X-bit labs

New LCD Monitors from Samsung: Roundup of 5 New Models (page 2)

Category: Other

by Oleg Artamonov

[ 03/04/2004 | 03:34 PM ]

As I have mentioned, the monitor control buttons line up at the bottom of the case. They can be pressed easily, there is nothing wrong with them. Quick buttons are assigned to auto-adjustment, to switching between the inputs (the “Exit” button) and to the brightness setting.

The menu follows the unified SyncMaster style: if you have ever seen an LCD display with the blue menu from Samsung, you saw them all. There are three color temperature settings: “User Adjusted” (by default, the real color temperature of white is 5720K and of gray – 7160K and the image seems colder than it should be), “Reddish” (white is the same, but gray is colder, 6430K, with a noticeable pinkish tint), “Bluish” (the temperature of gray grows to 8050K, while white remains the same).

By default, the brightness control stands on 80% and the contrast on 50%. To achieve a screen brightness of 100nit (1 nit = 1 candela per square meter), I reduced them both to 40%. The MagicBright button allows switching between the user-defined setup and three presets of brightness and contrast. The Text mode sets 33% brightness and 45% contrast (this corresponds to 100nit screen brightness, which suits exactly for working with texts), the Internet mode means 54% brightness and 50% contrast (I think it suits mostly for working with graphics, photos and so on), and the Entertain mode has 78% brightness and 55% contrast (for playing games and watching movies). The user cannot adjust these presets – when you try to change the brightness or contrast controls, the monitor leaves the MagicBright mode, switching to User Adjusted.

Note that you can set the screen brightness very low, so it’s quite possible to work with the monitor in full darkness.

The viewing angles are excellent as you should expect from a PVA matrix. No, this hasn’t been a typo! The monitor does use a PVA matrix, although the manufacturer’s website says “TN+Film”. There is no color distortion – only if you move really far aside from the center of the screen, you see some changes in the contrast. I also have no concerns about the color reproduction – the monitor was equally good at displaying photographs and smooth color gradients.

The color curves, however, have a small, but noticeable flaw: the monitor makes some colors look too bright, mostly in the “dark” part of the range. We also see the common problem of many LCD monitors as they reduce the level of red, but increase the level of blue, which leads to a “cold” image with a color temperature higher than what has been set up in the monitor settings menu.

The response time measurements brought no surprises now that we know that the monitor has a PVA matrix. As you know from my previous roundups, PVA matrixes are distinguishable for their low pixel response time on black-to-white transitions, but this response time grows dramatically when there is little difference between the initial and final states of the pixel. This has a simple explanation: the response time is the time it takes the liquid crystals to turn by a certain angle.