Apple fans have enjoyed the benefits of multi-touch computing for some time, but Windows users are bit late to arrive at the party. However, Windows 7 announced as the first version of the operating system to “fully embrace multi-touch technology”, we begin to see notebook PCs and add-on tablets to support the functionality.
For those of you wondering what the fuss is about, the T230H allows you to do away with your mouse and keyboard, if you want, and full use of your PC by touching the screen. You’ll also be able to use a few fingers to turn and pinch just like you can zoom on an iPhone.
Now with the Acer monitor T230H you can use these features make by simply plugging in your Windows 7 PC. The display hooks using VGA, DVI or HDMI, the touchscreen features handled by the USB port. Windows 7 will recognize the display as an input device and you can use pen and touch input controls automatically.
Physically think of the Acer G24 gaming monitor – but without the screaming metallic orange paint job – the T230H has an angular, modern look with a relatively thin rim and a row of buttons along the bottom right. The display comes with a decent height adjustable stand, and it all feels quite heavy and solid, that’s a good thing seeing as you’ll soon be poking and prodding it with both hands. Yes, you can be assured that this monitor is not going to fly over the back of your desk.
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Would we have been thrilled to find that the monitor on-screen menu can be operated with the touch interface, but we were not surprised to discover that you can not. The usual, frustrating, trudge through menus with buttons is it.
If a 23IN widescreen display, the T230H specifications are fairly standard fare: support the full HD 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution with a fast 2ms gray-to-gray response time and decent 300 cd/m2 brightness Maxim. At 160 degrees in either direction, viewing angles are adequate but not great, and a dynamic contrast ratio of 80,000:1 is cited.
Touch screens are hardly new, with many tools they have with the simple mouse control easily understood and used by applications. However, to take advantage of multi-touch, you need software written specifically to deal with more than one pressure point at a given time.
If you then there is Windows 7 multi-touch support built into the OS. So all you have to do is connect the monitor and you can start using multi-touch features right away. For example, the built in Windows Photo Viewer will allow pinch-to-zoom with two fingers to rotate positions, just as you would on an iPhone – but unfortunately without the smoothly animated rotation of the latter.
You also get the rather nice Windows on-screen keyboard and gesture-based controls for navigation. What’s more, when you touch input using Windows 7 attempts to make things easier for you by automatically adding the extra space in the menus to reduce your fat fingers fumbling.
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Some third-party applications such as Corel Photo Studio 10 have adopted the multi-touch control interface, making good use of its capabilities across the suite. Still, many older applications remain ignorant of touch input devices, but Windows 7 is built in a number of legacy support for such programs so that most of them using the basic two-finger panning, zooming and flicking gestures to make.
T230H supports the two touch points, so you’ll be able to get the essential multi-touch operations described above to perform, but has not come close to the palette of many advanced finger gestures supported by the Mac. That said, the T230H’s multi-touch functions are not supported by the Mac at all.
Using the Windows T230H control is sometimes a pleasure – the large text and controls found in Windows Media Center, for example, makes it really quick and fun to use. However, it can occasionally quite frustrating too often results in repeated failed attempts to drag and drop or select a particular screen element.
A particularly frustrating example is trying to move a Windows Sticky Note around the screen. Touch the part with text, and you will be in the predictive text input, but an attempt at your finger zorgvuldig edge to the right spot on the window may fail if the monitor detects your finger to the presence of a millimeter or so before it actually makes physical contact.
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At its native resolution with Windows setup with the default font, the screen elements are very small and difficult to operate with the touch screen. However, selecting large fonts from the Windows control panel improves things considerably, so the icons are generally large enough to be easily selected with a finger. Once you get used to it, the T230H really much faster than using a mouse – especially when navigating web pages, which you can flick through like the pages of a book.
Although T230H is capable of many impressive tricks to use the touch screen, its performance as a standard monitor slightly affected. Color reproduction and contrast both suffering. The nominal color range of only 72 percent of the NTSC is clearly evident lackluster. Although we prefer better results measured from around 87%, we still would not say that the color reproduction was impressive.
Display contrast is less than perfect. When starting the PC, the Windows logo appears on a dark gray background instead of black. Calibration improved image output significantly, both in terms of color and contrast, but we still would not recommend this screen for users who were the most accurate display for photo editing.
Conclusion
While multi-touch function works reliably, you have a real need for it before buying this monitor. Not only because of the extra cost, but because the picture quality seems not as good as many others in Acer’s considerable catalog of displays.
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