22" Samsung SyncMaster 225BW or Dell 2407WFP?

[CZroe]

My brother and I just purchased two Samsung SyncMaster 225BW 22" LCD flat-panel monitors. Something seems to be wrong because I find the image reproduction terrible, but it is the same way on both! I am not simply seeing things, and yet I can't find any reviews that mention this monitor's entirely unatural colors. Maybe I only see it because I'm color blind, but if you take a default installation of XP Pro and remove the default wallpaper the blue desktop background will glow like bright neon even at the lowest brightness settings. My brother ran the adjustment software and I still immediately noticed that his was just as bad as mine when I stepped into his apartment and saw it for the first time, though it was a little better due to the brightness being turned way down.

I've played with all the menu settings, but all I've managed to do was discover that I could confusingly adjust focus when using DVI. A digital pixel = a digital pixel, so how can I possibly make it bleed into neighboring pixels without an interfering image processor and what purpose could that useless feature serve?

I bought this as an alternative to a Dell 2407WFP. I'm comparing the image to my brother's Dell 2005FPW (same resolution, 2" smaller), so I have a decent frame of reference. Now, I know I would be more statisifed with a 2407WFP for MUCH more money, but should I? From what I understood, the 225BW was an awesome monitor. Am I missing something?

 

[xtknight]

There's probably a gamma option set high somewhere in your OS.

Samsung LCDs have a sharpness control that puts the digital signal through a DSP to allow for fine granularity adjustment. That's actually not a bad idea. I suspect the default setting is for no digital processing to occur. Do note that the 225BW is a lower-end panel than both the 2005FPW and 2407WFP. It uses a TN, while the former panels use S-IPS and S-PVA, respectively.

 

[HaroldW]

Do you have your video card driver set to 1680 x 1050 resolution? LCD monitors look best when driven at their max/native resolution.

 

[CZroe]

Originally posted by: xtknight
There's probably a gamma option set high somewhere in your OS.

Samsung LCDs have a sharpness control that puts the digital signal through a DSP to allow for fine granularity adjustment. That's actually not a bad idea. I suspect the default setting is for no digital processing to occur. Do note that the 225BW is a lower-end panel than both the 2005FPW and 2407WFP. It uses a TN, while the former panels use S-IPS and S-PVA, respectively.

Wow! Great info, though what I'm seeing doesn't seem acceptable for any performance range considering that I'd have to go back to passive matrix LCDs if I were to remember a worse-looking panel from my own experience. I see that TN has the worst contrast and only 6-bit colors, so perhaps it just doesn't like that shade of blue!

Originally posted by: HaroldW
Do you have your video card driver set to 1680 x 1050 resolution? LCD monitors look best when driven at their max/native resolution.

Yes, which is one reason I like having the same resolution as a 2005FPW in a larger screen (larger text/pixels).

 

[Makaveli]

I have just bought this monitor on friday, and been tweaking all weekend. The Default Colour profile sucks. Made it look a tad too blue. If message back if u still need some assistance, we can do thru some of the settings.

Its looks much better now, after I made some changes.

 

[mercanucaribe]

So Samsung 22" LCDs suck? TN?!

 

[imported_kiwik]

After making changes, it looks great. I bought one on boxing day.

 

[Brian48]

I'm very happy with my Sammy 225bw.

 

[vapordub]

For the price, I couldn't pass up my 22" Samsung. I'm going to get another.

I've had several Samsung monitors, no problems on any of them. Why I didn't choose them for my big TV purchase is beyond me. But I went with something else there.