NEC Display Solutions AS173M-BK 17" Black 2020

The NEC AS173M-BK is a 17-inch 5:4 TN monitor built for POS systems, server racks, and legacy setups. It has HDMI, DisplayPort, and VGA, plus a low 12W power draw. At 109 USD it's a niche tool that makes sense only if you need this exact form factor. Everyone else should buy a bigger IPS panel for the same money.

Let's talk about what this panel actually does. It's a TN panel running at 60Hz with a 5ms response time. That 5ms number is fine for office work and even light gaming, but the 60Hz ceiling means you're not getting any high refresh rate action here. The 250 nits brightness is adequate for indoor use, though you won't want to park this next to a sunny window.

The 1,000:1 contrast ratio is standard for TN panels, and the 8-bit color depth supporting 16.7 million colors sounds good on paper. But in practice, TN panels struggle with color consistency across viewing angles. Tilt your head a little and the image shifts. That's just the nature of the technology. For spreadsheets and text, it's fine. For anything involving color accuracy, this panel lands in the bottom fifth of our database, which is about what you'd expect from a budget TN display.

The competitors listed here are all gaming monitors, which tells you how weird this product category is. The ASUS TUF Gaming VG34VQL1B is a 34-inch ultrawide with high refresh rates. The Dell Alienware AW2724DM is a 27-inch QHD panel. These aren't really competitors in the traditional sense. They're just what the algorithm threw up because they're also monitors.

What this actually competes with is other small business monitors, and there aren't many left. The 5:4 aspect ratio is nearly extinct outside of specialized industrial and POS displays. If you need this exact form factor, your options are basically this NEC or hunting for used Dell and HP units from a decade ago. The NEC at least gives you modern inputs and a warranty, which counts for something.

At 109 USD, this monitor is priced like a budget accessory, and that's fair. You're getting a basic TN panel with modern inputs and a compact footprint. But the value proposition gets murkier when you look at what else is out there. For not much more money, you can find 22 or 24-inch IPS panels with better color, better viewing angles, and higher resolutions.

The CAD price of 213 is a different story entirely. That's a lot of money for a 17-inch TN panel, even with the exchange rate factored in. And the JPY price of 55,614 is just confusing. If you're in Canada or Japan, this monitor makes almost no sense unless you have a very specific need for the 5:4 form factor and literally cannot find anything else.

The NEC AS173M-BK is a 17-inch monitor with a 5:4 aspect ratio, which feels like a time capsule from 2008. And honestly, that's kind of the point. This isn't a monitor for gamers or content creators. It's for someone who needs a basic, no-nonsense display for a point-of-sale system, a server rack, or maybe an office where desk space is at a premium and nobody cares about curved ultrawides.

What's interesting here is that NEC still makes these things, and they still put real connectivity on them. You get HDMI and DisplayPort alongside the old D-Sub VGA port. That's more than you'd expect from a budget panel this size. The 1280 x 1024 resolution on a 17-inch TN panel means text is going to look reasonably sharp, even if colors and viewing angles are nothing to write home about.

At 109 USD on the US market, this is cheap. But cheap doesn't always mean good value, and the specs here tell a story of a very specific tool for a very specific job. If you're looking for a general purpose monitor, keep scrolling. If you're looking for a compact display that just works, this might be exactly what you need.

If you're buying a monitor for a home office, gaming, or general use, skip this. The 17-inch screen and 1280 x 1024 resolution will feel cramped for modern web browsing and document work. The TN panel's viewing angles mean colors shift if you're not sitting dead center, and the 250 nits brightness is dim compared to even budget IPS panels.

Instead, look at a 24-inch 1080p IPS monitor. You'll get better color, better viewing angles, and a more comfortable resolution for around the same price or slightly more. The only reason to choose this NEC is if you specifically need the 5:4 form factor for legacy software or a space-constrained industrial setup.

If you're running a point-of-sale system, a server rack, or some legacy industrial equipment that needs a 5:4 display with VGA, HDMI, or DisplayPort, this NEC does the job. It's compact, it sips power at 12W, and it has the inputs you need. The 87th percentile compact score backs that up. This is a purpose-built tool, and for that purpose, it works.

For everyone else, this monitor is a hard pass. The 2nd percentile display score and 8.4 out of 100 entertainment score tell you everything you need to know. You can get a bigger, better-looking monitor for similar money. The only reason to buy this is if you specifically need a 17-inch 5:4 panel, and if that's you, you already know it.