Asus MK241H 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor
Design, Build Quality, & Connectivity
As with most LCD monitors these days, the Asus MK241H's bezel is a simple, flat black color. The bezel measures about 1-inch on the two sides and on the top. The bottom bezel is almost another inch longer, as it houses the monitor's controls and its stereo speakers; the portion of the bezel that touches the screen is black, while the section below is silver. The display comes with a colorful marketing sticker on the top right corner of the bezel that sings the praises of many of the display's feature set. This might be an inducement to potential customers perusing monitors on display at Best Buy, but it serves as an annoying distraction when the monitor is in actual use. Removing the sticker requires finesse and patience--and quite possibly a razor blade.
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A single LED in the lower-right-hand corner glows blue when the monitor is powered on and receiving a signal; it glows orange when the display is in standby mode. The top of the bezel houses the webcam and microphone array; the webcam can pivot up and down about 30 degrees in each direction, but it can't rotate side-to-side. When the webcam is on, a small LED to the left of the webcam's lens glows blue.
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The sides and top of the monitor don't house any ports or controls. Unlike the front of the bezel, the top and sides of the display have a black, glossy finish. The entire top-back-portion of the monitor houses a large vent. As we moved the display around, we noticed that the top portion of the monitor sometimes got very hot. There are also smaller vents located on the two bottom corners of the backside of the monitor. These smaller vent areas did not get as hot as the top vent. A round plastic plate on the back of the display easily pops out to reveal a 100x100mm VESA mounting surface.
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The base of the stand is round and measures 9-inches across. The stand is sturdy, but it lacks height adjustments and does not pivot left or right. The stand barely pivots down (about only 5 degrees), and pivots up about 20 degrees. There aren't any cable-management features built into the monitor or the stand.
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The MK241H has three different video inputs: DVI-D, VGA, and HDMI 1.1. During our testing we attached a laptop to the display via the HDMI connection. When the laptop went into sleep or hibernate mode, the MK241H still stayed active--showing a blue screen and occasionally popping up an "HDMI No Signal" message--instead of going into sleep mode as we would have expected the display to.
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A set of stereo speakers are housed on the bottom of the display. As such, the monitor includes audio-in and audio-out jacks. As mentioned earlier, the single USB port is for connecting the built-in webcam to a computer. A separate headphone jack is also located on the bottom of the display, designed to be access from the monitor's front side.
