With the CRT monitor market pretty much dictated by the quality of the flat-screen tubes being churned out by Mitsubishi and Sony, it's refreshing to get hold of a display that bucks the trend. The FP1370 is fitted with NEC's own flat-screen tube, with a healthy nominal diagonal of 22in. As with Mitsubishi's tubes, however, the 22in figure is a little misleading, since the viewable diagonal is 20in: identical to most 21in units.

Our first impression after hefting it onto the desk - it weighs 32kg - was that, for a 22in flat-screen monitor, it's amazingly shallow. With a depth of just 465mm, it's actually 10mm or so thinner than Taxan's new 19in flat-screen. Styling is great, too - the standby/power indicator is integrated into the NEC logo on the fascia, so it glows rather stylishly when the unit is switched on.

Round the back you'll find both D-Sub and BNC connectors, with a dedicated front panel button to switch between them. There's also a dedicated front panel exit button. The OSD itself is comprehensive, with six varieties of convergence control as well as the GlobalSync adjustments, otherwise known as corner purity.

When it comes to image quality, the FP1370 delivers the goods on most fronts, displaying excellent geometry with good colour registration, power regulation and corner-to-corner sharpness and focus. But there's one big Achilles' heel: contrast. The screen itself is far greyer than we've become used to and gives the feeling that you're looking at the display through a net curtain. It renders what would be an excellent monitor rather ordinary.

Unless NEC manages to sort out the contrast problem, you'd be much better off going with a 21/22in display fitted with a tube from one of the big two.

Contact:
NEC 0645 404 020