Pros: Small size; build quality; aspect-ratio scaling

Cons: Poor contrast, viewing angles and colour gamut; no DVI connector

Bottomline: If you need a small monitor and aren’t fussy about high specifications, this screen won’t disappoint

Manufacturer: Chimei

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Aside from those miniature 7in displays, you won’t find a PC monitor that takes up much less space than this. Marketed as a 16in display, the viewable diagonal measures only 15.54in.

Its specification is rather uninspiring. It has a respectable response time of 5ms, but viewing angles and contrast ratios are a little weak.

It also has a rather plain appearance, yet there’s something about the Chimei CMV 633A 16in TFT monitor that’s so undeniably cute you’ll pardon these shortcomings in an instant.

If you’re short on space, it’s a great companion for a small form factor PC, but in truth there aren’t many spaces that really couldn’t cope with something a little bigger and the CMV 633A’s 1,336x768 pixels is a lower resolution than you’ll get on most laptops.

However, what is impressive about this display is the build quality. For a monitor at this price, the construction is superb.

We were also pleased to see options in the control menu such as display presets, including an sRGB mode for easy colour matching, along with modes for text and movie playback.

Despite what it says in the official specifications, the CMV 633A uses a TV-shaped 16:9 aspect ratio rather than the more common 16:10 found on nearly all widescreen PC displays.

This means if you’re watching a standard widescreen video, your picture will be a little bit larger than you were expecting, filling the whole screen.

If you’re using a standard 4:3 resolution, the monitor can optionally scale it automatically to avoid stretching out the image horizontally.

The CMV 633A crams a lot into a very small package, including a pair of stereo speakers. It won’t win any performance tests, but as an ultra-compact monitor it’s impressive.