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All Reviews > Hardware > Displays > LCD monitors > 19-inch and bigger LCDs

January 3, 2008

Acer AL2616Wd 26in flat-panel monitor

Great for viewing office documents, the 26in (25.5in viewable area) Acer AL2616Wd's weak graphics performance defeats its low price.

At around £350 the Acer AL2616Wd is part of the company's "Value Line" of monitors. And it proves that you get what you pay for. Although the Acer AL2616Wd's performance scores were solid, they were well below average for its class.

The 26in widescreen (25.5in viewable area) Acer AL2616Wd managed to pull an overall score of Good, but it had some of the lowest graphics and text test performance scores we've recently seen.

A picture of fruit slices lacked saturation to make the colors vivid. The Acer AL2616Wd also lacked the uniformity of brightness that other, better screens exhibited; in fact, a few judges commented on how "dark" the screen looked.

Although the Acer AL2616Wd did fairly well with office documents, further legibility and sharpness tests produced a mixed bag of results.

The panel's silver bezel is unremarkable and feels like low-quality plastic, especially when compared with other monitors in this size segment. The Acer AL2616Wd does sport a solid and heavy black trapezoidal base that's sure to keep this large monitor in its place.

You also lose many physical adjustments: the Acer AL2616Wd only comes with a tilt mechanism that goes back 15 degrees and forward 5 degrees. There is no cable management system, although the Acer AL2616Wd's immovable panel is so close to the base you may not see the cables at all.

We found generally good colours when we viewed the movie 'Lord of the Rings: Return of the King' on the Acer AL2616Wd. The dark and light scenes showed good definition, showing adequate detail even though we did notice it was a bit grainy in parts. Nevertheless, it produced rich reds and blues, and textured detailing on clothing was sharp.

The Acer AL2616Wd's onscreen display (OSD) adjustments are easy enough to access and learn with the aptly labeled buttons located beneath the lower bezel. They include a button for colour adjustments, presets for text, graphics and movie, as well as user-defined settings.

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Total reviews: 4,313

See product specs

expert rating

Build quality

3/5

Features

3.5/5

Value for money

4/5

Overall

3.5/5

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Acer AL2616Wd

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