The motion control craze may be getting some new adherents in the form of Sony and Microsoft, but the advent of 3D display technologies has been the real water cooler topic of the year. To coincide with this, Asus recently jumped on-board the 3D bandwagon releasing the Asus VG236 3D enabled LCD monitor.
Features
The VG236 is a 23” 120 Hz Full HD display featuring a trace-free 2 ms (millisecond) response time. From the get-go one gets the feeling that this is a very high quality monitor - little things like the instantly adjustable screen height, tilt and swivel settings and the attractive overall design adds to the monitor's appeal.
Thanks to Colour Shine technology the display is one of the clearest and most crisp we've ever come across. Connecting the display up to our test PC for the first time we were seriously impressed with the overall colour quality and clarity. The images seem to jump out at you, even without the requisite 3D glasses.
The display has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080, making for a full HD and a perfect wide-screen viewing experience. As far as competition goes the VG236 is definitely a cream-of-the-crop product, but the
Acer D241H and
LG Flatron E2350V will be able to give it a run for its money.
The VG236 is also adequately kitted out with ports, featuring HDMI, DVI and component jacks on the rear of the monitor, but unfortunately lacks a DisplayPort connection. To use the 3D functionality of the display users will need to use dual-link DVI connections, so make sure your GPU has a DVI connector beforehand. Users can then simply connect the screen and GPU via the supplied dual-link DVI cable.
Nvidia 3D vision
When purchasing the Asus VG236 users will not only get a great display, they will also find the full Nvidia 3D vision kit bundled with the monitor package. This includes one pair of Nvidia 3D vision active shutter glasses, 3D vision USB controller, all the cables you'll need and even adjustable nose pieces for the glasses.
Users require a 3D supporting Nvidia graphics card to use the 3D glasses. This includes most new Nvidia cards but unfortunately excludes ATI users. The 3D effects works very well and increases game immersion tenfold, although at the start we experienced a little discomfort as we got used to the effect.
Luckily users do not need a supercharged gaming rig to handle 3D vision, the minimum requirements are Windows Vista or 7, an Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon X2 processor, 1 GB of RAM, 1 GB of free disk space and a Geforce 9600GT GPU or better.
As far as gaming content goes, users can be assured that more 3D enabled titles are on the way. There already exists a wide range of 3D enabled games such as Left 4 Dead 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2 and R.U.S.E. to name but a few.
Conclusion
The Asus VG236 LCD monitor is a stand-out product thanks to its high level of quality and 3D capabilities. It retails for R5 999 and is available from Asus on 011-783-5450.
