How does this big monitor with a budget price stand up when working, gaming, or watching movies? Check out our review of this monitor, which is priced like a 24", but almost 25.5". Does the inch and a half matter, and does the quality suffer?
Easier to List What Asus Doesn’t Make
Asus makes legendary motherboards, and have broadened their lines to include almost anything that goes into a computer, including laptops. Laptops have screens, so Asus makes those, and sells stand alone monitors as well. Their screens don’t have the pedigree of their motherboards or that of a Samsung screen, but Asus isn’t charging you for brand recognition on this unit.
An Extra Inch and a Half
The VW266H is marketed as a 26 inch screen, but it is more accurately a 25.5” model. More importantly, it costs about as much as most 24” panels. If you are shopping for a 24” panel, you will find that you can get significantly more screen for little or no more money.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, so you do give up a few frills on this deal, but size matters, and sometimes quantity does trump quality. Is the VW266H a big beautiful bargain, or a large lame lemon?
ASUS VW266H Packaging
| VW266H Packaging and Cables | Rating  |
When you see the box for this monitor, you will either giggle with glee, or frown with concern about how it will fit between the kid’s car seat and the sports equipment from their last activity. Either way, the box is solid and the monitor well packaged, even including a handle that makes carrying the unit very simple. I don’t have room to keep boxes, but I am cutting that handle off and using it again.
You get power, VGA, DVI, and even audio mini-plug patch cables. The last is for the VW266H’s integrated speakers. They are a nice touch if you are in a pinch, but even mediocre stand alone speakers will put them to shame. At least they are well hidden and don’t bulk up the bezel. Absent is the HDMI cable. The monitor (as the box shows) is very proud of its HDMI support (it also has composite video). The decision to include a VGA cable and not HDMI is puzzling. The odds that someone still using a computer or graphics card that outputs in VGA is going to buy this kind of screen are pretty ridiculous - far lower than someone would want to use the HDMI port.
ASUS VW266H: What Is Included?
| VW266H Manuals, Set Up, Warranty | Rating  |
The “Quick Start Guide” was shocking in its thickness… certainly hooking up this monitor can’t need over 90 pages of “Quick Start” info? No, it doesn’t, but it does have three pages of instructions in each of over 30 languages! I paid an extra $12.63 of recycling fee when buying this monitor… and I have 90 pages of manual I can’t use (well 87 if I decide to read the English and French section).
The warranty pamphlet has a truly impressive innovation. It has a sticker with the serial number right on it! If you thought the place to write down the serial number was great, this will really knock your socks off! Unfortunately, the warranty goes down hill from there: reading and understanding a warranty is bad enough with out having it written in English so bad that it reads like the subtitles of a foreign film with lousy dialogue. Have a taste here.
Also, LCD monitors can have dead pixels. Asus, like other manufactures, feels that a certain number of dead (also called stuck or bad pixels) are acceptable. That’s why monitors should only be purchased from a retailer that gives you a few weeks to bring the monitor back no questions asked.
Setup is simple. The monitor slides onto and clicks into the stand (at the left of the picture). The ports face downwards, and cables pass through the U shaped manager you can see in the second picture. The software was not used. I suspect it is more useful for the monitor’s sister model, which includes an integrated webcam.