Review of the Samsung 205BW 20″ Widescreen LCD Monitor
This is a review of the Samsung SyncMaster 205BW 20″ Widescreen LCD Monitor. I recently had about 20 of these monitors purchased for my offices, and thought I would write a review. Keep in mind my ‘offices’ are out here in Fallujah, Iraq and the conditions are far from favorable. I haven’t had much time playing with them, but have had ample time setting them up, installing, and adjusting them.
While my purchase was work related, this is an awesome monitor for anyone looking to upgrade to a larger monitor, adding a second monitor or creating a multiple monitor setup. Especially for only $239.00 (w/ rebates) right now at TigerDirect, you can’t go wrong!
First off, some stats about the monitor:
- It’s a 20 inch widescreen monitor with a max resolution of 1680 x 1050
- 6 ms pixel response time for all you gamers out there
- Both DVI and VGA inputs
- VESA mount compatible
- 3 year manufacturer’s warranty
Out of the box
The monitor came very nicely packed, as you would expect. Setup was painless, with both DVI and VGA cables included and just a power cord, thankfully. No huge, cumbersome power brick. The auto setup feature worked well, adjusting the colors and other settings almost perfectly. The menu was very clear and easy to navigate and make changes to. The buttons on front of the monitor are a little ugly, but nice and big and easy to press. They also have a nice audible ‘click’ with some noticeable feedback when clicked, which is a very nice feature.
How’s it look?
Lets discuss the cosmetic side of this monitor. Albeit a little plain looking, the black case feels sturdy and looks sharper then a normal black plastic case. Especially when compared to the big, bulky, ugly case on my Planar PL1910M. It is much better looking and feeling. We all know that appearance and the ‘cool factor’ can account for alot when buying anything. That said, it has a nice and thin bezel, so using multiple monitors looks nice and clean. (I actually had the chance to hook three up to one of our monster machines, and set them up vertically - super clean and awesome looking. I will try to get a pic)
The meat and potatoes
Aside from how it looks and how nice the on screen menu is, the thing people want to know most about a monitor is the picture quality. Well I did some decent testing to see if I could notice any lag or latency, any blue-ness in the black, etc. The test computer I was using was an IBM T40p laptop with the ATI Mobility Fire GL 9000 graphics card. I watched the movie Gladiator using VLC from an H.264 file ripped from a DVD at very high quality.
It looked very good. Very rich and dark colors, and very black blacks. No bluish-ness anywhere to be found. I skipped ahead to the end battle scene where it is very bright and washed out (the sun drenching the Colosseum, the Emperors bright white armor, etc) with some vivid colors mixed in (Maximus’ armor, the rose petals, the Praetorian Guards dark uniforms and shields) and the contrast looked very good. I had to make some minor changes to the color temperature and the contrast (more towards light) but that was all. Granted I am not a professional photographer or screen calibrater, but I know what looks good. There was no pixel lag or latency or ghosting, even during the fast moving fight scenes.
Next I just did some basic Windows stuff (XP SP2) like hop around to some websites (like myersonline.org :)) using FireFox 2, of course. The colors were nice and separated well, and lines and other fine details looked clear. Switching Windows from Clear Type to normal was a huge difference. Clear Type always makes it look so much better. Also did some surfing over to Google Videos and the pictures looked nice and clear and defined.
The only thing I didn’t do was play a graphic intensive game (it’s a T40p I was using, cmon…) but I will do that in the near future. F.E.A.R. is calling my name. From everything I have seen so far, I think it will handle itself well. It has a 6 ms pixel response time, which is more then enough to handle CounterStrike: Source at 30 fps.
The Verdict
So without the game review, and not much more hands-on experience then what I have written, I am going to have to give the Samsung 205BW an 8 out of 10.
Pros: Solid (if bland) body, great picture, easy to setup, rotate, etc. Great all around monitor, just not perfect.
Cons: Bland Body, but this is not even that big of a deal. Function before form, but it is nice to have something easy on the eyes.
The Bottom Line: A perfect monitor for anyone except the most demanding professionals. Clear picture, great colors, and ready-to-go right out of the box. For this price, you cant get more monitor for the money anywhere else.
Related Links
See TigerDirect’s Great Deal on this monitor: Samsung 205BW
Nov 13th, 2006 at 10:18 am
[...] We bought a ton of these monitors at work, so I thought I would have some fun writing about them for the TD Blog. It is better than the first article I wrote - I actually took my time and did a lot of experimentation and testing, etc. Here is the link to my review. [...]