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Strengths: Sharp bright picture, good color fidelity, logical and clear menu system, well-designed remote, attractive bezel, ample connections, good computer monitor, easy to wall-mount, 1 yr warranty
Weaknesses: Channel scanning misses channels - no manual override, resolution is not auto-sensing/adjusting, 10 second splash screen on initial power-on, fixed nontiltable stand, no DVI input, modest audio
Summary: I needed a reasonably compact dual-function TV/computer monitor for use in a home office environment. Most of the time, I watch news/business channels during the work day, but occasionally I need to run a secondary Windows/Linux box. My first dual-purpose monitor, a Vizio VX20L, died after less than a year of use. I had previously owned a ViewSonic N2000, which was a very capable TV set, but a poor, single-resolution monitor. Having had a good experience with the ViewSonic brand before, I decided to try the NX1932w since it appeared to have all the VGA monitor features I needed. Compared to the Vizio, the Viewsonic is thinner, lighter, and brighter. the textured black bezel with silver trim is very inconspicuous - it does not detract at all from the display. All the connections are well-marked and easy to access, and the set provides every basic connection necessary for a modern HD-friendly video setup (HDMI, component, S-Video, analog video). There are no digital audio inputs, but given the very modest speakers built into the set, they would not be very useful anyway. Right out of the box, the set gives a very commendable picture with accurate flesh tones. The color levels and sharpness are set too high/oversaturated, but are easy to adjust with the user-friendly menu system. The picture has a very wide viewable angle - at least 150 degrees. My biggest complaint with the TV is that the built-in QAM tuner does not recognize some of my major local channels (such as our ABC affiliate on channel 7 and its 2 sister subchannels). The set performs an initial automatic scan of channels at setup, and there is no way to manually add the missed channels. I tried contacting ViewSonic tech support, but their front-line agents were completely useless on the matter. I think part of the problem is that the tuner is fairly slow to sense channels - it even takes a few seconds to respond when changing channels manually. I watch most of my cable channels in SD through a cable box connected to the composite video input anyway... Another little glitch is that the picture aspect is not auto sensing as with larger sets. For example, when set to the "Full" mode, all content is displayed in widescreen regardless of its original resolution. Similarly, in 4:3 mode, even widescreen HD content is compressed - not letterboxed. There is a little bit of vertical stretching/distortion on HD widescreen content because the set has a native resolution of 16:10 instead of 16:9. There is a "Movie Mode" aspect option that tries to correct this, but all it does is zoom/clip the image to appear less distorted - but you lose content around the edges. I'll settle for the slight distortion of the 16:10 in "Full" mode instead. As a VGA computer monitor, the ViewSonic has been excellent for my occasional use needs. It can be run in dozens of resolutions and is sufficiently readable/accurate for me - I can't say if it would be a good main monitor for continuous/everyday use. This is not a perfect set, but it is a very good unit for the sub-$300 price point as of mid-2008. I hope ViewSonic will address the problems with the slow QAM tuning response and channel setup issues in future units (I wish there were some way to update the firmware on the existing units).
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