X-bit labs

Closer Look at the 19" LCD Monitors Features. Part II (page 14)

Category: Other

by Oleg Artamonov

[ 11/19/2003 | 11:44 PM ]

Samsung SyncMaster 192V

Notwithstanding the “192” in its name, the display has a design similar to the 191 rather than to the “folding” 192 series.

The power unit is integrated, just like in 191N and 191T models. The display is thicker than that of the models with external PSUs. You can also notice a new design trend: the control buttons are placed in the lower edge of the display instead of the front panel. There is a small inconvenience though, as the power button sits right in the middle, which means that you can accidentally push it when navigating through the menu.

The appearance of the base has changed completely. It is small, elegant and short. It doesn’t allow setting the display in the portrait mode. You can only change the tilt of the screen as well as turn it to the left or right by 170 degrees. If this is not good for you, you can substitute the base for any VESA-compatible one.

We have a standard menu from Samsung here, too. The default color temperature is 6060K for white and 8020K for gray (it is the User Adjusted setting, with all three color sliders set at 50%). The Reddish option provides 5880K and 7260K temperatures, while the Bluish item gives out 6080K for white and 9200K for 50% gray. We see again the common defect: the temperatures of white and gray differ too much.

By default, the brightness control is set to 80%, the contrast to 50%. To achieve 100nit screen brightness, I set both controls to 20%. By the way, the brightness is managed by the power modulation of the backlight lamp with a frequency of 1kHz.

The display has excellent viewing angles; the image is perfectly seen even if your line of sight is parallel to the screen. The response time is, subjectively, slower than that by other Samsung models. Mark this if you like to play dynamic games.

The color rendition is the same as we had by other Samsung models: red is low, blue is high. That’s why there is this great difference between the color temperatures of white and gray.

The situation remains the same at 100nit screen brightness:

The measurements of the response time produced 30ms, although I had expected something worse. But as I have already mentioned, the response time is formally measured on transitions from black to white, while the subjective impression largely depends on the speed of pixel switching between shades of gray, which can be performed much faster.

Pixel rise time

Pixel fall time

The objective data were against this model in our measurements of the brightness and contrast ratio. The contrast ratio lied in a range of 200-300:1, although we were promised to have 500:1. For some strange reason, the highest level of black – over 1nit – falls to the default rather than to the maximum settings. However, when the screen brightness was reduced, the level of black went down, too. At 100nit screen brightness, this display can compete with many other models in the level of black.

I would position SyncMaster 192V as a good office LCD. It is low-cost and boasts elegant design, while its drawbacks like slow response and high level of black at default settings are not crucial for office work. This model will probably oust the older SyncMaster 191N series from this market niche. For the home users, I would recommend other models like Samsung 192B or displays from other manufacturers because the disadvantages of the 192V may become substantial in dynamic games and similar applications.

The color profile for Samsung SyncMaster 192V display: sm192v.icm.