LG E2350V review

Is LED backlighting and Full HD for under £150 too good to be true?

LG E2350V
The LG E2350V represents a lot of monitor for the money

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LG e2350v

At this price point, you might expect grim plastics and shoddy build. After all, this is a big 23-inch panel with a sub-£150 sticker. But the LG E2350V is having none of it. The screen bezel is hewn from fairly funky transparent purple plastic and sports a glossy finish.

Okay, the stand is a cheap tilt-only affair, but the overall vibe is stylish middle-market consumer electronics, not bargain-basement PC peripheral. As for image quality, the panel's TN origins are obvious enough to the trained eye. The overall colour balance is rather cool, even with the colour temperature set to 6500K.

Other demerits include a backlight that bleeds slightly at the edges and mediocre viewing angles that lead to very slight colour inversion when watching movies. Flesh tones also lack warmth, leaving on-screen protagonists looking rather gaunt and ill. Likewise, in the Lagom test images, both white tone and bright colour compression is very apparent.

It would also be remiss not to point out that LG's image enhancement tech, known as F Engine and including dynamic contrast and digital colour processing, are largely gimmicks. But then you can say that about all such efforts from every manufacturer.

Nevertheless, contrast and overall black levels are actually quite impressive. The backlight delivers plenty of punch, too. In our test suite, which includes the opening sequence of the Russell Crowe vehicle Master and Commander, the LG E2350V delivers lots of detail. Overall, it adds up to a thoroughly contemporary but not state-of-the-art TN panel.

We liked

23 inches of LED-backlit beauty is an awful lot of monitor for under £150. Overall image quality is above average, and with DVI, HDMI and VGA, you've got the key input options in the bag. We also like the effort LG has gone to dress the E2350V in some decent threads. This monitor looks a lot pricier than it is.

We disliked

You'd think the 23-inch LG E2350V would be more than competitive at this price point. Unfortunately, BenQ has shaken things up with its uber cheap VA offering. In that context, the E2350V's TN-derived image quality shortcomings are all the more obvious – and that's despite the LED backlight.

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