Lenovo D186 Wide

Big-screen monitors are all the rage these days, but not everyone has the money or the desktop real estate for a larger display. Enter the Lenovo D186 Wide ($99 list), an 18.5-inch LCD monitor with a sub-$100 price tag and a very limited feature set. The D186 is an analog display that delivers good color quality but has trouble displaying light and dark shades of the grayscale. It's not meant for heavy graphical tasks like image editing, but it is more than capable of handling your basic Web browsing and light office workload.

Design and Features
The D186's plastic cabinet is the same Business Black color as Lenovo's ThinkCentre and ThinkPad line of desktops and laptops and is meant to compliment both. It sports a shiny Lenovo logo on the upper bezel but that's it for embellishments. The 7 pound cabinet sits atop a round black base that allows you to tilt the panel forward and backward but does not support swivel, height, or pivot adjustments.

On the right side of the lower bezel are five buttons, including the power switch and four navigation keys. Two of the buttons are hot keys for adjusting brightness and invoking the Auto-Adjust feature which automatically adjusts clock, phase, size, and position settings. Menu options are limited; you can adjust brightness, contrast, clock, and phase settings, choose one of four color presets (reddish, blueish, neutral, sRGB), and choose Full Screen or Original Aspect Ratio.

Around back is a lone VGA port. The D186 doesn't support digital signals, and as such lacks HDMI and DVI inputs. There aren't any speakers either, nor is there a webcam or headphone jack. The TN+ panel has a resolution of 1,366 by 768 and a 16:9 aspect ratio, and the panel's matte coating is glare-free and non-reflective. Despite its low price, the D186 comes with Lenovo's three-year warranty, which covers parts, labor, and backlighting. It also comes with a VGA cable and a CD with drivers and an online user guide.

Performance
The D186 did a good job of displaying small text on the DisplayMate Scaled Fonts test; fonts set at 5.3 points were legible and well defined. Color gradation was smooth from dark to light and there was no obvious tinting in the grayscale but the panel was unable to display the lightest and darkest shades of gray on the 64-Step Grayscale test. As such, this monitor is not well suited for photo editing or any application that requires accurate grayscale performance.

You'll want to position yourself as close to dead center (at eye level) as possible as the D186 offers narrow viewing angles. Color shifting occurs at around 35-degrees from center and worsens as you move further from the sweet spot. Top and bottom viewing angles are worse as the picture becomes much too dark from either angle.

Chances are you won't be doing too much gaming with this monitor since it doesn't have a digital interface, but its five-millisecond (black-to-white) pixel response rate allows you to watch relatively smooth 720p content. I did notice some minor motion blur while watching my test clip, The Magic of Flight, but the not to the point of distraction.

The CCFL backlit D186 used 16 watts of power during my testing, which isn't terribly high but not as efficient as what you'll get from an LED backlit display. By way of comparison, the Lenovo LS2421P Wide ($219.99 direct, 4 stars)also used 16 watts but it has a much larger 24 inch panel.

There's nothing fancy about the Lenovo D186 Wide. It's a relatively small monitor with very little to offer in the way of features, but its $99 list price will appeal to budget-conscious businesses and consumers. For those with limited desk space the D186 will handle your basic computing needs as long as you don't require a digital signal or grayscale accuracy and can live without niceties such as USB ports and speakers. That said, an extra $60 will get you the Asus VS229H-P ($160.00 list, 4 stars), an ISP monitor that delivers much better color, grayscale, and viewing angle performance and is our Editors' Choice for budget monitors.

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Lenovo D186 Wide with several other monitors side by side.

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