Samsung SyncMaster 193P Plus: A Review

Clear said:
When you say that it does not justify 8 ms rating, do you mean that you notice ghosting / blurring, or that neither has much of it?
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What I meant was that i saw no difference at all playing BF2 on both LCDs. I had both LCDs hooked up to my computer at the same time Both LCDs blur heavily and are eaqually bad to play BF2. I have not tried other games but i think that this won't be necessary. BF2 is sufficient benchmark to judge if a LCD is acceptable to play games. I guess 8ms gray to gray does not mean that the lcd is actually 8ms. It means 20ms lcd with a little bit better performance in gray to gray situation which has little impact on games. Read about the LCD with this new Samsung panel here http://www.behardware.com/articles/572-4/19-lcd-monitor-survey-4-8-ms-tn-ips-va.html
Do not take me wrong i love 193p and 193plus it is just that the plus is no better than 20ms p.
 
bbc20000 said:
What I meant was that i saw no difference at all playing BF2 on both LCDs. I had both LCDs hooked up to my computer at the same time Both LCDs blur heavily and are eaqually bad to play BF2. I have not tried other games but i think that this won't be necessary. BF2 is sufficient benchmark to judge if a LCD is acceptable to play games. I guess 8ms gray to gray does not mean that the lcd is actually 8ms. It means 20ms lcd with a little bit better performance in gray to gray situation which has little impact on games. Read about the LCD with this new Samsung panel here http://www.behardware.com/articles/572-4/19-lcd-monitor-survey-4-8-ms-tn-ips-va.html
Do not take me wrong i love 193p and 193plus it is just that the plus is no better than 20ms p.
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I guess mine must be defective because I have yet to experience any signifant blurring and I still think that behardware review should not be used to evaluate the 193p+. I know from MY experience there was a major difference between the 193p and the + model when it came to ghosting.

The Dark One
 
Bought the 193P+ Saturday & am loving it.
I really agonized over not getting the VP191b, but that's a special order item & for my first LCD purchase I wanted to buy from a store where I could just walk in & return/replace it if I wasn't satisfied (still have 12 days to return it).

Hey Viewsonic! You really need to get this panel in major retail stores!

The Viewsonic VP2000s was also a consideration as it was sold at the same store for $100CAD more. 20" widescreen; 16ms S-IPS panel (I'm pretty sure it uses same/similar panel to the Dell 2005FPW & Viewsonic VP201s. In the end though, I liked the colour & viewing any of the 193P+.

No dead pixels, no backlight bleeding. No sparkling. Blacks are really black & colours are vibrant. I was somewhat expecting a wider viewing angle.

The only two games I have installed right now are HL2 & GTA San Andreas. There's some ghosting when turning around but it's very subtle. I played San Andreas all weekend.

My recommendation: hardcore gamers won't like it. Non-gamers should have no problems. I'm going to reinstall Rise of Nations +expansion to test in an RTS game.
 
Also, as I was switching from a CRT monitor with a different resolution/refresh rate on first boot into XP I held F8 & booted in VGA mode. Curiously after I installed the drivers for the monitor I could no longer select 75Hz.

Was worried about no OSD, as I use Linux too. On first boot into Linux, Ubuntu automatically downgraded my refresh from 85Hz (previous monitor) to 75Hz. Used "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" to change the horizontal scan range to 30-81 & vertical scan range from 56-75. Then used "sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig" to switch from bytecode interpreter to autohinter.
Using the nvidia-settings package I can adjust brightness, contrast, gamma, saturation, hue, digital vibrance, image sharpening...not too shabby.
 
I've got the 193p+ for about 2 weeks now. This is my first LCD screen. I'm mostly a gamer and ghosting is my main concern. Overall it is a really nice monitor but I notice ghosting in some games. I tried 4 games: UT2004, BF2 (only the demo), SW commando and GTA SA. At first I only played BF2, SW commando and GTA and I was noticing some ghosting. Nothing really bad but it is there. After playing a while I don't notice it as much but I'd wish it would be better. To see how it could do in a fast FPS I reinstalled UT2004 this weekend and to my grand surprise I didn't notice any ghosting at all. But the fact remains that there are ghosting in other games and I don't really like that.

Tonight, I'm gonna take back the 193p+ to the futureshop since my 14 days are done. I know this question has been asked previously but no one answered it to my knowledge: is there anyone that had the chance to compare the 193p+ with the VP191B? If not, can someone say which one would be best for gaming theoretically? The 193p+ is 8ms GtG and the VP191B is 8ms what to what? Technically, which one should be the fastest one?
 
DarkMage619 said:
I guess mine must be defective because I have yet to experience any signifant blurring and I still think that behardware review should not be used to evaluate the 193p+. I know from MY experience there was a major difference between the 193p and the + model when it came to ghosting.

The Dark One
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As I said i see no difference between 193p and plus. What games did you play ? Maybe only BF2 behaves the same on both LCDs ?
 
bbc20000 said:
As I said i see no difference between 193p and plus. What games did you play ? Maybe only BF2 behaves the same on both LCDs ?
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I played WoW, DOOM 3, HALO, HALF LIFE 2, Guild Wars, and Diablo 2. Maybe I just can't see the issues others are having, perhaps that is a good thing...

The Dark One
 
I just purchased the 193P+ and you can notice the slight blurring of images.. even if you make your internet explorer window for this site smaller and drag it around in a circle on the screen and watch the image trail behind.. the colors are very vibrant and the monitor is pleasing to look at and I find text easier to read on this monitor compared to others I have looked at.. I played San Andreas and I couldnt notice any blurring but I am sure it is there. I am happy with this purchase so far.
 
bevster said:
I just purchased the 193P+ and you can notice the slight blurring of images.. even if you make your internet explorer window for this site smaller and drag it around in a circle on the screen and watch the image trail behind.. the colors are very vibrant and the monitor is pleasing to look at and I find text easier to read on this monitor compared to others I have looked at.. I played San Andreas and I couldnt notice any blurring but I am sure it is there. I am happy with this purchase so far.
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Dude that's just graphical lag from "show windows contents while draggin". It happens even in CRT's. It is even more pronounced on a slow video card or slow cpu--and especially when appropriate video drivers are not installed.

If you don't see any ghosting in a 3D, which is a lot more intensive than a 2D app, the "ghosting" you see while dragging your window around is just due to the effects I described above.
 
I have this monitor, I only noticed a slight blurring in CSS at first, but it didn't bother me the least. I like this monitor a lot. I would recommend it.
 
I've had my 193P+ for 3 days now and I love it so far. Coming from a CRT I notice no ghosting in games such as UT2K4 and notice that the colors are much better on this monitor then my old CRT. For those worried about dead pixels it comes with a zero bright dot warranty, from what I can tell it sounds like a dead pixel warranty (it says covers pixels that are always "on”,always "off", and misc). Also mines have no backlighting issues. The only real complaint I have is adjusting the height of this thing, I guess I could put something under the stand to raise it. Anyway, great monitor I was originally waiting for a review on tomshardware or a similar site but I'm glad I didn’t wait. :)
 
Liquidsmoke said:
The only real complaint I have is adjusting the height of this thing, I guess I could put something under the stand to raise it.
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Yeah that's the only thing I don't like about this monitor. The stand is a piece of crap. It doesn't go high enough and not very sturdy. They should really take some lessons from the Dell 2405 stand. That thing is great and telescopes really high.
 
I personally found the stand to be one of the great features of this monitor :) I like that it has a small foot, very adjustable and the included wall mount was a bonus I was ot aware of upon purchase.
 
ahhh thanks Cambrian.. lol I thought it was the lcd causing the lag moving the windows around.. sorry a noob mistake :) well anyways I still cant notice any lag/ghosting of images at all in games.. one thing I cant figure out is the color calibration, what do I do with it.. I slide the little square around inside the big square but I cant figure what to do with it to make things better.. any help on that would be appreciated so I can tweak the display.
I really love this monitor, only thing I would wish for is that it would go higher, using an extra telephone book underneath does the trick for now.
 
sorry can't help you there. I really don't know how that calibration thing works. Actually I stopped using the Samsung proprietary software for adjustments. I find that the default looks mighty fine. If i need to adjust I can use Nvidia's geforce driver software.

Can someone do me a favor? can you check how high the samsung 193p+ and the viewsonic vp191b go up if you max out their height adjustment with their stands? I know the viewsonic telescopes up but i don't know how high it goes up to. I think the lack of height of the samsung is annoying. I put it on top of my vcr but really you shouldn't have to do that.
 
If I remember correctly, the VP191b could go a bit higher then the 193P+ but not that much. I had to put something under the VP191b when I tested it though. At 6’4’’, I guess there is no screen that could be high enough without something under it… Anyway, I’m used to that kind of thing (got 4 packs of 500 white sheets under my screen at work o_O )
 
Vol said:
... I know this question has been asked previously but no one answered it to my knowledge: is there anyone that had the chance to compare the 193p+ with the VP191B? If not, can someone say which one would be best for gaming theoretically? The 193p+ is 8ms GtG and the VP191B is 8ms what to what? Technically, which one should be the fastest one?
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In all reviews that I have seen the VP191B has shown to be consistently below the 16ms line.

Most LCDs, even if they are rated at 8ms, can have response times as much as 3-4 times their rating. I.E. an 8ms LCD may very well respond at 32ms from time to time.

The 193P+ is no exception and even goes up to slower response times than most LCDs rated at 8ms.

So hands down from those two the VP191B is on top for gaming. (In terms of ghosting, at least. Althought the VP191B has proved exceptional in other areas as well.)
 
TESLA said:
The 193P+ is no exception and even goes up to slower response times than most LCDs rated at 8ms.

So hands down from those two the VP191B is on top for gaming
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How do you know that? You compared them side by side or you found a review where they measured the actual response time of the 193P+? Not saying you are wrong, just curious.
 
Where did you get those figures on the 193P+? To my knowledge there are no published tests on the 193P+. It uses similar "overdrive" technoilogy that the VP191 uses, so I am hoping the across-the-board response times will be similar also, as reported by Toms Hardware for the VP191b.
 
eamayer said:
Where did you get those figures on the 193P+? To my knowledge there are no published tests on the 193P+. It uses similar "overdrive" technoilogy that the VP191 uses, so I am hoping the across-the-board response times will be similar also, as reported by Toms Hardware for the VP191b.
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It isn't the same overdrive specification.

I may have gotten a fluke LCD, but I have access to both monitors at work.

Not next to each other, but I was able to run game demos on both and it is very apparent that the 193P+ still ghosts.

It is the same deal as with the newer Dell 1905FP monitors that have 8ms rated panels as opposed to the 20ms panels but ghost almost as badly. (Though the 8ms panel doesn't have overdrive in this case.)
 
It seems that that reviewer had no ghosting issues, as well as the monitor not having been tested in a similar manner to Toms Hardware tests, so I still am waiting for a real full review for this monitor. My experience with my 193P+ is that it seems to be as fast as the VP191b, but that is ONLY subjective.
 
I have had the 193p plus for a little over a month now and a friend of mine has the VP191b that he has had for several months. He brought his monitor to my home and we used both monitors to compare text clarity, contrast, color, overall impression, and of course ghosting since we are both gamers.

He was convinced that I made a horrible mistake when I bought my monitor because he loved his monitor so much; therefore, I initiated this side by side comparison.

We looked at word documents, power-point presentations, surfed the Internet, and played World of Warcraft and Doom III all while switching between the two displays.

I will admit, that in todays market both monitors do look better than almost everything else available in the 19" LCD realm, but the clear winner was the 193p plus.

It had richer colors, darker blacks, crisper test, and during game play ghosting was non-existent in WoW, and each monitor showed very, very minor amounts of blurring in Doom III if you were looking closely to see it. To be honest, I only saw it on the blasts as the screen goes from black to white to black again so fast while you are moving. But again, this was very minimal.

At the end of the day, when we were all done testing, we both agreed that the 193p plus was the better monitor and it looked better too. He kept adjusting his settings to try to achieve the richness in color that my monitor had, but cold not. The only category the 193 lost in was the word document text scroll test, where the text was a tiny bit less crisp when scrolling than it was for the VP191b, but not a big issue for me since I seldom read and scroll at the same time. I think this loss may have been a result of the VP191b having a slightly faster white to black response rate and the 193p plus having a slightly faster grey to grey response rate. Not sure tho!

Just another guys impression...Take it for what it is worth :cool:
 
Cretan, thanks for the desperately needed comparison!

I agree. The 193p+ does come out on top in terms of color and picture quality. For me, there was no ghosting in all the games I have played. The monitor has a gray/blue shell, which makes it look bad ass, especially with my Lian Li PC-60 silver. :D

The only minor drawback that I can see on the 193p+ is the stand, which severely limit how high the monitor can be raised.

But that problem is solved because I got this:

http://www.ergotron.com/3_products/flat_panel/neoFlex-DS/default.asp

You can get it for 45.99 at Buy.com

193p+ rocks! :cool:
 
smith94672 said:
I really want an lcd monitor and I've been eyeing the 193P+. I have $700 burning a hole in my pocket and I'm willing to pay up to that amount for a great lcd.

Unfortunately, reviews like this are what's holding me back from getting the panel at the moment:

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,122281,00.asp
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I wouldn't rely too much on pcworld reviews. Not saying they are lying or anything but their reviews have always been kind of weird. I don't know if they even calibrate monitors before reviewing them.

I don't own the 193P+ but I find it hard to believe it's so much worse than the 193P which is the exact same monitor with the exact same panel but without the overdrive circuit.
 
Forget the PC World test. I do not believe their testing protocol is has any value. Compare the test and write-up with ANYTHING on LCD displays on Toms Hardware and you will see my point. I believe we have a fairly decent subjective side-by-side with the two best 19" LCDs out now by cretan, and that backs up my own subjective impressions that the 193P+ is the best out there, and that the 191b is also very excellent. They are literally in their own class, of two alone. I am very happy with my 193P+, which I have had for two months now, I am a gamer, but I believe if the VP191b was the only one out that I would have liked that also. I did not like the highly rated L90D+, because of the 6-bit color, when I saw them side-by-side with the VP191b.
 
Slider19 said:
Who are these PCWorld jurors? They didn't like the VP191b either.

Someone should email their monitor editor: [email protected] and find what the deal is.
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they didn't like the vp191b as well? I mean look at the great feedbacks for the vp191b. I own the 193p+ and I can say this with some objectivity. Those people at PCWorld are just a bunch of idiots then; either that or severely mentally challenged.
 
At least the vp191b once used to be in PCWorld's top ten 19 inch lcd list. The 193P+ wasn't even once included but

For the vp191b at http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,116745,00.asp :

"All recently reviewed 19-inch LCDs, including the VP191b, received a rating of Average in our motion tests. Vendors report response time in different ways. Some clock the intergray (also called gray-to-gray) response time, while others record the white-to-black-to-white (also called rise-and-fall) response time. The VP191b's reported response time of 8 milliseconds refers to its intergray response time. Its black-to-white response time runs 20 milliseconds."

For the 193P+ at http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,122281,00.asp :

"Samsung gives the SyncMaster 193p+ a gray-to-gray response time spec of 8 milliseconds and a rise-and-fall response time of 20ms. Like all other recently reviewed 19-inch LCDs, this monitor received a rating of Average on our motion tests. "

Since both panels scored an 'average' in the motion tests, maybe it really is true that both are neck to neck in response time, just like what some users here say.
 
Hi cambrian,

I've been seriously considering buying the 193P+ as my new 19' LCD panel (to replace my 19" philips 109P4 CRT monitor). thing is I'm in Melbourne Australia and I can't seem to find the silver/white verision of the monitor anywhere, they only seem to stock the black version. However the problem lies in the fact that the product image they hav on display on the websites are the white/silver version. Could you please post pictures of your 193P+ as it seems as your the only one here who has the gray/blue where everyone else has the white version... I know its padantic but I'd just like to know whether or not it matches my rooms decor.. lol

I'm planning on building a new computer soon, based on the Lan Li v1000, just don't know whether to get the silver or black version and also either the dinovo bluetooth media desktop or saitek eclipse keyboard. So if you could please post some pictures or point me to a picture online of the black/ darker version of this monitor i would greatly appreciate it.
 
rise-and-fall response time of 20ms?????

HOW... 20ms? thats impossible!
12ms would be more realistic!

Anyways g2g response times are more important for gaming and movies... right?
 
Saeid said:
rise-and-fall response time of 20ms?????

HOW... 20ms? thats impossible!
12ms would be more realistic!

Anyways g2g response times are more important for gaming and movies... right?
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Why is it impossible? Overdrive doesn't affect black-to-white transitions so the response time for it has stayed the same as before.

Yes, grey-to-grey response times are much more important but don't trust the specs too much.
 
I was seriously considering the 173P+ (17" version)
its the same specs... except for its 1500:1 contrast ratio...

but now im reconsidering it and thinking of going with the Sony SDM-HS75P/S!
Xbrite Technology...

It says its 8ms... can anyone help me find out what the real g2g and rise and fall response tome for that is... thnx alot!
 
Saeid said:
I was seriously considering the 173P+ (17" version)
its the same specs... except for its 1500:1 contrast ratio...

but now im reconsidering it and thinking of going with the Sony SDM-HS75P/S!
Xbrite Technology...

It says its 8ms... can anyone help me find out what the real g2g and rise and fall response tome for that is... thnx alot!
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It's probably slightly faster than the 173P+ seeing as it's a TN panel but it has narrow viewing angles, 6-bit color and worse contrast ratio than the 173P+.
 
psycocookie said:
point me to a picture online of the black/ darker version of this monitor i would greatly appreciate it.
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well i don't have a digital camera at the moment. I have the silver version. It matches well with my lian li pc60. And I have never seen the black version on any website! I didn't even know it existed. I will try to post some pics if i can get my hands on a digital camera.
 
Saeid said:
can i ask where u got that information from?
thnx
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All TN LCDs have narrow viewing angles, 6-bit color and relatively poor contrast ratio so that's what you get "by default" when choosing a monitor with such panel. The 173P+ on the other hand is one of few 17" LCDs that aren't TN. It uses Samsung's PVA panel with superior picture quality. Those panels used to be very slow compared to TN but now with overdrive, they are almost the same speed or even faster in some cases.
 
And don't discount the difference between the 6-bit and 8-bit color quality. For me, I found a much bigger objective difference in that feature than in any other. I really did not like the 6-bit panel color quality. It was VERY visible side-by-side, and very noticeable to me. I refused to buy a 6-bit panel, even if I had to wait, but both the VP191b and the 193P+ were available so I was able to get what I wanted, and I am VERY happy with the 193P+.
 
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