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SONY 400PST
STANDFIRST
Sony make some of the world’s finest TVs, and
they know a thing or two about PC and video monitors, so the new 19-inch 400PST
is off to a promising start...
COPY
By now you shouldn’t need reminding that desktop
video applications require, nay demand, the use of a good sized monitor. That means
one larger than the 14 and 15-inch models supplied with most PC systems. There’s
plenty of 17-inch models on the market, but the next regular size up is 21-inches,
which is quite a jump. There would seem to be room for something in between; Sony
seem to think so, they’ve just launched the 19-inch 400PST. It’s one of three
new multiscan monitors introduced by the company in the past couple of months.
The others (200PST and 500PST) share a similar set of specifications but have
17 and 21-inch screen respectively.
The 400PST has a suggest selling price of
around £820 (inc VAT) and was designed from the outset for CAD/CAM and graphics
applications and to work in harmony with Windows 95 plug-and-play, and comply
with DPMS power saving features. It has a Trinition tube with an aperture
grille pitch of 0.25mm, advanced digital scan circuitry supports all commonly
used resolutions and refresh rates. Sony are obviously very proud of the monitor’s
environmental credentials and power saving features. They’re set out on a
impressive-looking table in the manual, indeed, in so-called ‘third-mode
suspend’ it consumes a miserly 5 watts, but they spoil it by boasting a
consumption figure of zero watts in ‘power off mode’. Congratulations Sony, a
monitor that consumes no power when switched off...
The 400PST has 27 preset display modes, from
the ancient MCGA standard used on early PS/2 machines, (640 x 350 at 70Hz), to
all industry-standard Vesa modes, up to and including 1600 x 1200 at 85 Hz. The
monitor automatically selects the most appropriate refresh rate, and can store
up to 15 custom settings. It has two switchable inputs, using a standard 15-pin
connector and 5 BNC sockets. Front panel controls comprise the on/off switch
and eight small buttons. The main point of interest is the ASC (auto size and centring)
button, which automatically configures the display according to the input
signal. The brightness and contrast up/down buttons double up as selector
buttons for the unusually comprehensive menu-controlled, multi-lingual
on-screen display. This covers just about every display parameter, including size,
position and zoom, geometry, convergence, colour temperature, moiré cancel and selective
degauss. If you have a fiddle and get too far out of bonk there’s always the
front-panel reset button, that returns all the settings to the factory
defaults.
PERFORMANCE
After a 30 minute warm-up we treated the
400PST to our standard test routine, using a mixture of monitor test software
(CheckScreen and Ntest), plus selected video and games sequences. We’re pleased
to report it came through the resolution, focus, convergence, colour purity, geometry
and power supply stability with flying colours. However, like all Trinitron
tubes the shadow of two damping wires are visible across the upper and lower
thirds of the screen. They’re most noticeable against bright and plain coloured
backgrounds, but virtually disappear on moving video and fast graphics.
SUMMARY
It’s a bit pricey -- bog standard 17 inch
monitors can be found for half as much -- but performance is excellent, it is
unusually flexible and after living with it for a while, we found 19-inches to
be a very convenient and comfortable size for desktop video.
How Much? £820 (inc. VAT)
Tube size 19-inch Trinitron
Visible display area 365 x 275mm
Dot Pitch 0.25mm
Max Resolution 1600 x 1200 pixels
Max refresh rate auto scan to 160Hz
Dimensions 444 x 467 x 453mm
Weight 25kg
CV RATINGS
Features 8
Performance 8
Ease of use 8
Value for money 8
Overall Rating 85%
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Ó R. Maybury 1998 0101
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