There is no shortage of widescreen LCDs available these days. 19″ Widescreens have become the norm, and 22″ Widescreens are not much more. Manufacturers need to do something to differenciate themselves from the others, be it with available connections, built-in card readers and USB hubs, contrast ratios, viewing angles, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

AOC have decided to do something a little bit different. Their latest model, the 22″ 2230Fm, makes it possible to do away with the PC altogether, and brings new meaning to “Digital Photoframe”.

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For the past few months I have been using a nice 32″ LCD TV in my bedroom, hooked up to my Vista Media Center PC. Unfortunately, it belonged to my parents, and it was basically being “stored” in my room until they got it installed on the veranda out back. Alas, the day came last weekend when they took it away, and I was back to using my little computer LCD for my TV watching needs.

I decided I should go out and buy my own, since it’s something I used quite often (perhaps a tad too often :P), and therefore worth the outlay. Being a student and only working part time, I had a limited budget to purchase a TV that I would be happy with for a while.

I’ll say it now, I am not a fan of plasmas. They have great black levels, but they have never looked as good to me as an LCD TV, so much selection was narrowed quite a bit. Plasmas are quite cheap now at 42″ sizes, but often have pathetic 852×480 or 1024×1024 non-square pixel resolutions which look terrible, especially up close. Since it was going in my bedroom, it was always going to be close.

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