Lenovo ThinkVision L220x LCD Review

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by Kevin O'Brien

Notebooks have always had a place in business settings, but having a relatively small and dim screen makes them a pain to use in bright offices. This is where your external monitor comes in to save the day, with a brighter screen and usually a higher resolution. One such monitor is the Lenovo ThinkVision WUXGA L220x, offering a massive amount of screen real estate with a bright and accurate LCD panel.

The Lenovo ThinkVision L220x has the following specifications:

• 22.0-inch (559.0 mm) viewable image size
• Native resolution: 1920 x 1200
• Brightness: 325cd/m2
• CRT Size in Inches: 22.0
• Contrast Ratio: 1200:1
• Response time (grey to grey): 6 ms
• Viewing angle (typical) Horizontal: +/- 89 degrees, Vertical: +/- 89 degrees
• High definition 1080p video content (Full HDD) support
• Wide viewing angles enlarge user's workspace for comfortable viewing
• Supports High Definition Content Protection (HDCP)
• 92% color gamut
• Compliance with ENERGY STAR 4.0 requirements
• Four USB ports
• Dual input allows attachment to two systems simultaneously
• Internal power with 90 watts power consumption
• Actual Power: 80w at brightness peak, 43w at low
• Meets 100 mm VESA standard for mounting
• Detachable base for wall or arm mounting (other mounts sold separately)
• Available in business black
• Kensington Lock slot for security
• MSRP: $499
• 3-Year Warranty

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Build and Design

The design of the L220x monitor is very basic, and almost blends into the background when you are using it on your desk. The screen bezel is a dark grey plastic, that doesn't catch your eye when viewing the screen like a glossy or bright color might. The interface buttons are located bottom right-hand corner of the display, and blend in quite well with the rest of the display. In a way you could say it looks like a bland ThinkPad design, but who really buys a screen for what the outside looks like anyways?

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Build quality is pretty impressive, although the screen is a bit on the chunky side from the rear. This display has more depth than your average display, or at least looks like it because the casing has no curved panels or anything to make it visually appealing, it's all business with this LCD.

Mounting Options

This display offers a wide range of mounting configurations, with one being the included desk stand, and the countless others through the VESA 100mm standardized attachment point.

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The included desk stand matches the basic design of the display panel, and offers a decent amount of adjustment to position it to your liking. See below for the full range of movement offered by the included stand:

• Tilt 0 degrees forward to 30 degrees backward
• Swivel +/- 45 degrees
• Height adjustment 4.33&quot;

The mounting option I chose for this display was my ErgoTron mount from a prior review, which could elevate this monster up off my desk so it wouldn't take up such a big footprint.

Image quality

With image quality being one (if not the only) reason why people buy a certain LCD, you will be happy to know that this monitor excels in almost all areas. Colors are bright and vibrant, with full individual color adjustment to tweak the picture if required. Out of the box images were weighted slightly green, but a minor adjustment of the color profile fixed it.

Black levels were very even, with almost no bleed or hot spots on all black screens. Viewing angles were almost unbelievable with little to no color inversion or distortion at all extreme angles.

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Images could be viewed at steep enough angles that the screen bezel would block the image before anything would change with the color. This type of range I have not seen on anything but my IPS FlexView screen found on my ThinkPad in the past.

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Power Consumption and Heat

The power draw with this 22&quot; Lenovo LCD is three times greater than my older Dell 17&quot; screen, but still less than a 100w light bulb. Average consumption was 70w, and this was at 75% brightness. Most of the power is consumed by the lamps, which have a range of 43w to 80w depending on screen brightness. This could also be felt in heat belching out of the top vents that registers close to 130F from my IR temp gun.

Conclusion

The Lenovo ThinkVision WUXGA L220x display offers an amazing resolution not seen with any other monitors of this size, as well as great image quality that you would expect from a high-end display. For business users who might find their laptop pulling double duty in the office or on the road, this display would be a great addition to their desk.

Pros

• Excellent image quality
• No screen defects out of the box
• Higher resolution than other 22&quot; displays

Cons

• Basic design might not blend in with trendy notebooks
• Heat output is a bit high

 

I'd say considering higher quality 20-24" Dells are available for the same price or less, look elsewhere .

BTW, great review!

 

Monitor reviews in my Notebook website?
Its more likely then you think!

Anyway, I personally like the style. If they slimmed it down a bit, but still kept the hard edges(not to mention dropped the price to actually compete with dell/hp/gateway/etc...) id be sold in a second.
The viewing angles look pretty amazing too. My W2007 20" HP lcd display isnt nearly as good. Though that's probably because its a consumer grade laptop that uses a cheap panel(I think the TN one) that puts more emphasis on refresh rate rather then colour gambit and viewing angles.

 

I think the viewing angle looks sweet. And I am thinking getting one myself hookup with my T61.

BTW I though the L220x is a S-PVA not a IPS

 

I don't think the Dells are as high quality as some might think. I've read disappointing reviews.

 

The Dell models that cost less are much lower resolution, and lower quality panels. The 24" models with the same resolution cost much more than this Lenovo monitor, and still have an iffy panel selection.

No kidding, either you find models that go IPS > PVA > TN in a short product cycle, or you have massive blacklight bleeding problems even ith the higher quality panels. It is really hard to trust anything out of them, and you might end up exchanging quite a few screens before you find what you want.

 

I've read something about some not high end models. People reported problems and Dell finally fixed them, but with new batches of screens. It's really annoying returning one screen after the other. I'm sticking to Samsung, as the safe bet. The real screens come from NEC/EIZO anyways, but those have IPS technology inside. They have 22" for 4000E here.
But, I do like that they also have good pricing on their screens (not all of them, but still some have). That is Dell talk (<-).
This model should not be compared to a Dell though as I haven't seen one 22" Dell with WUXGA. It is a great plus for people that want a 22".

 

Yeah, Dell is close to the bottom end when it comes to LCD. I guess people tend to overrate them because they could not compare the quality of Dell LCD with other brands (or, only compare with these cheap 200$ LCD by BenQ and alike). And yes, EIZO and higher-end NEC/Mitsubishi screens are awesome, if on expensive side.

 

Very expensive I might add...very very expensive.

 

Well, as far as I know the 20" 2007WFP was IPS, but I'm not sure about the 2008WFP if its out yet. My 24" 2407WFP is an PVA.

From what I hear, the 2408WFP/2407WFP-HC uses a panel with huge inverted ghosting issues though. But the 20" current model is still IPS AFAIK.

The E207WFP and the SP2008WFP both use TN panels are are crap. Same with all of Dell's 22" monitors. But I've never seen/heard of a non-TN 22" from any vendor so

 

S-PVA is what manufacturers are using in their big screen LCD TV's. My new Sony LCD TV uses an S-PVA panel.

With Dell monitors, it's the luck of the draw, you never now what you are gonna get.


If this Lenovo panel looks as good as my big screen Sony LCD TV, then I am jumping all over it!

Last year I bought one of the last T60p's with the IPS screen, and let me just tell you the screen looks phenomenal. But at 15inch, it is kind of on the small side. Maybe it is time for me to upgrade to a worthy 22 inch external display.

 

It is listed as a PVA panel, has specs on paper that match PVA panels (189 degree viewing angles side to side, up/down, 6ms response instead of 2ms on TN panels, and good color reproduction) and above all looks like a PVA panel.

How about this, show me another 1920x1200 22" panel. Its made by Lite-On and so far noone else uses it.

 

A 22' PVA? Sweet. Fine...I'll shut up.

 

Yeah, EIZO is. Although NEC/Mitsubishi is not that expensive. After all, you have to look at LCD whenever you use your PC - IMO it is much more worthwhile investment than something like SLI setup or extra fast CPU.

It is a shame that some laptop makers are cutting down quality of LCDs to reduce costs (say, ASUS or Lenovo), as well.

 

I can confirm this. I had a 2407WFP-HC for about a week, the ghosting on it was really, REALLY bad. The colors were also really oversaturated, I'm assuming to try and make the thing look better than it really was.

I picked up an LG 24" and I've been much much happier with it. It doesn't have the extra features of the Dell, but it uh...works correctly and produces fairly accurate color.

Getting back on topic, though, the only thing that impresses me about this monitor is something that shouldn't be so rarefied to begin with: it's a WUXGA at under 24". And for the price, you might as well just get a 24". I have a hard time believing those extra 2" make all the difference in the world in terms of desk space.

 

Hey Kevin, thanks for the review. I've been waiting for a 1920 x 1200 22 incher for a while now. This one seems worth a look. Out of curiosity, have you tried any gaming on it, I'd be interested in knowing if it ghosts or not. Response times don't mean much to me anymore as I had a 6ms monitor for a few days before returning it for ghosting. Thanks again for the review!

 

i'll get 4 of these for my workstation if they're not 499 each.

 

Look at those viewing angles . . . they are definitely the best I have seen on an LCD panel. Great review Kevin.

I can't see paying $500 for a 22" though, I agree with Pulp.

 

My personal opinion:

If it were a bit less expensive, I'd probably consider getting one, it really has that "no nonsense" aura about it. However, just short of $500 for it is a bit much, I'd say.

It's odd that nobody else seems to be making 22" WUXGA displays, though, heck of an untapped market, I'd say.

 

This LCD is like fulfiled dream until you look at power consumption. Does it have halogen bulbs in it? Some other 22" LCDs draw only smt. like 45W.

 

Not sure if the L220x is affected, but Digitimes has a press release from Lite-On saying that a fire has damaged 14 LCD production lines, and companies that rely on Lite-On for their LCD monitors such as HP, Dell and Lenovo are the hardest hit.

The link is here (as of this writing, it seems to be down)

http://www.digitimes.com/displays/a20080212VL201.html

 

Depends on what brightness level the screen is at, and how many lamps it uses to light up the screen. Something with 4 lamps instead of 2 lamps would have a higher power draw, but a more even brightness across the screen.

If I would have to guess, the L220x is probably thrown into that mix as well.

 

release date?

 

Release date? I'm not exactly sure, some people have one already, and I'm seeing some large restocking orders on some websites (100+ units per warehouse), but I really can't say at the moment. As I've mentioned above, I've got some "stock alert" notices on several vendor's sites, and I'll post in the forums when I get one (unless someone beats me to it).

 

Looks suhweet. But for that price, I might as well get teh Westinghous L2140NM (I think that's teh model number?) It's a 24" WUXGA with loads of input options.

Love the viewing angles though . It's smexy!

 

after looking at the pictures some more it looks like it is a much thicker monitor than the rest of the 22 inchers.

 

I apologize for bumping this thread, since it's only a 3-month delay I don't feel it's a bad call. If mods feel any different, take whatever action that you please.

In any case, Kevin, you never mentioned the kind of inputs it takes (or I'm just really really blind). DVI-D and VGA only?

Edit: I dug around a lot more about this monitor, and yes, those are indeed the only 2 inputs available. The monitor doesn't do 1:1 pixel mapping.

Basically I just want to hook this up to my PS3 and see if it'll work.

 

i got the L220X , just wondering is there a converter for HDMI to normal VGA to connect the X300 or W500 to it ? since neither of them has HDMI out port

im not sure DVI-D or HDMI is the second cable, but its the white port with many pins and the other is VGA

 

What looks closest like the port you want to connect to.

 

lenovo W500 and X300 has VGA port and the cable seems to be DVI, its written on it CHING TAI DVI DIGITAL SINGLE LINK and i want to connect it to VGA port which is this

 

I dont know if I am just not understanding this correctly, but it sounds like you want to go VGA>DVI cable > VGA?

 

L220x has two cables one VGA which im connecting to lenovo W500 VGA port and the second cable of L220x is DVI i believe i want to convert it into DVI to connect it to lenovo X300 VGA's port

so i believe its DVI -> VGA converter, or maybe a cable to connects to L220X DVI port and the other end is VGA like you recommended

my idea was to but a converter in the middle between the current DVI cable to the laptop like a jack/dungle but having a cable with two different ends would be better

i will check the monitor next time im at office and let you know its port

 

something like that http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=2801&sku=26957 would make the job for example !

i think i found it, buying this better than buying a cable like this one http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=2801&sku=25823 ? or the cable is better performance ?

 

or i need http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=2801&sku=26956

ill confirm male or female that i need first before buying