This is a very solid monitor
Written: Nov 26 '03 (Updated Dec 02 '03)
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Pros: Large screen, nice image, very well built.
Cons: Pixel pitch is a tiny bit coarse. Image is a smidgen dull.
The Bottom Line: Excellent monitor for business use, CAD, or a work station. Very well built, excellent material quality and finish. Good image quality. Solid all-around monitor
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| mherbst55's Full Review: Samsung SyncMaster 213 T (Silver) 21.3" LCD Monito... |
I live in a small town, so finding a 20.1" or 21.3" LCD monitor to inspect in one of the local computer stores is impossible. The next best thing is to read reviews on the internet. Surprise, surprise. Very few of those exist either, save one. The SyncMaster 213T. It's no wonder, then, that the SyncMaster 213T is the LCD I decided to buy.
I figure there are other people out there in computer land confronted with the same problem I had. The large LCD's call loudly, but which one to buy. So you try to do the homework, but you find you're dead in the water. There are no study materials available. So, with that in mind, I thought I would write a review to help others in their quest to make a decision on the big LCD's.
I purchased mine through Dell while it was on sale. The box arrived in very nice shape, so I thought this was a good omen. I seemed to be starting off on the right foot. Even with the box in such fine shape, however, I nervously opened it up not sure if I would find a broken piece or two. I'm pessimistic like that. The monitor itself was wrapped in foam and in good shape, so the pessimism was misplaced. One thing that surprised me was finding both DVI and analog cables hooked to the back. At first glance I thought they might be hardwired into the monitor. That was an immediate turn-off. It was not the case, thank God. Samsung decide to screw both to the monitor and ship it in that configuration for some reason.
After pulling the foam off the monitor and inspecting for damage and quality, I must say that I was very happy. First, I want to say that I'm a pretty tough cookie when it comes to details. I like to think that I have the eye of an industrial engineer when it comes to design detail, and the eye of an artist when it comes to sizing up sheer style and elegance. With that said, I want to say that everything about this monitor is very solid and well built. The base is all aluminum, very sturdy, and very stylish. The monitor case is absolutely perfect with respect to seam alignment, etcetera. The buttons are exquisite, although the touch required to activate them is stiff. But this is okay, because the buttons mechanisms have a very solid feel. The whole monitor has a very durable feel, the overall assembly is very high quality, and the styling is very elegant. Mechanically, the 213T is one great piece of work.
Now let me talk about the screen and image quality. The 213T has a 0.27 dot pitch and runs a native resolution of 1600 x 1200 DPI. There are analog and DVI feeds to the monitor, so take your choice depending on what your graphics card will handle. When I first fired the 213T up, the first thing I checked for was dead pixels. Everything was perfect in this department. All 1.92 million transistors were functioning as intended. I was somewhat disappointed with the image I saw, however. It was slightly washed out, although sharp. It was nothing like the bright image that our NEC 1700V has. I figured this was as good as it would get so I hoped I could get used to it.
I like to tinker, however. I instinctively wanted to fiddle with the settings so I activated the OSM to see what adjustments were available to play with. The brightness and contrast were set to 85, and the color settings for RGB were 50% across the board. There were coarse and fine adjustments to rid the display of noise on the image also; I don't remember what those settings were fixed at.
I must say that after working with the seven settings a bit, I achieved a totally satisfactory adjustment for image quality. I wound up with the RGB settings maxed at 100%, the brightness at 100%, the contrast at 65%, the coarse adjustment set to 2164, and the fine adjustment set to 42. Now, whether these are "healthy" settings or not (meaning I'm not sure whether monitor life will suffer from them) the image quality is very nice. I will say that it is not necessarily as bright as some of the images I've seen, but it is still a nice quality image.
If you are interested in this monitor but don't have one available to inspect, I recommend you go down to the local computer shops and try to find a 191T. This is the 213T's smaller, 19 inch brother. The image quality is pretty much the same; the monitor design is pretty close too. If you like what you see in the 191T, you will like the 213T.
The monitor that the 213t replaced was an EIZO T962 21" flat screen CRT. This was a very high end display, so the 213T had to ride pretty high in the saddle to compete well. I am completely happy with the way that the 213T performs. The only downside is the pixel pitch. After having a screen with a 0.24 pixel pitch, going to a 0.27 makes the text look a little rough. BUT, this is personal preference, and not a defect in the 213T. One of the reasons that I went to the 21.3" monitor was to get a full page of readable text for the word processing that I do. The 213T provides this with aplomb. I can sit anywhere from 2' - 3' from monitor and read a full page of 9pt font very well. MUCH better than I ever could with my EIZO. LCD's are simply a better display than CRT's for some applications. Word processing is one of them.
If this monitor has good longevity I will be very pleased with this purchase. One thing that I would have liked to do was compare the image quality of a 20.1" LCD with the 21.3". The dot pitch of the 20.1" is 0.255 as opposed to the 0.27 of the 21.3" I might have liked the text quality a little better, and I might not have had to give up too much screen real estate to get better acuity. But circumstance wouldn't permit the comparison. That's okay, because the 213T is a very fine monitor.
Is the 213T a PERFECT monitor? No. Is the 213T a great monitor for a work station type setting? You bet! With that in mind, I would give this monitor a rating of 4.5 stars out of a possible 5.
Addendum:
When I wrote this review I was using a G550 Matrox video card in analog mode to power the monitor. Since the 213T is innately a digital device I decided to spring for a new digital card to optimize my configuration. I've heard varying reports over this issue. Some have said image quality does not improve much when switching between analog and digital modes. Others say it makes a world of difference. Anyway, my choice was Matrox's P650 Dual DVI with 1600 x 1200 output resolutions for two monitors. After installing the card I powered up my system and held my breath. I wasn't sure what the result would be, and I was hoping there would be justification for the extra expense.
As the computer booted up, the monitor automatically selected for the digital input. When I reached the desktop I must say that a pleasant surprise presented itself. The image quality was quite different, and for the better. I would give this monitor a 5 out of 5 stars now. In the main body of this review I murmured a little concerning the text being a little blocky. Well, most of that was removed by driving the monitor digitally rather than in analog mode. Text quality has improved considerably. It also has improved the image quality from corner to corner, and the image is quite bright and very uniform now.
The 213T has no extras like USB or S-video ports, but those things were of no concern to me in the first place. You have to remember you don't pay as much for the 213T when compared to some of the competing 21'3" monitors (Viewsonic VP211). In fact, the 213T and Matrox P650 card cost me only a few dollars more than if I would have purchased Viewsonic's VP211. And I would never have used the extras on the VP211 anyway. With that in mind, if you're looking for a solid monitor with no frills, but does its primary job with aplomb, it's my opinion you definitely get your money's worth with Samsung's 213T. Good job Samsung!
As a side note, I think I might still prefer a monitor with a little tighter dot pitch. But this is only a very minor thing, and totally personal preference. I am very, very happy with the 213T now that it's being driven with a digital card. If you are going to buy this monitor I would recommend you look for a DVI card at the same time if you don't have one. In my opinion the improvement in image quality justifies the extra cost.
Happy viewing :)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1184
Operating System: Windows
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mherbst55
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