Impressive image quality, but some truly gimmicky features
The W2636V follows on from LG’s similarly-named W2353 (see our review of the W2353 here).
Many of the important specifications remain the same, including the 23in screen size, 16:9 aspect ratio and resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels. It also includes auto-dimming, allowing brightness to be reduced when in a darkened room.
The white body of the monitor looks impressive but felt very cheap and creaked under even the slightest pressure. The monitor’s stand is similarly lacklustre and doesn’t offer height adjustment. Another gripe is that the touch-sensitive buttons were extremely frustrating to use and only served to slow down menu navigation.
There’s no shortage of input connections, with VGA, DVI and component inputs all present. There are also two HDMI inputs, though, disappointingly, these are situated on the left side of the display, meaning you’ll see the unsightly wires sticking out.
The black bar that runs along the bottom of the display is purely for LG’s Tru Light feature. Activated by a dedicated control on the bar, this flashes up a series of lights that come on in time with audio coming in on the monitor’s audio input socket. Although impressive for the first few seconds, it soon proved to be nothing more than an unwelcome distraction – thankfully, it can be switched off.
Given the Tru Light feature, it’s something of a surprise that LG neglected to put any speakers in the W2363V. Audio can be sent out through the monitor’s headphone socket, but we suspect most people will simply bypass the monitor – and Tru Light – and connect their PC direct to a set of separate speakers.
While we’re not overly impressed with its gimmicky features, we can’t fault the W2363V in what is the most important aspect of any monitor: image quality. It was able to produce bright, images with excellent colour reproduction, and with its high contrast ratio, detail levels were exceptional. Gamers will also appreciate the fast response time, meaning image blur is kept to a minimum. A Thru Mode feature aims to further reduce blurring, but we couldn’t detect any change when it was activated.
