Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Out of the box this monitor is terrible looking. Images are blurry, text is fragmented, and colors are drab and washed out. I considered returning them (I purchased 2 of them) immediately as I've never had to 'setup' a monitor before. After reading over some other customer reviews and online forum posts I tweaked a few settings and remarkably, the picture is outstanding now! I have an ATI video card and these are the steps I took to achieve a superior picture: 1. In AMD Catalyst Control Center navigate to 'My Digital Flat-Panels' > 'Scaling Options' 2. Set the Scaling options to '0%' Overscan (dial is set to the right-most postion) 3. In the monitor settings (on the monitor) navigate to 'Picture Boost' 4. Set 'Bright Frame' to 'On' 5. Set 'Frame Size' to '100' 6. Set 'Brightness' to '24' 7. Set 'Contrast' to '36' While you are doing this you might be tempted to play around with the settings; don't do that. Apply the above settings and then walk away from the monitor for a few minutes. When you come back you should immediately notice the fantastic picture quality. If you are curious how I arrived at these settings, feel free to conduct the Lagom LCD monitor calibration yourself (http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/) but fair warning, it is an extremely time-consuming and painfully tedious exercise in frustration; particularly with how difficult it is to change settings on this display (poor button placement). If you are concerned about the gaming performance of this monitor, here is a you-tube video of my daughter playing a game using this monitor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpU6vAr-lFw Update: 2014-12-14 I would like to iterate a point which I neglected in my initial assessment; if you can afford a better monitor or are not dedicated enough to endure the hassle involved in configuring your monitor, then I recommend you do not purchase this product. For example, the ASUS PB278Q monitor requires no frustrating calibration and out-performs this AOC model in every conceivable way (it's sharper, its brighter, it employs a much higher resolution, and its professionally calibrated out of the box). Of course, the ASUS range costs anywhere from $400-$900 each where you can usually pick up 2 of these AOC displays for around $200. If your goal is a large new 1080p display at a spectacularly low cost, then the AOC is [or can be] a great investment --just don't expect too much out of it.