Samsung 245BW
Jun 18th, 2007 | By Archive
Samsung 245BW
Date
: 06/18/07 – 03:25:41 AM
Author
:
Category
: Monitors
Page 1 : Index
Manufacturer
: Samsung
Price
: $499.99 After $20USD Mail-in-Rebate
If there's one company that I would never say no to a review for, it would have to be
Samsung
. The sight of a new LCD waiting for me when I get home from work is very rewarding; who doesn't like having the latest monitor available to them at their fingertips?
The last monitor I reviewed was the Samsung 275T and it was simply amazing. A resolution of 1920×1200 spread over 27" of surface area. The new
Samsung 245BW
that I'm currently reviewing also carries the 1920×1200 resolution but at a slightly smaller diagonal width, 24". Will this be a problem? Are there advantages to the smaller screen size? Let's find out!
Page 2 : Package
The 245BW is nearly identical to the 275T that I recently reviewed; in fact, the boxes are nearly the same. What sets this monitor apart from the 275T is the slightly smaller box size and updated numbers corresponding to physical dimensions.
Right away we see Samsung indicate the screen is a nice 24" widescreen with a resolution of 1920×1200. They have also clearly indicated that DVI-D with HDCP is supported and make a bold statement by claiming they have the best ergonomic stand.
Flipping the box onto its side we have two views of the monitor, another print of the key features and a label indicating the model, model code, type number, serial number and features.
The two main images above give you an indication of the package but not what's in the box. That is of course what we're after; no one pays 600 dollars to look at a brown box.
Page 3 : Specifications & Features
Samsung has always made it easy for visitors to find what they need on their website. It took me a matter of seconds to visit Samsung.com and the 245BW.
A fully copy of the manual can be found on Samsung's website: click here to go to Download Center.
Page 4 : Package Contents
It's time we finally opened up the package and the inside of the 245BW looks identical to the 275T. This could be an easy review to write!
The monitor arrives fully assembled and carefully packaged with ample Styrofoam padding and a soft padded bag to protect the monitor from scratches.
Pulling out the accessories, we have several pamphlets on warranty, the power cable, a DVI-D cable and a DSub cable. The accessories are more than enough to get you started with. I would have liked to see a DVI-D dual-link as opposed to a single-link but we can't be picky.
Pulling the monitor out of the box and removing the bag, we get our first good look at the screen.
Moving around the screen we have the usual Samsung logo at the center of the bottom bezel.
At the two corners of the screen we have some features and specifications displayed, nothing you wouldn't already know if you did your research on the monitor before buying it.
These days I find the response time to be less and less important. Every manufacturer has their own way of benchmarking it and every new monitor out on the market should be able to produce a ghost-free image. If not, it's probably not worth your money!
Peeling the Windows Vista label off the top left reveals the etched-in model number.
Turing the monitor around and stepping back a few feet, you almost can't even tell the difference between a 245BW and a 275T.
In the above photo, we can see the sticker indicating the serial number, certification, manufacture date and most importantly, the panel type. I've said it a million times and I'll say it again, beside the model number (245BW) you will see the letter
S
– this indicates it's a true Samsung panel. Other letters will mean it's a different panel.
Should you need to dispose of the 245BW, make sure you follow the applicable laws on restrictive substance disposal.
To protect your monitor from thieves, including housemates, family members and burglars, the back of the panel has a lock space.
Page 5 : Monitor Connections
If there's one section that sets the 245BW apart from the 275T, it has to be the monitor connections. The 275T offers a few USB ports for your use whereas the 245BW does not offer such features.
We'll first start off this section with power. Without power you don't have a monitor to work with. The 245BW accepts any standard computer power plug, it has an on/off toggle switch so you don't need to have the power-save mode on all the time nor do you need a powerbar for the monitor.
On the other side of the monitor arm are the connections: DVI, DSub and Audio. The Audio feature is an option and will not be covered in the review.
The last possible connection is to completely remove the arm and use a VESA mounting kit, also not included in the package.
Page 6 : Setup
Since the 245BW comes fully assembled and I will assume you know how to plug in the power cable and DVI/DSub cable, there isn't much in regards to a formal monitor setup. We will only look at monitor adjustment and save the soft settings for the next page.
The 245BW comes on a circular base that you can easily rotate to change the viewing angle.
The monitor has a total of 28 degrees in which it can tilt, -3 to +25.
If you wish to raise of lower the height of the screen, you can slide the arm up or down. You must first remove the locking pin before you can slide the arm up or push it down.
At the monitor's lowest point, the top of the bezel is 17.75". At the the monitor's highest point, the top of the bezel is 21.25".
Page 7 : Display Settings & Configuration
With the monitor setup, the next step before enjoying your magnificent view is installing the Samsung drivers. The included CD has a wealth of information you should familiarize yourself with. The CD comes loaded with multiple languages but only the English option matters to me.
Since I have connected the monitor up with my dual-link DVI cable, I am installing the Digital drivers.
A couple of clicks and you're done. The windows Display properties will identify that you are using a Samsung 245B monitor on the digital connection.
With the resolution set to 1920×1200, you are officially ready to use your monitor.
If you need to take control of the OSD (On-Screen-Display), the bezel contains six buttons for your use: Menu, Up, Down, Enter, Auto and Power.
The OSD allows you to manually control a series of features or switch between one of the seven preset MagicBright configurations.
The image below shows you which functions are available through the OSD:
The seven preset MagicBright configurations are Custom, Text, Internet, Game, Sport, Movie and Dynamic Contrast. The difference lies in the brightness, contrast and color. For your reference, I copied down the contrast and brightness levels for each setting, I've also taken screen shots of each setting for comparison. I added a second custom setting with 100% contrast and 100% brightness for your reference.
Custom – Brightness: 100 | Contrast: 75
Text – Brightness: 20 | Contrast: 75
Internet – Brightness: 31 | Contrast: 75
Game – Brightness: 100 | Contrast: 80
Sports – Brightness: 100 | Contrast: 85
Dynamic – Brightness: 100 | Contrast: 75
Custom – Brightness: 100 | Contrast: 100
For your reference, I have uploaded the seven pages of the user guide for you to preview.
Safety Precautions
Introduction
Connections
Using the Software
Adjusting the Monitor
Troubleshooting
Specifications
Page 8 : Performance & Testing Part 1
Studying the performance of an LCD is no easy task. It requires hours of staring at the monitor for any imperfections. I spent close to 2 months in front of this monitor during this short reviewing period; during this time I used it for gaming, word processing, video watching, and general surfing. I also subjected it to Displaymate which is an expert software program for checking, setting up, adjusting, calibrating, tuning up, testing, evaluating and improving image and picture quality on any Computer Monitor, Projector or HDTV.
As we start swiveling the monitor around, we start to lose some of the visibility.
The 245BW is only rated for 160/160 visibility and that becomes quite clear as we reach the extreme angles. In the photo below, the entire screen is still very visible and would make watching a friend play Battlefield 2 or Command & Conquer 3 possible but uncomfortable after a few minutes.
At 170 degrees, the image gets blended together and identifying what's on the screen is no longer easy.
Since Samsung clearly rates the visibility at 160/160, you really can't expect much more than that. What it offers up to 160 degrees is quite good.
Before I get into any games or movies, you always want to calibrate your monitor such that it provides you the best picture possible; Displaymate will help you with that. There are so many available scripts that it would be a review on its own for me to cover what you can do with this piece of software. What interested me the most was ensuring the monitor panel was fully functional and not cut off at any point, a wide variety of contrast levels was available, good differentiation of different shades of color, and there were no dead pixels. As I continue to learn more about this piece of software, I'm finding different scripts that are optimized for different technologies. The LCD Test is a quick and simple way to just configure your display. If you want a more complete package, you can purchase the Technician Level version and go through the Display Setup followed by the Tune-Up program.
In this review I decided to go with the Technician Level Display Setup. The setup program has been optimized to give you the best initial picture quality. Some sections have multiple screens for you to work with, I will only show the first for each section. In order to reduce the page length, I will also only be linking to the full size photos and won't display a thumbnail.
In this first horribly unfocused screen shot, the purpose is to set the brightness and contrast for optimum gray-scale and contrast.
Set the monitor to display the darkest grays and brightest whites.
Maximize visibility of the blacks while maintaining a black background.
Examine black-level and look for and correct glare problems.
Check and adjust Black-Level
Make sure brightest whites are not saturated.
Check to reduce the appearance of streaking.
Check reproduction near the extremes of gray-scales.
Check the reproduction of color near peak white
Check the reproduction near the extremes of the gray-scale
Check for problems with the video cable and cable termination
Check and adjust pixel tracking and timing lock
Check and correct standard screen colors
Check and correct purity on the screen
Calibrate brightness and color of Gray-Scale
Check for any color tracking error
Check and adjust intensity scales – gray
Check and adjust intensity scales – color
Check and adjust color intensity scale for most important colors
Measure the display Gamma factor
Properly frame the image on flat panel displays
Size and center the image on the screen
Check image geometry, distortion and convergence
Adjust the display sharpness controls
Check readability with font size
Demonstrate the effects of a limited number of screen pixels in an image
Color test
Color purity – red
Color purity – green
Color purity – blue
Color purity – white
Having gone through all of the Displaymate screenshots a few times, without any adjustments to the monitor, the Samsung 245BW does an excellent job of framing your picture and making each shot as lifelike as possible.
Page 9 : Performance & Testing Part 2
Working with still images makes up a large portion of my LCD use time. However, that's not all I do with it. Some video gaming and movie watching is a definite must when you have a 24" monitor. To kick things off, I fired up Command and Conquer 3, a favorite amongst my house and one that natively supports 1920×1200.
This is definitely going to be a game I will not be able to thoroughly enjoy once I return the 245BW.
Throughout the entire gaming experience, my force moved fluidly across the screen without any ghosting. I found the image was much sharper on the 245BW than on the 275T.
Another favourite of mine is playing Battlefield 2142. While this game doesn't natively support 1920×1200, you can easily adjust the launch command to make it compatible.
As the resolution increases, the frame rate drops. A beefy video card is definitely recommended if you want to enjoy the latest games with all the eye candy turned on.
The last three photos I will show you comes from a sample of GhostRider. The video file has resolution of 640×480.
The photos above don't do justice to what the real monitor is like. The images are fantastic and very life like, god forbid Ghostrider actually coming out of my monitor to attack me though.
Page 10 : Conclusion
Samsung continues to impress all of us at Overclockers Online with their lineup of digital monitors. I felt the Samsung 245BW had superior picture quality compared to other monitors I've had, including the 275T. This can be attributed to the smaller screen size while maintaining the large 1920×1200 resolution.
By scaling back three inches on the screen size and taking away some features like USB, Video-Input from Composite and S-Video and PIP curbed the cost by a few hundred dollars, well worth it in my book. The only feature I wish Samsung would have included is a rotating head for portrait desktop view – guess we can't have it all. With 2007 now half over and Computex wrapped up, it'll be interesting to see what plans Samsung has for Q3, Q4 and the start of 2008!
Advantages
o
Very sharp image
o
Readily available
o
Downward price trend thanks to 27" and 30" LCDs
Disadvantages
o
No portrait view
Overclockers Online would like to thank Samsung Canada for making this review possible.
Overclockers Online would like to thank DisplayMate for providing DisplateMate Technician Level