Hercules ProphetView 920 Pro review - Page 3 - Design and First Impressions

Design
The design is, of course, much the same style as the 720 series. Flat, stylish and small. The big difference here is the color black for the housing of the LCD. I preferred the blue 720 color more, but that's personal I guess. Although much heavier then it's predecessor the 720 the 920 still is not very heavy at 4-5 kilo.

Screen size as stated is 17" , that's 43 centimeters for us European folks. Resolution wise you always need to remember this, go for the highest resolution available on your LCD as that's the sharpest resolution. The rest of the modes are interpolated, very annoying to look at if you do spreadsheets and word, thus 2D stuff a lot.

There's a small remark I'd like to make. You've likely noticed this is a 'Pro' model. The difference between the pro and non-pro version you need to seek in contrast ratio. The non-pro has 350:1 (still very good) and the Pro version 430:1 at 250 candela per square centimeter, very bright indeed.

Besides the fact LCD's a re a lust to the eye there's another factor you will love. The power it's consuming as that number is down right low. Your 19" CRT will draw 100-150 watts, this 17" LCD uses up 30-35 Watts with 3 watts in standby mode.

First Glance
After connecting that is. Image quality is quite good, yet colors are not 100% what they should be. You can correct a lot with the color temperature and RGB options though.

For testing we used the Nokia test (download). Nokia Test is a freeware utility by Nokia that will guide you through testing and adjusting any monitor for an optimum display. There are test patterns for Geometry, Convergence, Resolution, Moiré, Brightness, Contrast, Focus, Readability, Color and Screen Regulation. You put up the test pattern and then make the adjustments to your monitor.

Although it passed all tests there was a very small  color difference over on certain spots on the screen. In other words, if you have an entirely white screen you'll notice that one corner might be tiny taints darker then the other. No biggy though.

As you can see the design is clean. Just the basics though, no additional speakers no USB hub.

The rest of the article will be lot's of photos guided by text. We used the 920 Pro for several weeks in a dual-monitor configuration powered by a Radeon 9800 Pro.