Sceptre X37SV-Naga Widescreen HDTV

We tested the PC functionality using both the VGA and DVI connections. The testing was done using an Asus Z70VA laptop which has a P-M 1.86Ghz CPU and an ATi X700 128MB video card, and a desktop machine equipped with a Radeon X800 XL. The resolution was set at 1920x1080x60Hz during all of the testing. The lamp setting (discussed in the user menu section) of the LCD was at the lowest setting, and brightness/contrast turned down from the default. The LCD is capable of being VERY bright and has very high contrast. We also noticed right away that there was no pixilated "screen door" effect which can be seen on some other LCD panels.

As we mentioned earlier, what makes this product special is its native 1080p resolution AUO LCD panel. 1080p True-HD resolution is an excellent (1920x1080) 2,073,600 pixels, more than twice the standard HD 720p resolution that is a total of (1280x720) 921600 pixels. Most current display technologies at this screen size are limited in resolution. For example 42" and under HD Plasmas have a native resolution of only 1024x768, which is not even enough to fully display a 720P signal without downscaling. Most DLP sets have a native resolution of 1280x720. These lower resolution sets are less useful as PC displays.

There is a push in the market towards higher resolution displays. From Wikipedia.org, "There is a growing selection of consumer televisions with native 1080p at this time. Among the television sets with a 1080p resolution, however, some are not capable of both accepting and reproducing a 1080p input signal, especially via a digital input such as DVI or HDMI." Of the few products that can display 1080p, most don't support a 1080p signal on their inputs. The Sceptre unit can not only display the full 1080p resolution, but also supports it fully on both VGA and DVI inputs. Does the extra resolution really make a difference though?

First we have a view of the desktop. The picture was taken from over 3 feet away. At that distance the desktop was still very readable and clear, which is hard to tell in the photo. You can immediately notice the amount of destkop space this resolution provides. In the middle is the video properties window with the 1920x1080 resolution setting showing.

Next up is a photo of the HotHardware.com homepage open in a Firefox browser. There is a lot of room left over on both sides of the page, all that extra space means that you could open at the least two different web pages at the same time and still have room left over. For doing work, you can have two separate applications open side by side without any problems or overlapping. Again, reading the page at over 3 feet away was effortless.

This photo is of the article you're reading, open in Microsoft Word 2003. When we first opened Word we were greeted with a surprise. Instead of how we have always been used to seeing one page come up, Word automatically displayed two pages side by side. When running other displays at 1600x1200 and 1680x1050, only one page was displayed. You can see just how much more room is provided by this display. Using the display for desktop applications was great with clear, colorful, and bright images and text. After hours of writing, there was no feeling of eye strain or problems viewing the screen. For those interested in using a large display for work, we think you will be very satisfied with the Sceptre 37", as long as you sit farther away from the set.

After all that work, everyone needs a break. So we fired up some Counter-Strike Source and Half-Life2 Lost Coast. After changing the resolution in the game options to 1920x1080 (16:9 aspect), we loaded up the port level in CSS. We were very pleased with the respronse times, brightness, and color reproduction of this display for gaming. There was absolutely no noticeable ghosting, especially versus the 16ms Dell 2001FP we used to compare. The game and textures were perfectly clear and colorful. The display also scaled the game very well when set to 1280x720 resolution. We did not notice any scaling artifacts such ghosting or blurring when running at a non-native resolution. Playing at a lower non-native resolution is not a problem at all if your system cannot handle a game at 1920x1080.

Playing on a widescreen high resolution display like this really immerses you in the game. Here are some screenshots in game. Note: photos don't do the display justice, as it is far more impressive during live gameplay.