Daewoo L700C & L520B: Value Oriented 17'' and 15'' LCD's

Conclusion

The two Daewoo LCD’s performed better than expected when we set them up and started to benchmark them.  The response time (above 30ms) seemed a little disappointing, but we did not notice a large difference in a working environment. 

The slow response time should not influence the value based shopper.  Unless you plan on using the LCD for games or DVD’s, the Daewoo’s perform very well.  Their low power consumptions also save money in the long run.  The L700C is priced under 500USD online, while the L520B is priced under 300USD.  Even though these LCD’s lack some of the frills other monitors on the market have, they are priced very aggressively, which makes the price their most valuable feature.

Even though Daewoo may lack a website for its products, they still provide a 3 year warranty on their monitors.  For anyone who has seen a burnt out pixel on their LCD, this is always a good thing.  LCD’s have come a long way in the last few years, it has become less and less likely to see the screen go bad, but the warranty provides good piece of mind.

We used the L520B monitor for our rack in the lab.  Because of its small size and light weight, it was one of the only monitors we were able to fit in such a tight space.  If you do not mind the occasional minor streaking, these monitors make great units for LAN parties because of their ease of portability. 

Daewoo breaks a lot of ground by providing two value LCD monitors that do not sacrifice all performance for price.  Overall, we rate them good buys, but recommend them only for a working or casual computing environment.  Since Daewoo has not offered a DVI solution, we could not see if feasible to use these LCD’s for intensive gaming or graphics.  With that in mind stay tune for our next LCD review of the also value oriented Viewsonic VG800.

Once again, special thanks to ENPC.com for providing us with the L700C and the L520B LCD’s. Update 12/20/02: ENPC.com is currently running a promotion on the L700C: 385USD free shipping.