ViewSonic’s touting its first 27in monitor as a bit of a computing/gaming/movie viewing all-rounder and it’s not hard to see why. Besides its flag-waving 1ms response time (grey to grey) and Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) resolution it’s packed with all the ports you need to feed it with a variety of video sources, with HDMI, DVI, VGA and analogue audio in/outs on board – as well as a four-port USB hub.

Its aspirations are matched by its looks, with the VX2739wm sporting a contemporary gloss-black bezel with matte antiglare screen. The thin central stand doesn’t look very substantial, but the base is wide enough to stop the monitor wobbling. Its design, unfortunately, means you get limited tilt adjustment, and there’s no way to swivel or adjust the monitor’s height.

Luckily, the VX2739wm makes up for these shortcomings when it comes to picture quality. The default settings leave colour and detail looking rather washed out, so you’ll need to delve into the on-screen menus to make any tweaks. If you do, you’ll find the rather plain UI fairly easy to navigate, with substantial control buttons tucked away on the monitor’s side. ViewSonic makes more effort that most at trying to understand Mac users’ needs too: its software bundle includes a Mac-friendly colour profile, which improve the quality of the output no end.

When it comes to gaming and movie viewing, the VX2739wm lives up to its billing. Kinda. The Ultra Fast 1ms second setting is pretty awful for movie and game playing because the twisted nematic panel (TN) throws up all kinds of artefacts you simply have no wish to see. However, ViewSonic has made the monitor’s response time adjustable, so things can and do get better. We found that the Standard and Advanced settings worked best. The 1,500:1 contrast also does a sterling job of relaying darker areas of the picture without loss of detail. The only real downer is the sound quality from the monitor’s two 2W stereo speakers: their tinny sound and low volume isn’t ideally suited to movie viewing, but at least the VX2739wm comes with an audio output so you can feed the signal to an off-board set of speakers instead.