X-bit labs

Started by: anon | Date 06/19/04

Comments: 13 | Last Comment:  10/21/05

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1. Well, good to see that the retail 172x monitors are better than the review samples. I've wanted to get one for a while, and would be willing to pay that price for a great LCD monitor, but I just can't justify the cost considering the striping, color reproduction, and black reproduction problems. I guess I'll just have to wait for the next gen monitors, because the current batch all look to be almost up to my standards, but just a hair away. Of course, some people might not be as picky as I am.

Hopefully the 10ms panels I saw listed on the Hydis website a while back will be picked up and used in an actual monitor soon. It'll be interesting to see how well that panel performs.

2. Does the 173P come with control software for other systems than Window$?

"On the other hand, the MagicTune utility is now only available for Windows and I don’t know about Samsung’s plans for porting it for Linux and other alternative OS’s or about third-party software for such systems"

3. Whilst having the control software accessible from windows is handy (I'm so glad I don't have to lean forward 6 inches to press a button on the monitor), the lack of actual on-monitor configuration buttons makes all of these monitors a no-go for me.

How do you switch input on this monitor? Surely you don't have to right click, properties, monitor, advanced, select input? That is RETARDED. Especially as my second computer, being Linux based, will never allow me back to Windows because the software doesn't exist for it.

4. In case you missed it, only the 173P has no control buttons. The others do have control buttons and the software is just an alternate method. Of course, I do have to agree that making the 173P only accessable from software makes it very undesireable for me.

Most users might not mind, since they run windows boxes and only have one monitor and one computer. For that application it isn't a big loss, and might even be more convenient for people who can set up their monitor and then forget about it. Unfortunately, for people who don't fit this mold, the monitor obviously isn't going to work. Like you, I have two computers attached to my current monitor, and am always switching the input between the two (I have seperate mice and keyboards). Pushing a button on the front of the monitor makes this easy, but fiddling with the software each time I want to switch would be painful. Also, it looks like their current software is windows only, which means that linux and mac users are also out of luck with this monitor.

Overall, I'm suprised they went this route. I'm skeptical that the money they saved on not building the botton interface on the monitor is worth the lost sales from people who can't use their software or will find it too cumbersome. But admittedly, those two groups of people are probably very much in the minority.

I too am disappointed in Samsung's decision to go the software only route. My concern is that it makes the monitor worthless for my Mac and Linux boxes and depends on Samsung to continue supporting the monitor with future versions of Windows. Sorry, but I don't trust them enough to do so and as a result, I won't be buying such a monitor.

Now for those of you wondering how to switch inputs on the 173P, it's possible to do that with the hardware button, based on other reviews I've read. You simply press and hold the button for a second or two and it will cycle through the inputs.

5. Well, actually response time reduction in gray-to-gray happens all kinds of LCD panels. But, it is only most serious with VA type TFT-LCDs. Fujitsu's MVA panels also show the similar result.

IPS panels have faster response time than VAs and show far less color shift when viewed from sides. But it is not perfect either. Their black shifts to bluish tone when view from sides or uper-side corners, when VAs still give beautiful black.

6. Oleg, thanks for all these reviews on monitors really imformative.

I have one question, why don't you reduce the bightness setting to 0 BEFORE touching the contrast control? As I see it, the contrast control is a "last resort" because touching it will affect the all important contrast ratio. On the other hand the brightness control will decrease the black level as well as the level of all other colours.

So, is there any reason why you don't achieve 100 nit with 0 brightness + reduced contrast?

Because with brightness reduced to 0 most monitors doesn't reproduce dark colors properly (on the other hand, with contrast increased to 100% they doesn't reproduce bright colors).

How do you test for 100 Nit brightness? I bought an NEC 2070 and it seems great, should I bother to try to calibrate to 100 nit?

7. how much it price

8. So MagicTune doesn't conflict with profiling software (Monaco, Pantone, etc)?

Is the 173P's color still visibly better than the 173T's after profiling?

9. 173P's MagicTune software does not work with nVidia Quadro... Tested by a friend of mine - buying a brand new spanking great monitor just to find out that your gfx card has to be replaced sure can piss one off :(

Personally I think it was a very bad idea not to include control buttons in this monitor.

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