Yes, I'm recommending it. No, I didn't keep it.

Background
This monitor was the next stop in my quest for a flat screen monitor to replace my ailing 17" Acerview 76i. I first had settled on a Sony Multiscan G400 which turned out to be a disaster. See my review of the product for more details. After reading more reviews and technical documents, I narrowed my choices down to the LG Flatron 915FT+, the NEC FE950 and Samsung 900NF. I chose the Samsung because it had a prestigious Mitsubishi Diamondtron NF cathode ray tube, a feature which the LG was lacking. This is important, since the cathode ray tube is the primary factor in determining the quality of a CRT monitor. The superior specifications and lower price of the Samsung overshadowed the NEC, and thus my choice was made. Too bad it had to end the way it did.

Initial Observations
This mother of a monitor is even bulkier than the Sony G400. While the box for the Sony could just barely fit into the back seat of a Toyota Camry, this thing simply refused to go in. The front seat was able to accommodate it, but we couldn't close the door. We ended up carefully extracting the unit from the box, and then collapsing the cardboard and stowing it in the trunk. The monitor was then easily strapped into the back seat. It was securely held by two large pieces of styrofoam on each side of the box. The box itself was made of very thick cardboard. I cannot fault Samsung for their packaging.

The Setup
I had a tough time lifting the thing onto my desk. Once it was up there, I had to move the desk an additional inch out from the wall, which shows that this device is deeper than the Sony which was previously there.

The monitor features both standard and BNC connectors on the back, which is excepted in a device of this calibre. The controls can be accessed by pressing a little panel on the front of the monitor. They are then revealed as the panel rolls open. They are not hard to use and the menus are logically organised. Navigation is done via four directional microswitch buttons which give off a small click when you press them (and this is good, as it gives a non-cheap feeling.) Of the remaining three buttons, the first one brings up an information screen about the monitor's configuration, the second one is "Cancel" and the third is "OK/Return."

It took about fifteen minutes for me to tweak the image and use the corner correction feature to make the picture look good. The controls for stretching the image were extremely precise, and allowed very fine modifications to the image size. In contrast, the controls for moving the picture were rather unsatisfying, not allowing for me to make fine enough adjustments.

The Picture
Chances are, you'll spend more time looking at your monitor than doing anything else with it. And this monitor is indeed worth the attention of your eyeballs. The quality of the picture was the main thing I liked about the product.

The monitor supports (and the documentation recommends) 1600x1200x32 @ 85Hz, however my video card cannot handle that level of operation. I wish that it could, because the high resolution and refresh rate of the Samsung is one of my favourite features. Therefore I set it at 1280x1024x24 @ 85Hz. After some tweaking of the convergence, the image looked very crisp. Even very small 6 pt text was easily readable. Colours were full and saturated, and the geometry was very accurate but not completely perfect at the left and right edges. Then again, there is no such thing as a flat screen monitor completely free of geometry problems (yet.)

I found that although coloured or black text on a white background looked very good, white text on a black or coloured background looked a lot better. It was simply a lot sharper and easier to look at.

The uniformity of the whites left something to be desired. Because the tube is wholly flat on the outside and almost flat (yes, it is curved) on the inside, the electrons fired from the gun at the back of the monitor will travel different distances depending on the angle that they are fired. This creates different levels of brightness across the screen, which Samsung does attempt to correct. For about half an inch in from both the right and left, there is a noticeable gradient in the colours from slightly grey on the extreme edge to normal white. This fades as the monitor warms up, but never completely disappears. The manual recommends waiting for the monitor be in operation for 30 minutes before you make any adjustments to it. That way the internal components will have done all of their expansion due to heating, so that the internal geometry of the monitor would remain constant. An additional result of the inner curvature is additional internal refraction. Since the glass around the left and right edges of the screen is thicker, there is more refraction. This makes the image look like it's bent slightly inwards on each side. This does not bother me a lot, although it seems to be bent in a lot more on the right than on the left. This is possibly a manufacturing flaw in this tube.

I have also found that if the brightness and contrast are turned up to maximum, the text gets somewhat blurry. If the brightness is lowered enough for blacks to look black, it is not possible to modify the contrast or any other setting to get the whites to look absolutely white.

With all the good things said about the picture of this monitor, I also have to say that the picture is not as good as the Sony Multiscan G400 with its FD Trinitron tube. It's not as bright, the whites are not as uniform, and the text is not as sharp. The Sony tube is simply a superior piece of technology in comparison to the Mitsubishi Diamondtron NF tube.

The Documentation
The manual is a thick book with about thirty pages of documentation in seven different languages. The information on how to install the drivers is probably redundant, as well as the information about each of the menu functions. Essentially for each of the items that you can access and modify via the monitor's menus, the manual tells you how to find the option and change it, but does not describe exactly what it does. The remainder of the manual is taken up with one page of basic common-sense troubleshooting and the technical specifications.

Quirky Operation
This is where Samsung loses most of its points.

First of all, the monitor is 'forgetful.' When it comes out of power saving mode, it sometimes forgets the horizontal stretch and position values that I had previously set. The picture reappears about a quarter of an inch to the left or right (it seems to be random) and on occasion, the stretch value has been lowered so that the picture is not as wide as it was before it went into power saving mode. I have never seen the stretch value become increased. [Note: Please see the updated section at the end of this document for more information about this.]

Sometimes, the convergence is a bit wily. Occasionally when I turn the monitor on, the convergence settings are way off. There is a very obvious misalignment in the vertical value for the setting and except for the bottom left quarter of the monitor, the picture is very blurry. And to add insult to malfunction, the convergence settings become unresponsive. On each occasion when I attempted to fix the problem by modifying the convergence setting, the controls simply did not work. The value on the little digital meter would change but the picture would be unaffected. Go figure! The problem was always corrected if the monitor was turned off and then on again a few seconds later. But then it might have forgotten the horizontal position and stretch settings which would have to be readjusted.

One small thing that annoyed me was that if you wanted any setting to be saved into the monitor's memory, you have to remain on that menu for at least three seconds without pressing a button. You can't just press the escape button because the settings won't be saved.

Finally, my other problem with the monitor is that it physically shakes. The image is very solid, but if I'm banging away on my vintage '84 IBM keyboard (that doesn't have an MS advertising key and can really take a beating,) the whole unit shakes. The stand does not provide enough dampening to prevent it from moving around when small vibrations from my fingers are present. Now I probably press a lot harder than most other people when I'm at the keyboard, but that's only because my keyboard, unlike the flimsy ones that most people have now, can take it.

Tech Support
I called Samsung's tech support line about the forgetfulness problem, and I was pleasantly surprised by their responsiveness. I had to navigate through menus for about thirty seconds, and then I was connected to a real live person without being on hold for one second. Imagine that. If you've ever had to phone tech support for computer products, chances are you've experienced the "your call is important to us...all operators are busy" recorded message for about 30 minutes.

The technician (whose name was Bilen) was very friendly and took me through a series of diagnostics. At the end of the call, he confirmed that the unit was probably defective and told us to take it back to our supplier. All in all, the call took less than 10 minutes, and it was one of the best experiences I've with tech support from ANY company.

Conclusions
Are all Samsung monitors forgetful? Unlikely. Either way, my monitor hunt is not over and I'm seriously looking at the Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 920. It has the same tube as this and better specifications, with a manufacturer who is known for quality products.

And should you buy the 900NF? Perhaps you should get a demo of one in the store and test its response to power-saving mode. If the problems that I mentioned about the image being un-stretched or moved were not present, I would happily give this device four stars out of five, holding one back for the less than flawless image quality. In this case, I'm grudgingly giving it four stars, not holding back more points because the unit seems to be an exception.

Update! 2001-05-19 - I determined that the 'forgetfulness feature' of this monitor was related to my video card. Once I replaced it, the problem vanished. The monitor was not at fault. I whole-heartedly give this monitor a solid 4/5 stars.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 390
Operating System: Windows