As one of the first Taiwanese monitor manufacturers to grace our English waters, CTX is well know for manufacturing monitors for major system integrators, and successfully continues to do so even today. The VL950T is squarely aimed at the budget market and as such we expected less features than others costing a lot more in our roundup, but it just goes to show how wrong you can be! The monitor comes standard with a Flatter Squarer Tube (FST), as opposed to curved shadow-mask monitors, which suffer the negative effects of reflection on the surface of the tube. FST technology gives a better focus, less image distortion and a reduction in the negative effects of reflection. The monitor although not having a short-neck, is relatively compact in both height and width, but still retains a diagonal viewable image of 18", and has a dot pitch of 0.26mm, although not a lightweight it did seem lighter than others at 19.5Kg. The monitor had no difficulty dealing with our test resolution of 1280 x 1024 at a refresh rate of 85Hz, supporting a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200 with a refresh rate of 75Hz. Monitor controls are can be accessed via OSD d (on-screen display), providing all the standard functions. During our test it become necessary for us to adjust for convergence, the lack off this function did cause a few problems.

In our Set-up Display section the VL950T suffered the same fate as the ADI and Acer with the Dark Screen test, which failed with a clear reflection of images, this is not an easy test to pass at the best of times. As for the rest the VL950T cruised home with credits in the Background interference and Colour Scales test.

In the Geometry and Distortion section an initial adjustment was required for Pincushion/Barrel distortion, the monitor passed the rest comfortably only failing the Screen Regulation test with a minimal amount of distortion at the bottom edges of the screen. In our Sharpness and Resolution section the VL950T failed our Video Bandwidth and Transient Response test which checks and improves the sharpness of a fine image displayed. The reduction of refresh rate down to 75Hz corrected the problem, however as we were testing all monitors at 85Hz, a pass would have given the VL950T an unfair advantage over the others. All the tests in our Colour and Greyscale sections passed without any problems, positioning the CTX VL950T as one of the finest budget monitors we have tested to date.

In our feature's section the CTX VL950T achieves seven out of a possible ten points, helped along by a three year on-site warranty for parts and labour, this and the quality image displayed is for a value line monitor superb, and at a price point of £235.00 plus VAT, clearly deserves to be short listed.

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