Energy Savings in a Pretty Package
Written: Aug 08 '02 (Updated May 26 '03)
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Pros: Gorgeous picture, excellent color, clean look, adjustable height on stand, VESA mount.
Cons: Picture controls are a little confusing, accepts only analog video signal, not digital.
The Bottom Line: Looking for a high mid-range LCD monitor, without DVI and without bells and whistles? You've found it.
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| caradoc's Full Review: Samsung SyncMaster 171 17 inch LCD Monitor |
I'd been considering a flat LCD screen for close to a year, but the prices had always remained too high. Once the 17" screens broke the $650 barrier, I started shopping in earnest.
After several months of shopping, I settled on the Samsung Syncmaster 171S, for $649 at CostCo.
The specifications that I had set included a minimum 17" viewable surface, with a minimum native resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels at a minimum sync rate of 75Hz.
The industry-standard VESA mount for the monitor is a bonus - the VESA mount allows you to remove the monitor's standard "stand" and replace it with a variety of ergonomic arms or stands.
The monitor's own stand is very nice, allowing a tilt of a few degrees up or down, or allowing a height adjustment of about three inches vertically. The "pedestal" style of base works much better for me than the "easel" style of base that the Apple LCD monitors (among others) use. The "easel" doesn't allow for a height adjustment at all, while the "pedestal" that's used on the 171S does. You just pull the monitor up from the base, and the pedestal "grows" about three inches, with a friction brake that'll let you adjust the height to the nearest sixteenth of an inch or so.
The standard VGA-style HD-15 analog cable is a heavy-duty connector, and should survive most any "normal" computing use you can throw at it, but the power cable uses an odd connector. This isn't too bad, because unlike most other LCD screens I looked at the monitor has an internal power supply. The total weight of the monitor is slightly higher with an internal "brick," but at approximately 12 pounds, it's easy for just about anyone to pick it up and move it around.
The single biggest factor in moving to an LCD screen was power consumption. The LCD screen consumes about 34 watts of power in operation, and about 1 watt in standby. It's qualified under the NUTEK, TCO '99, DDC-2B, DDC-1 , EPA and Energy Star standards for ergonomics and power consumption.
But the fact that it doesn't use all that much power on its own is just the beginning. It also doesn't generate much heat, which in Arizona equates to increased cooling costs as well!
The monitor also has a much smaller footprint than my original 17" CRT - I estimate that I could stack three of the 171S monitors into the same space that my old Princeton took up. The base is about nine inches deep, and the screen has about a 1.5 inch bezel around the 17 inch viewing area, giving totals of 17.5 inches wide by 8.2 inches deep by 18 inches in height. This has given me a *lot* more room on my desk - so much that I now leave a laptop on the desk in front of the monitor, and work on both machines at the same time. My keyboard is on an articulated tray under the desk, so it doesn't get in the way.
I use the Samsung on a Macintosh, an AlphaStation, and a Sun SPARCStation 20, through a Belkin OmniCube with appropriate adapters for the various interfaces. The monitor works fine on each of them, with no extra software required.
At 220 candles per square meter, and a contrast ratio of 350:1, the colors are bright and clear, and the blacks are clean and crisp. The rectangular pixels sometimes make very small fonts a little hard to read, but that's simply part of the technology - aliasing the fonts via your display manager can smooth things out enough to make them legible.
The monitor doesn't include a digital video input (DVI) connector, but only one of my machines is even capable of that, and includes an analog output as well.
The on-screen controls aren't very intuitive, but the "auto" configuration produces a better picture than I've ever been able to get manually.
On the back of the panel, you will find a "security port" like the ones seen on various laptops. It allows you to lock the display to a desktop or other non-portable object by using a "laptop leash" like the ones made by Kensington and Targus. It won't stop a determined thief from just breaking the lock out and leaving a hole, but it will make the average "smash-and-grab" thief think twice about just walking away with your expensive flat-panel display.
I'm only four months into my three-year warranty. I think this Samsung 171S is going to keep me happy for a while.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): $649
Operating System: Other
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Epinions.com ID:
caradoc
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Member: John Groseclose
Location: Scottsdale, AZ
Reviews written: 182
Trusted by: 133 members
About Me:
System admin, technology addict, knife thrower, and dog "caregiver."
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