Reg Kit Watch Sony UK has brought its rather good X-brite Vaio notebook displays to the standalone monitor market in the form of the 17in SDM-HS74P and 19in SDM-HS94P screens.

In the UK, the technology is dubbed 'X-black' rather than 'X-brite', but it's the same system. It yields enhanced image contrast, high brightness, very rich and vivid colours, and a screen that really is black when it's powered down rather than dark grey. That's coupled with very fast response times - 12ms in the 19in model's case, 16ms for the 17in screen.

X-brite-based screens come closest to delivering CRT image quality in a notebook, we reckon, and now you can connect a desktop PC to one too.

Sony's trick is to apply an anti-glare filter to the screen that doesn't scatter light the way other filters do. That scattering weakens colours intensity, leaving images looking washed out. It also reduces the brightness and the sharpness of the focus.

In addition to eliminating this effect, X-brite displays also intensify the light coming from the backlight, again enhancing the richness of the colour.

Both screens ship with a native resolution of 1280 x 1024, and feature precision sRGB colour control, allowing users to get a high level of colour-matching accuracy when they edit and print photos. The HS74P has a 500:1 contrast ratio and the HS94P has a 450:1 contrast ratio.

The screens are offered in either a silver or a black casing.

Sony did not disclose pricing, but since the 'P' in the LCDs' model numbers stands for 'Premium', don't expect the screens to be cheap. ®

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