Rating: - A good choice
If I have personally gleaned anything from ownership of this monitor and perusal of the reviews for it and another model, the syncmaster 204b, it would be that I am clearly less discriminating than many other users. My primary use of the monitor is for WP and other productivity related office applications and in the 18 months I've owned it I haven't noticed anything that would qualify as a significant issue or complaint with performance. I have preference for the 16:10 wide screen format and this monitor does not distort images or give any indication of stretched text. Essentially the default settings were more than acceptable however by tweaking display via my Nvidia graphics card control panel the minor concerns I had were easily rectified.
While movie/Video viewing is not a high priority, I have used it for each as well as basic photo editing. For the former usages, color reproduction has been on a par with what I have experienced with Samsung LCD TVs and that's a positive statement. At its' default setting, the monitor is extremely bright but the control panel options render that a non-issue as the menu system is very intuitive. Visual acuity varies with each user but I found the monitor to be least irritating by disabling the MagicColor setting since with a few applications text looked fuzzy to me. Initially, for photo viewing via windows photo gallery, there is a sepia hue that enveloped the image but it is not duplicated with third party software applications such as Corel or Adobe. I suspect that effect could also be corrected by playing with the settings however in as much as I do not actually do anything with photo gallery it's a trivial issue for me.
The minor complaints I have about the unit is from some side viewing angles the screen colors can appear washed out with brightness at higher settings, it only has up/down ergonomic adjustment and cord management can be a challenge . If you can find this monitor at a competitive price (I bought it at substantially less than what is listed here) I would not hesitate to pick it up.
Rating: - Faulty Manufacturing
The monitor itself works great. There was 1 pixel missing when I opened the product however. Over time, the metal pieces connecting the monitor to the stand have allowed gravity to take its toll - the pieces bent so that the monitor now looks down. I have it set really high on something and it is still kind of awkward. It is not able to be fixed either. This happened to both me & my brother, who also has the same monitor.
Rating: - 2 broken monitors in a row
I received this monitor as part of a Dell system. When I opened the box I discovered a small dent in the upper right portion of the enclosure. Despite my gut feeling about returning it immediately I began using the monitor and had 5 months of faultless performance. At that time the unit would not power up. I contacted Samsung customer support and was mailed a replacement that arrived within 1 week.
However, the refurbished monitor I received also would not work. It would not recieve a signal from the computer nor would the computer detect the monitor. I contacted customer service and was informed that they would send another replacement. I requested that I receive a new monitor but the request was refused despite talking also to someone in their executive division. They simply could not understand my desire to receive a new replacement instead of a previosly defective model in replacment of 2 defective units I had already received, as all the while the warranty period was being eaten up.
Buyer Beware!
Rating: - Good monitor for the price
Pros:
Solid image quality. Great adjustable stand. DVI and VGA inputs. 16x10 display is great for movies. 1680x1050 resolution.
Cons:
The black levels aren't that great. Not as bright as I would like (especially compared to my macbook pro). The viewing angle is pretty bad. The cable management system is a joke (the clip does not do much).
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