If you were looking for a big, multi-purpose screen that wouldn’t break the bank, here is where the wheels might come off your wagon. For anything but the most casual use as a movie display, the VW266H just won’t cut it. Sitting still in a dark room, the bezel glare is at its most noticeable.
The screen’s matte finish, which serves it so well in the office, doesn’t offer the blacks and grays you need to really enjoy a movie. It also bleeds a lot of light from the edges which is very distracting when watching a movie in letterbox. Remember that normal 1080 is 16:9, computer screens are 16:10, so you have 1200-1080 = 120 lines to black out – or, in this monitors case, to light grey out along the edge and get darker as you move in.
HD Trailers I downloaded from iTunes like Earth, Ocean, and Terminator Salvation. Salvation generally looked good (except for the light from the edges which was oh so annoying in dark scenes), and you can use the 266H to settle a bet on the exact number of whiskers Christian Bale has in close-ups (don’t adjust the brightness while he is on screen: he got really, really, mad at me). The other two, particularly in underwater scenes, often looked rather grainy. If you watch a lot of movies on your computer, or plan on using the Asus VW266H with an HD tuner, look elsewhere.
So is this monitor too good a deal to be true? Can you really afford a monitor this big? Depends what you are doing. If you are going to be watching movies with any regularity, you might be better off buying a better, smaller (and perhaps glossier) screen.
Movies are the only place where this screen’s weaknesses are more than gripes in the face of how big and cheap it is. If you are tired of opening and closing windows every thirty seconds of the work day, the real estate will be very, very welcome, even if it is surrounded by a shiny bezel that loves to reflect things.
As far as gaming, it turns out that a huge screen is well worth some lackluster performance when it comes to nice grays. It stands up to fast moving images well, which is what you need from a gaming monitor.
So if your monitor ambitions don’t extend beyond work, games, or some of each, the Asus VW266H definitely makes the shortlist. If movies are your thing, you’ll probably want to pass. The monitor isn’t great: it is average; but its price is great. Three out of five on the monitor; five for five on the price: so we average out to four out of five. It’s big, it’s cheap, and it’s a capable monitor. Currently $329 with free shipping at Amazon.com.