Acer B223w – A Pivotal Idea

I recently got the Acer B223w LCD monitor for my work I do for layout etc. The reason I chose this model was for it’s novel pivot option that basically mean the monitor can rotate from landscape to portrait and make it more “native” for page type programs like Word, Acrobat Reader, and of course my programs i use for making page layouts like InDesign, PhotoShop easier to view as there is little need for scrolling up and down much.

I got mine here and they were fast and diligent however the website says it is a 2500:1 contrast ratio monitor but on the box it says 1000:1. It is an older model and not good if you want it for gaming or high def video due to that ratio and 5 ms response time with the mouse but for what I need it for it more then does great.

One thing that is a bit problematic is the software that helps it change orientation and the instructions in the manuals that don’t tell you hardly anything you need to know and nothing on how to get the pivot working only online forums and sites were able to help with that like this one and you need to add the CD that comes  with it and download the ADM (for some reason unknown to me it can;t just be embedded in the CD itself), ADM is Acer eDisplay Management. this program crashed my computer a few times and i finally uninstalled it in Safe Mode but it still kept the orientation in portrait, so at this moment I am “trapped” into that one display, one I don’t mind but one that seems to take much more RAM and CPU usage.

I will upgrade to a faster CPU soon and reinstall everything and see how things go from there but for now I have a 22″ portrait style screen full-time. But since I am predominantly on Word, Internet or layout programs it really is a nice fit for me as I don’t have wasted space on the side of pages and don’t have to scroll much of the time. Here are some example screen shots with pages I use.

A Blog post with images all fits on one screen shot and can be viewed all at once in this view.

The desktop, lots of room for icons, :P. At 1050×1680, no distortion and displays a large picture rather sharply.

In InDesign it shows an A4 page near life-size without scrolling.

Mail, I live in my mailbox at times, writing and chatting so seeing the whole page is nice scroll free.

PDF is nice to see the whole page too, I like viewing things in “page width” and this allows for that to fill out all four sides in one screen of an A4 PDF with room to spare.

In PhotoShop you can make the pic take up the whole screen if you are working on a portrait pic just like we always have been able to do for landscapes on traditional monitors, I find this fabulous for portraits and photographers to get a real full view of a pic in a formate size of a large print and edit the whole pic in one view.

A view of 22″Acer B223w in portrait mode and 14″ Acer FP553, virtually twice the display space and could watch a movie at the same size as the 14″ on half the screen and still have another window to following other things.

McStack! viewing two things simultaneously, I know I am an over obsessed multitasking freak with 10 or more tabs in my browser and programs running at any given time, but now I can do that twice as much and much more organized!

Overall this monitor gives a “stand up” performance in more ways then one, sure I wish it also had 5000 or 8000:1 contrast ratio but for this price and being a few years old model is more then what I expected and hoped for and provides me a better workspace for what I need and gets a 9 out of a possible 10, sighing complicated software and lack of comprehensive manual in not giving it a 10.

If it is what you’ve een looking for you better get it, mine came with a “laptop upgrade kit” wireless mouse and keyboard also by Acer, not really what I need and have not gotten them to work and the signal seems to have a big delay time but it came free extra and I’ll give them away to a laptop user and it was a nice idea and see it would be good for laptop users.

Also a nice touch and what one of my friends thought the pivot was for is watching a movie laying down either right, left or upside-down, or any work for that matter:P. The monitor only pivots from 0-90 degrees clockwise physically but the software help with the other options.