Hard Stuff: LG Flatron D2342P Passive 3D Monitor review

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LG-DISPLAY-1200

Good news! LG's Flatron D2342P monitor allows for 3D gaming on the cheap! That said, the 3D experience it offers is, well, kind of cheap.

For starters, the external housing feels pretty flimsy. This wouldn't be such a bad thing if you could be confident that the monitor would stay where you put it, but one of the first things I noticed after setup is that it moves around on the desk in response to the mild vibrations caused by typing. Even worse, anything more than a light touch to the side of its bezel left it wobbling back and forth like a Weeble on a bender. It never fell over, but if your rage-quits include a lot of gesticulation, this ain't the monitor you're looking for.

You could also run into problems if your desk sits on the low side, as the D2342P's stand only offers 15 degrees of backward tilt. However, as the monitor is VESA compatible, it can be mounted on a wall or an articulated arm, making up for the shallow amount of out-of-the-box tilt LG provides for. As for connections, the D2342P covers the bases, and comes equipped with a headphone jack, HDMI, DVI and VGA ports.

Even if you're able to get past setup issues, the performance isn't great. While the D2342P is capable of rocking a resolution of 1920x1080, its color quality is a washed-out disappointment in both 2D and 3D, with black tones—something that LED displays have traditionally handled well—often appearing in both games and movies as dark grays.

The big selling point for this bad boy is that the D2342P is capable of providing 3D video at a significantly lower price point than hardware that uses Nvidia's 3D Vision Kit technology. LG delivers this by outfitting the D2342P with its own proprietary passive 3D technology. Despite the rest of the monitor's failings, the D2342P does serve up a satisfactory 3D gaming and video experience, albeit with some pretty substantial ghosting whenever there is a large amount of movement on screen. It just goes to show that in life, and in this case, with 3D monitors, you get what you pay for.

Price: $350 ◆ Size: 23” (diagonal) ◆ Resolution: 1920x1080 ◆ Aspect Ratio: 16:9 ◆ Ports: HDMI, DVI, VGA ◆ Type: Passive 3D ◆ Link: www.lg.com ◆ Category: Mid