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I recently purchased a 24″ BENQ widescreen monitor and a Nintendo Wii. There has already been plenty of reviews of these items individually. What I intend to do is review them as a pair to give my reader an idea of how they work together.

BENQ FP241W 24 inch widescreen LCD

There are three main competitors in the 24 inch widescreen consumer LCD market.

• Dell 2407WFP (around AU$1100)
• BENQ FP241W (around AU$1300)
• Samsung 244T (around AU$1500)

Of these I went with the BENQ FP241W due to the generally favourable reviews and the many mixed views on the Dell. The negative views centred mainly around colour banding and suspect build quality issues. That said, I am sure most people would be happy with any of these monitors.

The BENQ FP241W has a native resolution of 1920×1200 pixels. It has DVI-D, VGA, HDMI, component, s-video and composite inputs and is capable of displaying 1080p signals. The component inputs are what makes this monitor particularly interesting to prospective Nintendo Wii players.

Nintendo Wii

The interestingly named Nintendo Wii is the latest generation games console from Japan’s famous video games company. It features motion sensitive controllers and a unique pointer system which allows for innovative game play. What it does not feature is cutting edge graphics. The Wii can only output at a maximum of 480p. To view this signal you will need to get a component cable (not standard with the console) and a TV or monitor with component inputs.

Wii + BENQ FP241W in action

Getting the Wii visuals working with the BENQ FP241W is as simple as attaching the three component cables and selecting component as the input source on the monitor. What may be more of a problem is the audio. The official Nintendo component cable also includes two male RCA plugs for stereo audio. If your audio input jacks are more than about 30cm away from the monitor’s component input jacks then you will have to provide your own extender cable. In my case a 2 x Male to Female RCA extender cable did the trick for connecting the Wii audio to my sound card input (I am using my computer to mix all audio).

One problem with the BENQ FP241W and other current 24″ monitors is that none of them can do 1:1 pixel mapping. What does this mean you ask? 24″ computer monitors are actually 16:10, not 16:9. All of these monitors will stretch a 16:9 input signal to be full screen (16:10), distorting the image a little in the process. This is the case for the Wii signal, although I do not find the stretching to be a problem.

I am currently experiencing one problem with the Wii when using the component cable and playing older games (SEGA Megadrive/Genesis) on the virtual console. The video will not display after you enter and then exit the home menu. It appears that many people are getting this same issue on many kinds of televisions and monitors. I do not think this problem is caused by the BENQ FP241W. I imagine that Nintendo will rectify this issue through a patch. In the meantime you can revert back to the composite cable for these games.

Final Comments

The BENQ FP241W is a great monitor that works well with the Nintendo Wii. If you are in the market for a monitor for general PC use with the added ability to play console games then it is a fine choice. However, if you are after a screen solely for console gaming, I would choose one of the many high definition televisions that are on the market. Many of these televisions are available for less than the cost of a 24″ monitor.