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We have to admit that the joystick control system is a slightly annoying example of its genre. Pushing the joystick in turns the monitor off and on, whereas most joystick systems use this for selection. So until you get used to this, you will be forever turning your screen off and on instead of selecting the item you want.
Pulling the joystick down calls up a quick menu for selecting one of the three inputs manually. You then cycle between the options with further motions up or down, which is a bit counter-intuitive when they're listed left to right. Whatever you do, don't press to select though, because that will just turn the screen off.
Push the joystick up and you can change the volume of the built-in speakers. Again, up and down change the value, not left to right, and don't press that joystick in!
Pushing the joystick left doesn't do anything, so your final option is to push it right, which calls up the main menu. The first portion of this to appear is the colour section, and it's not exactly full of options. You can adjust contrast, brightness and colour temperature. The latter provides 9300K, 6500K and 5500K options, plus a User mode that enables direct adjustment of RGB values.
The next menu option is for positioning an analog signal, which we weren't using, so we move directly to the next one after that, which controls the positioning and transparency of the OSD.
Next along is a setup option where you can invoke the PC, Game and Movie presets, adjust the speaker volume (again), select the video signal source manually (again), force an aspect ratio, and enable dynamic contrast to provide the ludicrous values mentioned in the specification. This works by raising and lowering the backlight to provide a greater perceived contrast than the screen pixels themselves can provide.
The final menu option is primarily informational, with just the ability to reset everything to default included as a function.
Overall, this is one of the most limited OSDs we've seen, with few presets, no gamma adjustment, and no bonus advanced features whatsoever. The essential basics are there, including direct RGB adjustment, but this is obviously an area where Acer has cut costs. Next, let's find out if Acer has cut costs in the quality department as well.
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