As a long time computer user whose first system was a 4.77Mhz IBM PC clone with a monochrome green screen and whose other systems over the years have reflected practically every known combination of hardware and software, this monitor has forever changed what it means to me to spend time working on a computer. With such a great non-glare surface it's kinda like reading a newspaper.

At the time of this review, I have owned the monitor for 5 days (as of 10/19/02). I purchased it from a local retailer (CompuUSA) because I didn't want it shipped and mishandled by any more shipping companies than it already had been. I probably paid a little more ($899,original price, see price update below) but everything worked out fine because the retailer has a 14 day low price guarantee. I am heading back there in a couple of days to take advantage of it because I found the monitor for $100 cheaper at Frys Electronics. It comes with a pretty good 3 year warranty (parts/labor) but you have to get it to a Samsung repair center. I bought an additional warranty from the retailer for $109 so I could take it there and exchange it, if need be. Hope not!

The install was a snap. As I carefully removed it from the box, the oohs and ahhs from family members started up."It's huge" and "it looks cool" were but just two. I was a tad disappointed because the power cable has a rectangular converter built in but no one sees it anyway and it's not any inconvenience.

My current system is an ABS 1.4Ghz AMD system running Windows ME(I know, I know, ME stands for "Miserably inEpt" but what can you do? XP Pro is on the horizon if I can find all the drivers), with 512 MB Ram, an NVidia 32MB graphics card with TV out, 2-60GB hard drives, a CD-RW, DVD player, Creative Sound card with digital sound, this is plenty horse power for this monitor. The monitor comes with 2 cables attached. One for digital and the other for analog.

I don't have a digital display card but at this point the analog display is excellent so if you don't have a digital card yet, don't worry. It's great to have both connectors included with the monitor for future changes in your system.

As I set up the monitor, I noticed the base (7" deep by 8" wide, half an oval shape) is very well balanced and appears solid. There is a slot in the base riser that allows the user to easily grip the base for steady and controlled movements. The monitor is easily tilted backward, moved up and down, with a little over 2" of adjustment, or turned into the Pivot (portrait) mode (which is also adjustable up and down). Just do it slowly and hold both sides of the monitor for support.

I have my monitor sitting on a power control center that is about 1.5" high and without adjusting the monitor base, I'm fine. (BTW, I'm 5'10" tall). The slim (about 3/4") monitor frame is an additional plus. I purchased the black frame. I saw a picture of the silver frame on the box and the black frame definitely looks cooler.

After turning off my computer and reading the installation instructions (for close to $1000 bucks, you better know what you're doing though it's actually pretty simple), I connected the display and booted up. The plug n' pray feature found the new display with out a problem. I put the Samsung CD in and told the program where to find the drivers. No problems were noted during the initial installation.

At this point I had a great display with no burnt out pixels. Yeah!! I opened various programs and was able to play with the MS word multi-page display and was thinking this is cool, especially since I am going to be doing some serious writing in the near future. There is some screen jitter when scrolling quickly but for my purposes it does not matter.

I knew I had picked a winner because I could look at this screen all day with no problem. I did turn the brightness down somewhat but whether you would need to would depend on your surrounding lighting and personal preference. It also seems to depend upon how much "white" space there is in whatever is being displayed.

In adjusting the display I found the on-screen menu and six small rectangular control buttons at the bottom of the monitor frame very easy to use. One of the buttons in marked "auto" and by pressing it the internal logic of the monitor corrects any problems. You can fine-tune it on your own.

As each of my family members tested the display, my curiosity regarding the Pivot (portrait) mode got the best of me so I installed the software that comes on a separate CD. No problems were noted during the installation. After installing this software, left clicking on the tray display icon or anywhere on the desktop the program menu displays various degrees of rotation for the software. Rotate to zero puts the software back to the landscape mode. I invoked the 90 degree rotate which put the software display in the portrait mode. I then rotated the monitor itself and voila! I was in heaven and would not exchange this piece of hardware for anything. I could display full web pages without scrolling, my Outlook displayed over 50 lines of email, MS word came alive with huge full-page displays.

It was worth every penny invested to be able to convert everything to the portrait mode, which is actually about 15" of vertical display (a 15” monitor has 8” of vertical display). IT'S MORE THAN HUGE! IT'S GIGANTOR IN A BLACK FRAME!! I know it had been done over the years but this appears to be the best implementation yet. If you haven't seen it, get down to your nearest retailer that has the monitor on display and make them install the Pivot software so you can evaluate it. I took it on faith based on reviews I had read and my desire to have the best display available for my future as a scribe.

Soon after marveling at the portrait mode, I wanted to play a DVD, O'Brother Where Art Thou? I had just received for my birthday. I liked the sound track (which I recently purchased and recommend, if you like old time folk music with a historical twist) but had not purchased a standalone DVD player for my television, so I was out of luck until I installed this monitor. I set the Pivot software to "rotate to 0" to get it back in the landscape mode and then went about running my DVD software.

Though I had the DVD capability on my system, I had decided not to play any through my old CRT because I knew I would have been disappointed. Well let me tell you, the DVD display was fantastic which I was able to view after a bit of troubleshooting. You can watch DVD's in the daytime or in a well-lit room because of the amount of brightness available from this system. It's amazing!

After receiving an error message that my DVD software was having trouble, I discovered that I had to disable the Pivot software to get my DVD software to work. I used a program, MemoKit, that allows individual programs loaded in memory to be unloaded to disable the Pivot software. You could also use the "CTRL-ALT-DEL" to bring up the Windows close program window to do the same thing. There is no "disable" on the Pivot software menu. This is an oversight but easily corrected. You can also use MSconfig to disable Pivot on startup and then enable it after playing your DVD's. Maybe you won't have this problem, depending on your DVD software. My DVD software is WinFastDVD.

BTW, in addition to MemoKit(Note: everyone should have this program, approx. $30) and MSConfig, I use the following software to control my 512MB Ram: AutoStart Manager and PC Magazines "EnditAll". This may seem excessive as far as controlling your RAM, but until you run these programs, you remain unaware of all the bits and pieces of software running in the background gumming up your system, even from programs that are not actually loaded on the screen. After I installed MemoKit, I stabilized my system that had to be booted at least 5 times a day. Sorry for the digression but having a stable system is at least as important as having a great monitor. Don't you think?

Well, anyway, that's it for now. Gotta go. Hope this helps. See you on the bright side.

UPDATE 10/21/02
When running programs that take some time, e.g., virus scans, disk optimizers, etc., do not run them in the Pivot mode. In addition, if you are running these programs you should also disable your screen saver just to be safe.

I was attempting to run Norton Disk Optimizer in the Pivot Mode and my screen saver came on and my system promptly froze. I also noticed that Norton Disk Optimizer 2000 seemed to take for ever to optimize my disk just in general. Actually, it never finished after running if for several hours. After rebooting and unloading wpcontrl.exe(the Pivot software file) from memory with the MemoKit, program the Norton Disk Optimizer 2000 ran fine. You can also you MSConfig (Start-Run-Msconfig-Startup) to keep wpcontrl.exe from loading at boot up to accomplish the same thing. Just remember to use MSconfig to enable it when Norton is done.

UPDATE 10/24/02
My video card is set to 1280 by 1024. Reading Outlook's pop up messages (about 6-7 font size) is no problem. In the Pivot (portrait mode) MS Word (full screen) can display a full page at 118% (15 in of vertical display). In MS Excel, 120 lines can be displayed at 55% and still be readable (about 4-5 font size).

UPDATE 10/27/02
I've been playing with some photo editing software and with this monitor not only are the photos looking great but it's also a pleasure to edit them. Being able to view 800% close ups is very handy for fine tuning some major mega-pixel montages. Need I say more?

I've also been able to open 2 windows in the portrait mode and each window is about the size of its own 15 In monitor. This is great for file copying, editing documents and a bunch of other stufff. Too cool!

To clean the dust off the screen I'm using a T-shaped plastic handle with a soft brush on the end. I received it as a throw in gift for a purchase I made from Batteries4everything.com (good site for battery purchases, especially old cordless telephones). I really haven't seen them for sale but I'm sure there available. The brush gently removes the lint from the screen so the view is as clear as possible. Even today I thought I had four bad pixels (yipes!) but a couple of swipes with the brush removed the offending dust pixels. Otherwise, everything is good so far.

Oh, by the way, I also made it over to CompuUSA to retrieve my $100 low price guarantee discount and they handled it with no problem. They even refunded the sales tax paid on the $100 (in CA it's $8.25). I did have the advertisement from Fry's with me and I had also called Fry's to make sure they had it in stock locally. I took down the clerks name and recorded the date and time of the call. It worked! Just make sure that if you pay with a credit card that the purchaser goes to get the refund and you take the same credit card that the purchase was made with.

The prices seems to be dropping pretty rapidly on this item so you might want to do some hard shopping or wait a bit to see what comes your way as the retailers duke it out.

As I was checking out the new CompUSA store I spent the $100 bucks there on some really cool Altec Lansing 2100 speakers (easy come, easy go). See my review at http://www.epinions.com/content_81812950660.

UPDATE 10/28/02
There is a $100 manufacturer's mail-in rebate available at CompUSA from 10/26/02 through 01/04/03. Check with Samsung to see if it is available from other resellers.

UPDATE 11/04/02
With a dot pitch of .294, some letters in some of the thin fonts at small pitch sizes are a little bit "jaggy" (new, high-tech term).They are still very clear and well defined. Also, tiny fonts(5 or 6 points) that are bolded on some web sites are a little fuzzy. This seems to depend on how close to the screen the display is viewed, similar to watching a big screen TV from too close a viewing distance. Please understand that I can read Epinion.com reviews about 4 feet away from the screen with no problems with IE set at the smallest text size. In addition, an MS Word document with a 1" margin can be displayed at 155 percent display size (Arial, 11 font size) and still be seen clearly and fully on the screen. I'm using the Pivot (portrait) feature about 95% of the time. It's great! My 5 star rating still stands.

UPDATE 11/11/02
Note: I am not a medical doctor and the following is not to be construed as medical advice. It's just what has happened to me!)

I've had the monitor for four weeks now. Virtually all eye strain and headaches I had been getting prior to purchasing the monitor have been reduced by 95 percent. Sometimes I work 10-15 hours straight on the computer. Can't say enough about this piece of hardware. I still use it in the portrait mode most of the time.

UPDATE 11/20/02
I just received a confirming email from Samsung regarding the processing of my $100 rebate and that it will take about 8 more weeks to receive a check. Seems like a long time but a $100 bucks is still $100 bucks (I'll take it). Nice customer support touch by Samsung.

UPDATE 01/17/03
I inserted some basic clipart into a Word document and while the graphics print fine, the on screen display is full of jagged edges. If producing graphics is your main work, you should probably look for a much smaller dot pitch (.24-.26) to get a satisfactory display or you may want to try a digital video card before making a decision. For every day use such a Word clipart, etc., the monitor is fine. Be sure to test any display you are considering with the type of work you do everyday.

In regards to the Pivot feature, I'm using it about 99% of the time since I don't do many spreadsheets anymore. It's a life changer and the number one coolest feature for web surfing and wordprocessing. To be able to view 15 inches of vertical display is totally awesome, dude!

UPDATE 02/11/03
Still no dead pixels after four months of daily use. Yeah!

UPDATE 3/15/03
While my monitor did not have a locking pin installed in the back, I've received email from a couple of epinionators indicating they have and could not swivel the monitor. From Samsung came the following: "You should be able to just turn the monitor, make sure you have removed the pin from the back of the monitor that locks it in place, it should look like a round ring."

Also, I finally received my $100 rebate 16 weeks after mailing it in (not 8 as stated on the rebate).

UPDATE 04/04/03
One dead pixel noted about 5 months after purchase.

UPDATE 01/30/04
No new dead pixels. I never notice the 1 dead one anyway so it really doesn't matter. Monitor is rock solid after
15 months of use. I'm looking to add the new 21" to my other home PC. I also recently purchased a Samsung 56" DLP televison and an HD box. It's the best. No viewing angle problems or future dead pixels. It can also be used as a PC monitor.

UPDATE 09/17/05
No more dead pixels. Tell you the truth, I've never seen the dead pixel again since I first mentioned it. As far problems, there are no problems at all to mention. Still a great monitor nearly three years after purchase and still the one piece of equipment out all the computer stuff I've purchased over the past 25 years that I appreciate the most.
Save your money and get one.

UPDATE 01/29/07
The monitor is still working perfectly with over 4 years of daily use on it. The only problem I have now is that I lost my Pivot software CD and since my old computer crashed, I have not been able to use the portrait feature. I contacted Samsung several times but have received no response concerning purchasing a replacement disk. If anyone has a copy that I can borrow, please let me know.

A minor annoyance is that the black finish on the power button wore off. Since I leave my computer on 24/7, I turn the monitor off manually several times a day. I colored it with a black marker but it just wore off again. I put a bit of clear tape over it so it wouldn't wear totally off. It is probably not a problem for most people.

UPDATE 11/29/07
Yeah! I found the Pivot Software and installed it with no problem. I turned the monitor vertically and the Internet experience is so much better. The vertical feature is something that I would consider a "must have" in any monitor .

The monitor still works great (bright and clear) even with over 5 years of constant abuse. No eye fatigue with the fantastic clarity for everyday use. I did notice a flicker while playing back some video converted from tape. I don't see this on any Internet video or DVDs. Maybe it's the response time, maybe not. Anyway, still no regrets.

UPDATE 10/14/08
Six years of constant use and no problems (except 1 dead pixel, only seen upon boot up). Still using the vertical mode full time for Internet and most other programs, especially word processing. Easy to swivel display to landscape for spreadsheet use, depending on width of spreadsheet. No eye fatigue as first reported earlier in report. It was my glasses, not the monitor.

UPDATE 02/17/12
Still working. No problems. Vertical mode is the best. I would buy another Samsung monitor.




Specifications

General
Type Device: Color, Flat Panel LCD
Actual Diagonal Screen Size: 19 In
Viewable Diagonal Screen/Image Size: 19 In
Controls: Language Select; On-Screen Display
On-screen controls: Brightness, contrast, H/V position, H/V size, color balance, color temperature
Cabinet Color: Black (Back); Silver (Front)or Black (Front)
Optional Accessories: USB Hub (haven't seen this yet)
Misc Features: Macintosh Compatible; PC Compatible, Monitor can be swiveled 90 degrees for 15 In tall portrait mode display. Can also be tilted back to about 45 degrees.

Display
Video Standards: SXGA; VGA; SVGA; XGA
Dot/Stripe Pitch: .294mm
Screen Type: Anti-Glare; TFT Screen, active matrix; 25ms Typical Response Time
Maximum Resolution Supported: 1280 x 1024
Brightness/Luminance: 250 cd/m2 (nits)
Contrast Ratio: 500:1 (twice a much as other monitors)
Scanning-Horizontal: Freq 30-81 kHz
Scanning-Vertical Freq/Refresh: 56-85 Hz
Viewing Angle: 170 Degrees Horizontal; 170 Degrees Vertical
Interface Type(s): DVI-D; DB15 (VGA)
Special features: Dual input (analog/digital) & auto signal detection

Physical dimensions
Length 16.4 In (close to two 15 In standard monitors, side by side)
Width of stand 8.2 In
Height (with stand) 18.2 In (adjustable 2 In up)
Height of monitor only (with bezel) 13.5 In
Weight 13.0 pounds
Depth: Monitor itself: 1.375 In
Depth with stand: 17.8 In

Connectivity
Input device type: None
Digital video standard: Digital Visual Interface
Analog video input: RGB

Warranty
Standard warranty 3 years
Comments: 3 years for parts/labor/backlight

Power Ratings/Other
Voltage supported 110v 15pin d-sub dvi-d
Power consumption (watts) 40
Certification(s) Tco'99 (emissions)
Compliant standards: NUTEK, Energy 2000

Bill of materials:
Monitor with stand
Power cord
Instruction book
2 CD's. One with the drivers (PC/Mac) and the other with the Pivot (portrait) software
Video cables included:(digital and analog permanently connected)

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 799
Operating System: Windows