Zalman Trimon ZM-M240W review

Driver issues aside, the big advantage of the passive approach to 3D is supposed to be the cost. The ZM-M240W is priced at £340 exc VAT; there’s no 24in rival, but at 22in you’re looking at £255 for a Zalman and closer to £300 for a 3D Vision monitor bundled with the glasses kit. It’s not as big a saving as we’d like, particularly as Zalman’s approach has its drawbacks.

As it interlaces two images, one for each eye, the effective resolution is halved, so it’s imperative you have a fast enough graphics card to play at the ZM-M240W’s native 1,920 x 1,080 and high settings. Finally, the polarising filter over the panel makes it extremely reflective, to the point where playing it in a well-lit room negatively impacts on the experience.

Other than that the screen is solid enough, with a reasonable black level and no backlight bleed or banded gradients. It’s not going to win any vibrancy awards, but it’s sharp and feels well made.

But is that enough to make it a serious rival to 3D Vision? If you have an ATI card alas the answer is no, but with the Nvidia drivers we were impressed with just how good the passive 3D experience can be. It did tire our eyes a little more than active-shutter glasses do, and there’s a nagging feeling that you may be backing the wrong horse in a race that’s about to explode into life, but this 24in Zalman monitor and its passive 3D abilities left us pleasantly surprised.