Iiyama has an enviable reputation of manufacturing excellent quality colour display products, and maintains a high market profile in the UK. Not so long a ago, monitor reviews that included an Iiyama product, were destined to win an award, for a short while it was clearly first choice for many PC magazine editors. Iiyama has seen this privilege eroded as more and more of its credible competitors have launched new technology-based products with competitive pricing grabbing the spotlight. Iiyama still remains one of the leading monitor manufacturer's in the UK. Iiyama has a fairly broad range of monitors in their line-up and most are designated as either a VisionMaster or VisionMaster Pro. The VisionMaster's are shadow mask CRTs and the VisionMaster Pros are Aperture Grill CRTs. Our review model the VisionMaster 451 sports the popular FST CRT with Anti-Reflect (AR) and Anti-Static Coating (ASC), with a P22 short persistence phosphor, enabling the 451 to give a better focus, and less image distortion. The 451 is one of only three monitors in this category to have BNC connectors with the addition of a standard D-SUB input. Although it does list a captive cable, our cable supplied was certainly not captive. This only becomes apparent if your cable is damaged and needs replacing. USB is optional and can be selected by upgrading the tilt swivel base which includes speakers. Ergonomically the monitor looks good, with a diagonal viewable image area of 18", and a dot pitch size of 0.26mm. The monitor handled our test resolution of 1280 x 1024 at a refresh rate of 85Hz, comfortably, without any visible loss of image quality. The monitor can at this resolution support a refresh rate of 110Hz. Maximum resolution that the monitor can support is 1600 x 1200 with a refresh rate of 85Hz, which is above the standard for a monitor of its class. The user controls are by means of a rather fiddly 3 button OSD, which needs some getting used to, but provides the necessary functions required to tweak the monitor settings. The VisionMaster 451 price tag is certainly not the cheapest, but pricing should not be your first priority when selecting a monitor in this class.

In our Set-up Display section the VisionMaster 451 is one of the monitors to pass all our tests, without a single failure. In the Geometry and Distortion section the monitor failed our Screen Regulation test with a little distortion, but had no other problems. In our Sharpness and Resolution test the monitor really turns up the heat for it's competitors by passing every test in the section with relative ease, and to cap it all in our Colour and Greyscale section it romps home with one of the highest section scores in the group.

The VisionMaster 451 offers some of the finest image quality we have seen; even more incredible considering the monitor only offers a microfilter FST tube, as opposed to an Aperture Grille tube. In comparison to the other monitors in the group only the ADI and EIZO T760 came close to offering the same level of image quality to the 451, with a three year on-site exchange warranty inclusive of parts & labour for £329.00 plus VAT it has to be shortlisted.

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