So today we're going to be having a look at the Acer s231
hlb LED backlit LCD monitor this is part
of their Olympic Edition monitor so um while the Olympics are over it is still
an Olympian of sorts and that it is a unique well not completely unique these
days but it is a very very unique
product offering in that it has an LED
backlight and there are maybe other monitors with LED backlights but I
haven't seen one yet so it's Unique to me see how I covered that up either way
let's have a look at what's included with this particular Monitor and talk a
little bit about the benefits of an LED backlit LCD versus a conventional
fluorescent back lit LCD so actually I want the cameraman to look up a
miniaturized version of that is exactly what is behind most LCD panels so what
happens is that you actually have you tend to get what's called hotpots so
those lights are actual tubes behind your panel and so it has to be diffused
properly to get a nice even backlight so you get some hot spots where it's more
washed out and some dark spots where it's a little bit darker with an LED
back lit LCD the whole thing is
completely back lit with little Points of Light so you get a nice even
backlight one of the other advantages is it's a pure white backlight so you don't
have any of the uh disadvantages of an
offc colored Cath light behind the panel
so you actually get better more accurate colors you get more consistent
backlighting and you also get better power consumption because LEDs are much
more efficient than those fluorescent tube blades so I've got all of the
accessories unpacked let's have a quick look at them here oh the cameraman's probably looking at this what is this
okay oh yeah and they're thinner so because you have to have that tube light
you have to have some way in front of it to diffuse it so that it is evenly
distributed you end up with a thicker panel if you have a c CFL backlit LCD so
e-c color they're probably talking about more color oh yeah better contrast ratio
yet another Advantage this is a 12 million to1 active contrast management
contrast ratio LED maybe it's not quite that high it's um specs for contrast
ratios have gotten a little bit ludicrous over the last few years but I
can assure you that it's going to be better than a cathode backlit LCD so we
have a VGA cable just in case you're still using one of those with your fancy
new monitor we have a DVI cable that is also including I highly recommend using
this one cuz that's how you're going to get the best image quality out of it
you've got a power cable I'll just take that out which plugs into a power brick
see there that really speaks to the power efficiency of an LED backlit LCD
that's the power brick you're using it's like there's like nothing to it then we
have the little stand that we're going to use to attach the monitor to
presumably some kind of a base so let's pull the monitor itself
out okay there's a piece of foam that is not the monitor now I'm going to pull
the monitor out no this is the limited warranty agreement as well as a quick
start guide on a CD for the monitor next
we're going to pull out the
Monitor and not drop the
monitor it's okay it dropped on the foam so it's all
good the foam that won't come out there
we go we finally got the monitor as well as the base so here is a oh yeah you get
another cable included the way they've packed this is just ingenious I'm not
even going to try and get that off there H it's an HDMI cable there you go so I'm
guessing that this monitor supports VGA DVI and HDMI based on the accessories
that we've seen here next we've got the base so here is the one that here we
go there we are so a nice shiny plastic
base and then there's a uh screw on the bottom here for attaching that little
ARM piece so I'm going to get this I'm going to get the display assembl as
quickly as I can here so that we can have a look at the overall aesthetic
because that's something that you know
while you might have specs on your side and there might be all of these sort of
U marketing bullet points one of the most important things about a monitor is
going to be how it looks to you on your desk because you have to stare at it an
awful lot and if it doesn't look nice then you're not going to like it no
matter how good the image quality is for a lot of people anyway I mean not
everybody's like that but for for me certainly I wouldn't want a monitor that
I found ugly sitting on my desk for I mean I don't know how long most of our
viewers will keep a monitor but I usually keep a monitor for at least 3 to
5 years um I typically don't replace them unless I absolutely have to so here
we go we've got uh oh this was full of marketing stuff okay so it's ultra thin
there you can look at that while I'm taking off this uh cover on the monitor
unless that's boring oh yeah this is the same stuff that was on the front of the
box so it's Mercury free you know so not manufactured using
mercury that's good all right making my
way around here with these tape which is
quite difficult to remove cleanly sorry about this
everyone wow they are really serious
about protecting the front of this panel it's like you got your tape you got your
plastic we got like more tape and more plastic
there we go o That's nice okay so here
for thinness you're looking at about the width of oh yeah sure cameraman wants me
to use his iPhone for comparison so it's actually only
about twice the thickness of an iPhone
at the top of the monitor so that's very very cool and that's just the bezel so
when you actually look at the screen itself it's even quite a bit thinner
than that because you've got a fair bound of the bezel up here in front of
the monitor so if we just kind of hold the iPhone there for thickness
comparison you can sort of see how thick the the bezel here is and how thick an
iPhone is so it's incredibly slim now it's a little bit thicker down at the
bottom because that's where you have all of the electronics for your
inputs as well as oh here here's how we attach the base so there's a little bit
of uh spot right here where we can put this
in so it just slides in presumably like
this yeah just like that and then if I had a screwdriver I'd be able to put
this in more quickly but I don't so I'm going to have to drive the screw with my
hand there we go hey hey
Innovation all that's in there pretty good all right and then let's go ahead
and stand it on the base so this particular model doesn't include any
real tilt options or any of that kind of stuff but if you're looking for
something that's just really power efficient
and offers good color all that good LED
backlit goodness good contrast ratio then this is probably the one for you
now we're going to actually be testing this monitor a little bit better when we
do a full NC Tech tips episode comparing it against a conventional cathode
backlit LCD and that's really the whole reason that I'm unboxing this thing but
just for the sake of having a look at it but what we get the cameraman to do kind
of some closeups and uh check out this
particular LCD I you know what I don't think I even mentioned the resolution
and the size of it this is a 23in model
and it is a 1920x 1080 resolution so that means you can watch full HD video
on here it's not going to be scaled in any way it has a 16x9 aspect ratio so
that means that you're not going to see the black bars on your content that you
would on a 16 by10 uh and that's a 1920
x 1200 pound so let's have a look around at the back
where we have our Vasa mounts so you got 1 2 3 four of those so you can mount
this on a wall mount and it wouldn't even have to be a very strong one
because this LCD monitor is incredibly light so that's one of the really cool
things about it then we've also got our inputs here which as I guessed before
are HDMI DVI and VGA in here is the DC
in so as I've showed you before it does
have an external power brick although it is quite small so you just plug that in
like that it does have a Kensington lock here as well if you need any anti- theft
security so thank you for checking out my unboxing of the
s231hl bid LED back lit LCD monitor from Acer