BenQ has been in the forefront of the TFT monitor business for some years now and, in keeping with the increased demand for equipment with multifunction capabilities, the company's latest E series of monitors has been specifically designed for multimedia playback.

So, first the facts. This is a 19-inch LCD screen that weighs 3.86kg, measures 425 x 416 x 180mm with optional silver or black surround and has a refreshingly uncluttered look. Unlike some monitors that are so determined to hide their controls that they are almost impossible to operate, the E900T's are clearly labelled on the bottom right edging, with the buttons slightly raised to make them easier to find in the dark.

As well as the usual Auto mode which takes all the basic settings out of your hands, you can fine-tune horizontal and vertical positions, pixel clock and phase plus all the colour, contrast and sound parameters.

Round the back are the standard DVI-D and VGA inputs plus audio jack and there are two in-built stereo speakers with a maximum 1W per channel. Thankfully there's also considerable variation in height and angle adjustment. Height can be altered up to 70mm, there's a 45-degree swivel left and right and a more-than-sufficient tilt range from -5 to +20.

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Being an LCD screen there's a fixed native resolution of 1280 x 1024 (SXGA) and gamers in particular will be very happy with the fast 5ms response time, 16.7 million colours, 300cd/m2 image brightness and 800:1 contrast ratio.

At the heart of the E900T is BenQ's proprietary Senseye Technology which offers four preset modes - Standard, Dynamics, Movie and Photo - that provide instant optimized settings for the named scenarios. That way, at a stroke you can have instant readiness to watch your favourite movie, scroll through your photo album or take on that pesky alien invasion.

What Senseye does is take the separate colour and contrast elements of the RGB signal, 'improve' them, reform them and sharpen the final image. There's also an additional Senseye+Photo option which is a further enhanced setting that adds sRGB mode.

Or so it says here. The proof of the pudding, as always, is in the eating.

We found that the Senseye function really comes into its own when you watch blockbuster action DVDs with plenty of contrasting colour saturations, or play fast-paced, intensely detailed computer games like Crysis or Call of Duty where ghosting is not an option.

Unless you particularly want a widescreen monitor, then for the price (and we've seen some hovering around the £170 mark) this is an ideal multi-purpose display.

BenQ's E900T LCD monitor is a fine showcase for the new Senseye Technology with its preset tailor-made screen settings for a range of viewing activities, and it comes with friendly controls and fast response times.