( Click here to checkout the full technical spec of the monitor )

Happy 2012 guys and there are a lot going on in the past 2011. Now that we’ve ventured into a whole new year, let me start this year off with yet another new monitor from AOC. You can check this monitor out at your local IT stores. The monitor I’m talking about is the AOC i2252Vwe monitor. This is a 22-inch In-Plane Switching monitor or better known as IPS. Based on the looks of it I believe the specifications and features will put this monitor on a more economical price tag. AOC probably intended to target those market where they get an IPS solution with affordable pricing. This is the second IPS monitor I’ve tested with so lets see how this newcomer perform.

Unpacking and Setup

First, let us look into the packaging of the monitor. The monitor came in a  neat box where inside the box everything is protected by styrofoam. The styrofoam enclosed the monitor panel in a sandwich form somewhat gave more protection to the monitor while transporting the box or when getting the monitor out from the box. Among the bundles and peripherals provided are:

• The monitor panel and the stand
• 1 DVI display cable
• 1 Power cable
• 1 Manual
• 1 Software Disc

Lets look at the exterior of the monitor. After checking out a few ergonomic range monitors, I believe the design for this range of monitor is pretty standard. All the monitors spotting a glossy bezel and base and a clip-on type stand. There are nothing peculiar on the design wise. It still bears the conservative design but overall it still looks simply astonishing for a conventional monitor.

On the back of the monitor, there are two types of input display port which are VGA and DVI ports. It lacks the HDMI port but it wouldn’t affect much because for computer platform the DVI input is always available in most of the graphic cards. The display and power ports are as usual direct inserted into the monitor. At the bottom right of the monitor panel is where the power and control physical buttons located. There is a power LED indicator placed at the same corner. The monitor also has the usual AOC’s slim panel portfolio. The thickness of the panel measured at around 18mm.

On the setup wise, everything looks pretty simple and straight forward. No external tools needed to bring this monitor into one complete piece. The connector is attached to the base stand and the panel is inserted into the other end of the connector and clipped tight. After that you only need to find a good nice spot to place this 22-incher monitor. It is just that simple to prepare the monitor full operational mode. The monitor can be tilted but only by a limited degrees of angle.

Performance

Next, we focus on the performance of the monitor. Fresh out from the box, I powered up the monitor using just the default factory settings. I noticed this monitor has a fast startup time from standby mode or on a fresh power up which is something I’m impressed with. Once booted into Windows, the monitor produced a clean and sharp Windows Desktop on the screen. I proceed the test by opening some webpages and documents. The text rendered is clear and sharp.

Images are crisp and the colour tone is rich and saturated. The colour gamut is wide enough and accurately produced for each of the images. Amazingly the colour did not oversaturate compared to its previous models of LED monitors.

The dynamic range from full black to white gradient is acceptable with a slight hint of backlight bleeding noticed at the side of the screen. This is fairly normal for low light conditions and it isn’t a significant disturbance factor.

The monitor still works great in places with high light exposure given that the monitor has this matte coating on its screen. Yet the brightness seems to lack the punch to bring up a dark image. This might be subjective to different person as some might think it is just nice. However, in low light exposure the brightness level is fine and comfortable.

Next, I played some HD movies and everything looks sharp on the i2252Vwe. The edges on the movie images are clearly defined. There are sufficient luminance produced for every scene in ambient light. The monitor showed a balance amount contrast too in gaming and movies.

The IPS sure is comes in handy just incase the viewers are scattered around where the 178 degrees of viewing angle vertically and horizontally will make sure you won’t endure any colour shifted images.

In the response time test, I opened some fast paced games and movies for it. Although this monitor only has 6ms of response time, but it doesn’t hinder itself from showing great images without any noticeable blurring or sluggishness.

As it is an IPS monitor, the viewing angle without a doubt is in great length. One more new feature on this monitor is Clear Vision. In order to activate this mode just press on the most left button on the monitor and you’ll have the options of having it in weak to strong intensity.

I don’t see major significance in movies or gaming but while going through webpages and documents, I observed a great difference in contrast especially on parts with lines and text. The outline is visibly emphasized and darkened. I’m not sure about the exact function of this feature but it sure is useful when it comes to images or text which are blurry.

AOC Proprietary Softwares

I’ve installed all the AOC proprietary softwares provided in the disc which came with the monitor. The one I can test actively is only i-Menu, e-Saver, and Screen+. i-Menu is just an application level configuration GUI where you can tweak with the settings without the needs to handle it through physical monitor buttons.

The e-Saver is a power saving application where you can choose to put the monitor in some kind of a standby mode if the monitor is not actively used or while you’re temporarily away. Next is the Screen+ which from its description it is a desktop screen splitting tool. It can split your working desktop into a few different panes where each pane displays a different windows. You only need to drag the window to the corresponding pane when you want to access it. This software also supports multiple monitor output. I’ve personally tested this application but till now I’m still not sure how to handle it properly. I can see it divides the monitor into a few panes of my choice but the pane only showed for 1 second then it vanishes like I never activated it before. I seriously needed more time with this software to maximise its full potential.

Conclusion

Overall, from what I observed on this monitor is it looks great as a 22-inch monitor and the IPS performed as well as its older brother the i2353Ph. Although the technical specifications had been toned down by a little, yet it still gives a well valued experience. The AOC i2252Vwe is going to be a good choice of IPS monitor for those who just quite not ready to empty their pockets for a high end monitor.