The AL1702 is a wide-screen offering in the 17in LCD segment from Acer. The model flaunts a basic good looking all-black body with a standard 5-button control panel and a LED. The buttons are tablet shaped and the silver colour contrasts perfectly with the black frame of the screen. The LED glows green when powered and turns amber when in power saving mode. Overall, the design is simple yet appealing. The build quality is on the positive side as well. The base is sturdy and more stable on your desk as compared to the one from Intex. The base is well designed and it is easy to snap the monitor into place. It can be adjusted in a vertical plane to varying degrees, but not side to side.

You are able to adjust the monitor's angle from _5° to 1 5° vertically. There are also the entire standard configuration options for adjusting the picture quality. And it is definitely recommended to run in native resolution or you won't see the full potential of the monitor. This monitor meets the Green monitor standards as set by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This feature is designed to conserve electrical energy by reducing power consumption when there is no video input signal. This monitor, following a time-out period, will automatically switch to an OFF mode thereby reducing the monitor's internal power supply consumption.

Like most LCDs, it comes with just an analog input and lacks a DVI interface. The native resolution supported is upto 1440 x 900 and the analog signal does a decent enough job. The screen is vivid and sharp with rich colour depth. We are sure that higher quality monitors may have slightly richer colour but this will be good enough for a vast majority of people. With a viewing angle of 140 degrees horizontally and 130 degrees vertically, the screen delivers a sufficient range of view without much colour leakage from different angles. With a contrast ratio of 500: 1 the brightness, contrast, grey scale, and aspect ratio performed well in our tests and produced satisfactory results. A luminosity of 250 Units does a good job.

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A dense pixel pitch and a fast response time of 8 milliseconds ensure even faster frames in games, but there is a slight amount of blurring when moving scenes in a game quickly. It's only a minor complaint and not worth worrying about. The wide screen however doesn't carry the punch expected. The Intex model gave a real wide screen feel when we tested some movie clips as against this one, which seemed a bit regular in terms of aspect ratio. There are no in-built speakers or any such add-ons provided with the LCD. All in all, this model is very basic and the specifications supported are not at the highest end for a 17in, but it does an above average job with contrasts, colour display, and the pixel response. A decent performer, however at higher resolutions a more demanding consumer may crib about the lack of a digital interface though.