with what looks to be a very chunky LCD. However, the L220x delivers excellent image quality and performance despite its utilitarian profile.

There are connections to both D-Sub and DVI-D connectors and support for 1,920 x 1,200 - higher than the usual 1,680 x 1,050 you find at this size. It's capable of full 1080p with HDCP. You can use both the analogue and digital connections simultaneously and toggle between them should you want to use the L220x with two systems. There's no printed instruction manual - a PDF version is included on the accompanying CD.

In order to help reduce desktop clutter, the L220x has four USB ports - two at the back and two on the left side of the bezel. There's a cover on the main assembly that can be used for hiding cables so that the inevitable bird's nest can be, at least, partially hidden. There are no integrated speakers.

Set-up was quite straight forward. Once connected, the display was recognised by Vista as a generic plug and play screen. There's a driver on the accompanying CD but the installation process is 100% manual so you'll need to delve into depths of advanced display settings to change the driver. We went through that process and there was no discernible difference to our eyes either in regular usage or in the LCD benchmark tests we routinely run.

Running it on our Vista test system, a Toshiba Portege R500 with docking station, images looked excellent and text displayed clearly. There was no evidence of bright or dull spots, indicating that the backlighting was even. Our only concern was some bright areas on images were too bright - making some photos look slightly over-exposed although this wasn't actually the case. We also ran our standard battery of LCD tests on the L220x. There were no dead or stuck pixels on our test unit and it had the best result for displaying arcs and diagonals of any screen we've recently tested. Jaggedness was almost non-existent - we had to put our nose to the screen to see any disjointedness in complex shapes.

If you like to mix a little pleasure with your business, the L220x did a great job on DVD playback. Action sequences on some sci-fi with rapid-firing lasers and fast-moving space craft were rendered perfectly with no noticeable blurring.

You won't need to resort to phonebooks to get the L220x into an ergonomically sound position. There's vertical adjustment that allows the display to be raised by up to 110mm from its original height. The screen can be rotated from left to right and tilted by up to 30 degrees. In other words, getting it in the right place for most people should be a breeze. In addition the display can be rotated 90 degrees from landscape to portrait orientation. If you mainly work with documents this is a great way to get a full page on the screen in the correct orientation.

What didn't we like about the L220x? Well, the chunky shape doesn't scream "modern office" but that's more than compensated for by the excellent image quality and performance. The high-resolution display is market leading at this size but so is the price with little change out of $1,000 for a 22in display.