Well, I bit the bullet and picked one of these up @ my local Circuit City over the weekend. I had been reading a ton of speculation as to the performance of the monitor, but I am here to say that for the price point it is a solid purchase. Be warned I ramble a bit in this post but I really wanted to get across the overall feel I got for this.
To give some background, I am an avid FPS gamer. I have been devout CRT for quite a long time and just last year bought my first LCD which was also a Samsung. It was a 940BF and I still use it on another PC as it is a solid LCD. When considering my next move, bigger was better. I began to look at the Dell 24" and Samsung 24" LCD's but chose not to go that route as they really do not have a good response time for gaming.
I bought the Dell E228FP last month because on paper, it looked better than the Samsung 225BW which was to be my first choice. The monitor arrived and I was struck by the size of it. I must admit was really impressed. Then I plugged it in and that quickly turned into disgust. I noticed banding on my desktop background right off the bat. The color separation was horrible and the backlight bleed at the top and bottom was greater than I was willing to bear. To verify I was not insane, I made the mistake of hooking my Samsung 19" back up to compare image quality side by side. Within 30 minutes and some more LCD testing with the help of some software, the Dell was in the box again and the phone call had been made to send it back.
The next afternoon I took a long drive to a buddy’s house because he had the Samsung 225BW and was raving about it. I took my 19" with me to compare image quality. I was impressed. He had a few minor issues with display lag which I contributed to his video card and not the monitor. The overall image quality was good and the build quality seemed solid as well. Had the 226BW not been coming out, I would have bought the 225BW for sure.
So I make the drive to Circuit City. They had not even taken one of the monitors out for display yet and both were hiding in the back. I had to convince the sales guy had them in stock and it took me about 5 minutes to see them hiding on the top shelf. He got one down and hooked it up via VGA (ugly ugly ugly) and the screen did not blow me away, but the color looked good as did the brightness and I could detect minimal if any backlight bleed. Needless to say on the hope of better performance via DVI I bought it and took it home.
******** REVIEW *******
( I will try to post some pics soon)
The box it ships in is nothing much but a brown bag. It is packed well and comes with the power cord, DVI and VGA cables as well as the driver CD. The bag around the screen itself is really nice and much better than what I have seen LCD's wrapped in before.
BUILD QUALITY - 7.5 out of 10
The ONYLY thing about this monitor that detracts from it is the stand. I really wish Samsung would get with the game and offer something that has better adjustments. You cannot rotate the screen. It does not have vertical adjustments at all so if you have a center channel speaker do not plan on putting it under the monitor as unless it was very tiny, it would not fit. The angle adjustments are minimal at best as the stand only allows for a slight tilting upward. if you have the monitor on your desk at or just above your line of sight, you might find yourself straining to lift your head as the monitor wont turn down to meet you. Being that I use an aftermarket LCD arm to mount this to my desk these issues with the stand don't really affect me, but I thought they needed mentioning.
I was not sure how I would like the silver trim at the bottom of the bezel or the way they changed the blue LED around the power button. I prefer the thinner bezels myself. Once it was on the desk the gloss black and silver really came together and with my Ergotron stand, looks really clean and sharp.
The buttons are similar to those found on other Samsung models and soft to the touch. The OSD Menus are intuitive and cover all the bases so no complaints there.
I ran all the usual LCD check screen software and I am glad to say it passed with flying colors. I could not notice any color banding or any input lag whatsoever. I am using a Radeon X1900XTX 512MB video card in case you were wondering.
GAMING - 8.5 out of 10
I play Battlefield 2142 quite a bit and let me say that this LCD does Samsung proud! I noticed no lag, no banding and if there was any ghosting I could not see it. I was really happy this LCD lived up to my expectations as the Dell 22" fell flat on its face in this area.
I ran around outdoors in Oblivion for a bit to check color separation and it look very nice in this as well.
VIDEO – 7.5 out of 10
Watched Pirates Of The Caribbean in HD on it and WOW ! What can I say other than I was impressed. I also ran some other HD stuff and it performed without a hitch.
IMAGE QUALITY – 8.0 out of 10
I am very pleased with color reproduction on this screen. It *could* be better, but using Photoshop and such regularly, I saw no immediate problems with it. Depending on your taste for color temperature, you may make some minor adjustments (I did) but on the whole it did very well for images and editing.
FINAL THOUGHTS – 8.5 out of 10 OVERALL
I am VERY pleased with this purchase. I wanted a bigger screen but did not feel comfortable with the performance of the 24” LCD’s for gaming. I have seen a ton of people looking for something to play games on and this monitor holds it’s own in everything I have thrown at it. This is not the “be all end all” of 22” LCD’s monitors, but it certainly hits its mark. On the whole, I would recommend it to anyone looking for a screen this size. It is HDCP compliant and has a good response time. I cannot speak to the 3000:1 virtual contrast ratio as I think it’s bunk anyway. The real contrast ratio is 1000:1 and that’s plenty good.
To give some background, I am an avid FPS gamer. I have been devout CRT for quite a long time and just last year bought my first LCD which was also a Samsung. It was a 940BF and I still use it on another PC as it is a solid LCD. When considering my next move, bigger was better. I began to look at the Dell 24" and Samsung 24" LCD's but chose not to go that route as they really do not have a good response time for gaming.
I bought the Dell E228FP last month because on paper, it looked better than the Samsung 225BW which was to be my first choice. The monitor arrived and I was struck by the size of it. I must admit was really impressed. Then I plugged it in and that quickly turned into disgust. I noticed banding on my desktop background right off the bat. The color separation was horrible and the backlight bleed at the top and bottom was greater than I was willing to bear. To verify I was not insane, I made the mistake of hooking my Samsung 19" back up to compare image quality side by side. Within 30 minutes and some more LCD testing with the help of some software, the Dell was in the box again and the phone call had been made to send it back.
The next afternoon I took a long drive to a buddy’s house because he had the Samsung 225BW and was raving about it. I took my 19" with me to compare image quality. I was impressed. He had a few minor issues with display lag which I contributed to his video card and not the monitor. The overall image quality was good and the build quality seemed solid as well. Had the 226BW not been coming out, I would have bought the 225BW for sure.
So I make the drive to Circuit City. They had not even taken one of the monitors out for display yet and both were hiding in the back. I had to convince the sales guy had them in stock and it took me about 5 minutes to see them hiding on the top shelf. He got one down and hooked it up via VGA (ugly ugly ugly) and the screen did not blow me away, but the color looked good as did the brightness and I could detect minimal if any backlight bleed. Needless to say on the hope of better performance via DVI I bought it and took it home.
******** REVIEW *******
( I will try to post some pics soon)
The box it ships in is nothing much but a brown bag. It is packed well and comes with the power cord, DVI and VGA cables as well as the driver CD. The bag around the screen itself is really nice and much better than what I have seen LCD's wrapped in before.
BUILD QUALITY - 7.5 out of 10
The ONYLY thing about this monitor that detracts from it is the stand. I really wish Samsung would get with the game and offer something that has better adjustments. You cannot rotate the screen. It does not have vertical adjustments at all so if you have a center channel speaker do not plan on putting it under the monitor as unless it was very tiny, it would not fit. The angle adjustments are minimal at best as the stand only allows for a slight tilting upward. if you have the monitor on your desk at or just above your line of sight, you might find yourself straining to lift your head as the monitor wont turn down to meet you. Being that I use an aftermarket LCD arm to mount this to my desk these issues with the stand don't really affect me, but I thought they needed mentioning.
I was not sure how I would like the silver trim at the bottom of the bezel or the way they changed the blue LED around the power button. I prefer the thinner bezels myself. Once it was on the desk the gloss black and silver really came together and with my Ergotron stand, looks really clean and sharp.
The buttons are similar to those found on other Samsung models and soft to the touch. The OSD Menus are intuitive and cover all the bases so no complaints there.
I ran all the usual LCD check screen software and I am glad to say it passed with flying colors. I could not notice any color banding or any input lag whatsoever. I am using a Radeon X1900XTX 512MB video card in case you were wondering.
GAMING - 8.5 out of 10
I play Battlefield 2142 quite a bit and let me say that this LCD does Samsung proud! I noticed no lag, no banding and if there was any ghosting I could not see it. I was really happy this LCD lived up to my expectations as the Dell 22" fell flat on its face in this area.
I ran around outdoors in Oblivion for a bit to check color separation and it look very nice in this as well.
VIDEO – 7.5 out of 10
Watched Pirates Of The Caribbean in HD on it and WOW ! What can I say other than I was impressed. I also ran some other HD stuff and it performed without a hitch.
IMAGE QUALITY – 8.0 out of 10
I am very pleased with color reproduction on this screen. It *could* be better, but using Photoshop and such regularly, I saw no immediate problems with it. Depending on your taste for color temperature, you may make some minor adjustments (I did) but on the whole it did very well for images and editing.
FINAL THOUGHTS – 8.5 out of 10 OVERALL
I am VERY pleased with this purchase. I wanted a bigger screen but did not feel comfortable with the performance of the 24” LCD’s for gaming. I have seen a ton of people looking for something to play games on and this monitor holds it’s own in everything I have thrown at it. This is not the “be all end all” of 22” LCD’s monitors, but it certainly hits its mark. On the whole, I would recommend it to anyone looking for a screen this size. It is HDCP compliant and has a good response time. I cannot speak to the 3000:1 virtual contrast ratio as I think it’s bunk anyway. The real contrast ratio is 1000:1 and that’s plenty good.