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• The Good: Well-built, sharp-looking, crisp display with multiple inputs.
• The Bad: A little small for TV use, speakers aren't great, plugs a little hard to get at.
• The Verdict: An excellent entry into the LCD TV/monitor market, whichwould not only work well but look good in any office or living room.
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REVIEW:

Having achieved dominance as the world's largest maker of personal computers, Dell seems to have its sights set on becoming a leader in the broader personal electronic field as well — hence its launch of an Mp3 player much like Apple's iPod, and a line of LCD TVs as well. One of the first of the latter is the W1700, a 17-inch LCD that functions as either a television or a PC monitor, or both (provided you have a TV tuner card).

Dell is clearly going for the mid- to upper-end market with its LCD TV — not so much because of the price, which at $700 (U.S.) is actually fairly reasonable compared with some similar products from other manufacturers, but because of the quality of this unit. It is solid and sleek-looking, well-designed and clearly well made. It has a sturdy feel and yet is light enough to carry from place to place (it weighs 15.5 pounds), and it has a brushed metal and hard-plastic case and stand.

The Dell TV comes in two pieces, the actual display itself — which has a speaker on either side that runs from top to bottom — and the single leg support, which has a kind of semi-circular base at the end of it. The stand has a snazzy-looking metal accent that runs along the front edge and partway up the stand itself, and the screen has the standard Dell button-style logo on the lower edge beneath the display. The stand also has a nice feature — a plastic ring that can hold all the cables to keep them from spreading all over your desk.

The stand is extendable, with the display sitting about four inches off the desktop or table at its lowest and about 10 inches at its highest, which is quite a wide range and likely more than enough to cover most situations. The stand, which telescopes, is about five inches in diameter and very solid, so it feels sturdy even when it is at its full height. It moves freely from its lowest to highest setting, but it never slipped while in use. At the lowest level there is a button that pops out at the back to lock the screen in place.

The screen also rotates about 45 degrees in either direction horizontally, and will pivot upwards somewhat so that the screen is pointing up at an angle as well. Even at the medium settings for brightness and contrast, the screen was sharp and clear both up close — that is, at the kind of distance where you would normally use a computer monitor — and from farther away, while using it as a TV. The display is only 17 inches, however, and so it is only really useful as a TV in a fairly small room or if you don't mind sitting up close.

Some people may be put off by the HDTV or widescreen format, which is stretched horizontally (a regular TV's aspect ratio is 4:3, while widescreen is 16:9). While the screen dimensions might be fine for HDTV and widescreen DVD movies, it is a little disconcerting when using the device as a PC monitor. It is possible to set the display so it doesn't stretch your TV signal or your computer display to make it fit the wider screen, but that seems like a bit of a waste when you have all that space — you end up with black bands down either side of the image on the screen.

The controls for the W1700 are all in a line at the bottom right-hand side of the screen, with rounded metal buttons for channels, volume, to change the display size and to turn the unit on and off. There is also a small LED panel for the remote, which is a sleek-looking metal unit with a central oval-shaped button in the centre and the usual channels buttons on the top. Using the remote brings up a semi-transparent on-screen menu, where all the various settings can be changed, including an adjustment tool that helps to make the LCD screen sharper and text more distinct depending on the resolution (the native resolution of the unit is 1,280 by 768 or WXGA).

Facing the back of the unit, on the right-hand side are the various plugs for input, including the usual RCA audio and video jacks, as well as S-video and a cable input for regular TV. On the lower side of the device are the plugs for a regular computer monitor cable or for DVI, or digital video. The power plug is also on the underside, and one of my only quibbles with the W1700 is that these ports and plugs are little difficult to reach without tipping the unit up or lying it down on the floor.

The sound from the speakers was not bad, but a little tinny and thin-sounding (it puts out 5 watts per side, according to Dell), and it would have been nice if the unit had included a headphone jack on the front for easy access. Still, these are more or less minor complaints about what is an outstanding LCD screen for TV or computer use.