I've waited long enough - time to buy!
Written: Jul 22 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
|
Pros: sharp image, remote control, TV tuner
Cons: price
|
|
|
| bitbank's Full Review: Samsung SyncMaster 170 MP (White) 17 in. Flat Pane... |
I've been wanting a good LCD monitor for quite some time and have been waiting for the prices to drop. They are dropping, but not as fast as I would have liked. In the computer industry, prices tend to fall over time, but the basic rule is that if you need it today, then buy it today. I have been using a Sony 19" Trinitron monitor which produces the best image I have ever seen on a CRT. Stiff competition, but the Samsung competes well. I paid $1739 + shipping (check www.pricewatch.com for current prices).
The reasons I chose this monitor are as follows:
1) Same basic displayable area as a 19" CRT (17" vs. 17.75")
2) 1280x1024 resolution at 75Hz
3) SVGA, S-VHS, RCA & TV input
4) Low power (good for South Florida where excess heat is bad)
5) Low radiation (I sit in front of a screen 10+ hours a day)
6) small footprint (I have a small office)
Included in the box are the monitor, remote control (2 AAA batteries), SVHS cable, VGA cable, Audio Cable, Power brick & cable, Antenna adapter, software CD, manual. The remote control allows you to navigate the onscreen menus and directly access TV channels.
Considering that this monitor takes an analog RGB signal in, the image is remarkably stable and free of ghosting. The contrast, brightness and colors look quite good. It has slight problems with gray and gray/black stripped patterns, but otherwise looks perfect. The image is viewable at a wide angles in all 4 directions. I run it at 1280x1024 @ 75Hz; Samsung claims that it scales non-intregral image sizes well, but I would run it at full or 1/2 res to avoid distortions in the image.
The front panel consists of several touch-sensitive buttons and it includes an on-screen menu system which lets you control nearly everything. The auto-adjust mode of the monitor works extremely well; I did not have to adjust the image size, position or color controls.
A neat feature is the inclusion of Picture-in-Picture. This allows you to see a small or large window superimposed on the screen with an alternate video source. When receiving input from a computer, the PC input is the main video and the PIP is either TV or SVHS/composite video.
Overall, operation of the monitor is very simple - I did not even bother to read the manual nor run the included CD and everything worked fine right out of the box.
This monitor does not fit into everyone's budget, but if you have your heart set on an LCD display, this is a great choice and has the added bonus of TV/S-VHS support.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1739
Operating System: Windows
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
bitbank
|
|
Member: Larry Bank
Location: Coral Springs, Florida
Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 9 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.