Home | Forums | Article Search | Subscribe & Shop | Contact Us | Log Out IBM T540 Email This Print This View My Personal Library Heavy Gear December 2001 • Vol.1 Issue 1 Page(s) 22 in print issue Add To My Personal Library IBM T540 It's getting increasingly difficult to find a bad 15-inch LCD. Great looking, reasonably priced 15-inch LCDs seem to be rolling off the factory lines faster than we can get our hands on them. The T540 from IBM is no exception, and it easily ranks among the best in its class. The T540 is an analog-only model with a maximum resolution of 1,024 x 768 and a 75Hz refresh rate. These specs don't compare with, say, the typical 17-inch LCD with dual (analog and digital) input and a 1,600 x 1,200 maximum resolution, and the T540 doesn't come with many extras. But that's OK for a bargain-priced LCD. Our lab technicians installed the T540 on our 500MHz Pentium III VIA system, which uses an NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS video card. I tested the display at the maximum resolution and refresh rate. The T540 performed flawlessly during most of our diagnostic tests. The screen that tests for defocusing revealed no blooming or halo effects, which is notable because with even the best displays, there is often some minor blooming. Scaled fonts looked clear and sharp; the smallest fonts were readable and not the least bit fuzzy. All color combinations looked excellent, and the 256 intensity level ramps showed vivid color and a healthy range of light to dark. During the extreme grayscale tests, I noticed a tendency toward over-darkness, but this wasn't apparent elsewhere. The screen that tests for white-level regulation, which also illuminates tiny problems in the best of displays, looked perfect on the T540. The thinnest white lines against a dark background looked absolutely white, without the typical tendency toward gray. I looked at a Microsoft Word document and an Excel spreadsheet, and the text in both cases was nice and sharp. The T540 would make an excellent choice for any imaging task. This LCD is a bit more expensive than the growing number of sub-$500 models, but for the quality it provides, you won't regret paying a few dollars more. by Cal Clinchard T540 $539 IBM (800) 426-4968 (914) 765-1900 http://www.ibm.com  User Reviews Be the first to write a review of this product Want more information about a topic you found of interest while reading this article? Type a word or phrase that identifies the topic and click "Search" to find relevant articles from within our editorial database. Enter A Subject (key words or a phrase): ALL Words (‘digital’ AND ‘photography’) ANY Words (‘digital’ OR ‘photography’) Exact Match ('digital photography'- all words MUST appear together) Home      Copyright & Legal Information      Privacy Policy      Site Map      Contact Us Copyright © 2010 Sandhills Publishing Company U.S.A. All rights reserved.