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Samsung 226BW


Date
: 03/1/07 – 03:32:39 AM

Author
:

Category
: Monitors

Page 1 : Index

0 – Index

Manufacturer
: Samsung Canada

Price
: $429.99 MSRP (389.99 @ Newegg)

Samsung Canada makes another visit to Overclockers Online with their new 226BW LCD monitor. When I first heard DELL was going to release a 22" WS monitor for less than 300 dollars, I was thinking that this would be a great buy for end users looking for a wide screen monitor larger than 19". It wasn't much after that when my good friends at Samsung gave me a buzz saying they had a new monitor in need of some air time.

I have used close to a half dozen different monitor brands in the past two years and Samsung has always been at the top of the list for favourites. While they are not always the lowest price, their quality has always been spectacular. Will the 226BW live up to its predecessors?

Page 2 : Package

The last Samsung monitor reviewed was the Samsung 971P. This was an amazing monitor and it came in a box very different than mine. With the 226BW, Samsung has opted to go back to the plain brown box with limited decals.

A generic picture of the monitor is printed onto the box. Only at the bottom corner do you see the sign that it's a 22" monitor. There are no other markings on this face to indicate what model is here. However, once you start taking a look at the sides of the package you'll find more information about the monitor.

Here we see the monitor model, 226BW, and our first look at some specifications: 1680*1060 native resolution, 2ms GTG response time, dynamic contrast of 3000:1, and DVI-D with HDCP. Rotating the box to another side we see the product label.

There's no doubt that the box is rather generic, but that plays little importance to the overall review as performance is what matters most.

Page 3 : Specifications & Features

The Samsung website has always been an easy page to browse and view. Finding a product specification, feature, or brochure can be done with as little as 5 or 6 clicks.

Here's a copy of the 226BW specifications and features:

One thing you don't generally find in the specifications if the horizontal and vertical length of the panel itself.

The panel is 19.75" wide and the 11.75" tall. This leaves very little room for the bezel and that is just the way I like it.

Also worth pointing out is the fact that under standby mode this monitor draws less than 1 watt and only 55 watts under full operation! If you dig around on the net, you'll find out that Samsung uses a TN panel with the 226BW. The panel can be made directly by Samsung or AOC panel.

This is what Samsung has to say about the monitor:

Page 4 : Package Contents

Once we finally open up the box we see a very well-protected monitor. The cables and monitor stand are tucked away at the surface which is acceptable because these components are not easily susceptible to damage.

Pulling out the accessories from the top layer, we have a driver CD, a few sheets of paper, a power cord, and both DVI and VGA connectors. It's always a nice touch when a manufacturer supplies both monitor cables for you.

Accompanying the accessories at the top layer is the monitor stand I mentioned earlier. This piece of equipment is also housed in its own protection. Inside the foam bag is a brief pictorial guide on assembling the monitor.

Removing a thick layer of foam protection reveals the panel packaged inside foam wrapping for added protection. This foam wrap is soft to the touch and will ensure the screen does not get scratched during transportation and handling.

Pulling the panel out of the bag, I placed it on a flat clear surface, panel side down. There are a number of features on the back we'll quickly cover.

Up first is the very obvious Samsung brand logo dead in the middle. This is purely cosmetic and serves no real purpose. Surrounding the brand name are the 100mm VESA mounting holes. The positioning and the overall design of the monitor makes the holes non-intrusive.

A plastic panel can be removed towards the bottom of the panel to gain access to the power and input connections.

We also see a label indicating the monitor model, code number, serial number, and power requirements. The
S
following the model number (226BW) on the first line of the label indicates that this is a true Samsung TN Panel and not a panel made by another manufacturer. If you're buying this monitor, try and find one with the Samsung panel instead of the also reported AOC panel indicated by an A after the model number.

Here's a closer look at the input connections.

At the underside of the arm of the monitor we see a little sticker indicating what size the base of a base is required. Here we see our monitor at the upper echelon of support.

Will this mean the monitor will stand somewhat unstable? You'll have to keep reading to find out.

The panel has a very simplistic look to it. It has a black bezel all the way around with a small silver trim at the bottom. The logo at the bottom center is a typical icon found on
all
Samsung monitors.

I think it's a nice touch as it's not overpowering in anyway. Staring straight at the panel, to the bottom right is your control station. All the buttons are located on the underside of the bezel.

This makes for a very clean look. The large round silver button is the power. It illuminates blue while on and blinks continuously while in the power-save mode.

To the top right we see the two major features printed onto the bezel. I personally think Samsung could have left this off to keep for a cleaner look.

To the top left is the complete model name, SyncMaster 226BW, printed on the bezel, another feature I thought they could have gone without in order to keep to a very simple look. However, brand promotion is important to any company and at least Samsung has done it in a very minimalist way.

Page 5 : Installation

The installation of the monitor is quite simple. With the back panel removed on the previous page, I plugged in the power cord and both DVI and VGA connectors.

I then popped the cover back on and focused my attention on the stand and monitor arm.

I slid the arm past the edge of my table and took hold of the base. I positioned it so the two groves would lock into the arm tabs.

Once the stand was in place, I tightened the lock and set the monitor upright.

Despite being the biggest screen size allowable for the monitor stand, I found it to be very stable. The round base provided sufficient support for rotating the screen and tilting as necessary.

With the monitor completely assembled, it's time to install the software and get started using the monitor!

Page 6 : Display Software & Configuration

The first thing I did when I got the monitor hooked up to my PC was to fire up the driver CD. I was a little surprised to find out that the Windows application of MagicBright is not provided; all of the configurations have to be done through the OSD (On Screen Display) version.

With the driver CD in, I went ahead and installed the Samsung 226BW drivers.

With the drivers successfully in place, Windows Display Property correctly identified the monitor.

One thing I did notice on the Driver CD from Samsung was the amount of information immediately available. You can see all the available links in the first picture of this section.

Knowing that I'm not able to use MagicBright within Windows, I went straight to the OSD configuration. The Samsung OSD is definitely a quality piece of software as there's nothing missing when it comes to options. The screenshot from the driver CD below shows you exactly all the options you can tinker with to provide the best image.

The display option allows you to set your desired brightness and contrast. These changes will only be applied if you are running the custom MagicBright configuration.

The second menu is
Color
and under this page you can modify the MagicColor, Color Tone, Color Control and Gamma.

The third option is
Image
and here you can change the level of Coarse, Fine, Sharpness, H-Position and V-Position.

The forth menu is about the
OSD
itself. It gives you the ability to select the location, language, transparency and display time.

The second last menu page is on the
setup
of the OSD. Here you can select the auto source, choose between DVI and D-Sub, reset the Image or Color settings and RTA.

The final menu gives a little bit of
Information
about the monitor source, frequency, and resolution.

As part of the OSD, I mentioned the MagicBright settings earlier. In a nut shell, MagicBright is a set of preprogrammed configurations that Samsung believes will give you the best image for what you're doing. With the 226BW, there are
seven
preset settings Custom, Text, Internet, Game, Sport, Movie, and Dynamic. Each setting is a little different. I tried to capture the differences in the image below.

Without going into too much detail, here are the preset bright and contrast values for each of the settings.

Custom Brightness: 100, Contrast: 75
Text Brightness: 42, Contrast: 70
Internet Brightness: 57, Contrast: 75
Game Brightness: 90, Contrast: 80
Sport Brightness: 100, Contrast: 80
Movie Brightness: 100, Contrast: 85
Dynamic Brightness: 100, Contrast: 75

The dynamic configuration is quite interesting. Under certain idle situations, the monitor will automatically dim. Once you open up a screen, the brightness will adjust to match.

On the topic of dynamics, don't be fooled by other monitors that only specify Dynamic Contrast as it would be inferior to a monitor with a static contrast ratio of the same value. Luckily for us, Samsung's 3000:1 dynamic and 1000:1 static create superior images.

Page 7 : Performance & Testing

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 40 hours 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 a few benchmarking applications.

The first part to testing the monitor is setting it up so you're comfortable with the screen. While I prefer to keep the panel at a 90 degree angle, this isn't the case for everyone. Samsung's 226BW lacks a bit when it comes to monitor adjustments as the only thing you can do is swivel the entire base stand or tilt the screen back.

When it comes to viewing angle, the 226BW has no problem displaying fabulous pictures at extreme angles. Up to the rated viewing angle, the high contrast ratio makes it very easy to distinguish the colors and make out pictures being displayed on the screen.

Starting off with a flat straight view of the panel we get a very sharp picture of my desktop.

As we slowly start swiveling the monitor around it's base, the visibility starts to get worse.

At the listed 160 degrees, the image is still very viewable but realistically you probably wouldn't want to have this position when sitting around the monitor.

As we approach 178 degrees, parts of the screen are no longer visible. What can be seen can be seen with great clarity.

The viewing angles from above are about the same. So despite only being listed as 160/160, the monitor makes for great viewing pleasures at every reasonable angle you'd want to use it at.

To kick off some of the tests, I used Nokia's monitor testing application to get a feel for the performance of the default contrast ratios, colors, geometry, etc. This application also let's me easily check for dead or stuck pixels as it rotates through a series of colored screens. Through the runs I was pleased at the results the 226BW provided.

The first test checks to see if the monitor's geometry, basically it checks to make sure the lines are parallel and the screen doesn't display any trapezoids.

This test gets repeated in several colors with different levels of detail for convergence and geometry.

Image 2 Image 3 Image 4 Image 5 Image 6 Image 7 Image 8

The next application in the software will check to see if the monitor can provide a full scale of grays.

It doesn't show up very well on the camera, but the different levels of black, 1% to 9% can be distinguished if you look closely. I was quite impressed by that!

The next test checks for backlight leakage. I was a little surprised by what the camera showed, the overexposure makes it look worse than it really is.

There is a tiny bit of leakage towards the left and a tiny bit from the bottom of the screen. When it comes to any other application being executed, you won't notice it. As mentioned above, the exposure from the one second shutter makes it look worse than it actually is. With a black desktop background, only a bit of leakage is visible on the left.

There were some additional features with the Nokia monitoring testing software that checked the focus and readability of the screen. I didn't see any problems during these tests.

Focus 2 Focus 3 Focus 4

Readability 2

The last important test and probably the first one done by most readers is a color test for dead pixels. The Nokia Monitor software cycles through four colors white, red, green and blue.

White Red Green Blue

I carefully inspected the monitor and didn't see any dead or stuck pixels.

Page 8 : Performance & Testing Cont’d

With the drier tests done and out of the way, it was time to have some fun with the monitor gaming! What's unfortunate is the lack of developer support for 16:10 monitors. Battlefield 2142 does not natively support the resolution of 1680*1050. However, this doesn't mean you can't hack the executable for that resolution. I decided not to bother with the change and tested out the monitor on the non-native resolution as not everyone would bother or have the time to look up the executable code to get a 1680*1050 screen and not everyone has the video card power to game at that rate. Even with a non-native resolution, Battlefield 2142 looked good.

The other game that gets frequent exposure at my place is Oblivion IV: The Elder Scrolls. This is one game that natively supports the 16:10 resolution. There was a lot of detail in on the screen but everything appeared picture perfect. I ought to get a more powerful video card as my X800GTO isn't cutting it! Does anyone want to send me an 8800GTX?

Another one of my favourite past times when I have time is moving watching. I picked up the newly released Babel and fast forwarded until I found some decent action shots. Once again, the high contrast ratio and brightness helps this monitor shine in every scenario. Without spoiling too much of the movie, the images from the movie came up amazingly well.

Throughout all the gaming and moving watching I subjected myself to, I didn't notice any ghosting. The 2ms GTG is fast enough that only my camera could pick up the frames changing.

Page 9 : Conclusion

Another review comes to a close and it'll be sad to see this monitor heading back to Samsung. Overall I have been very pleased with its performance. It offers a great combination of stylish looks and performance that won't be easily matched by its rivals. The high contrast ratio, static and dynamic, combined with the fast response time to produce a stellar image makes me want to grab two for my room!

The 226BW may only be a small change from the 225BW, but it's one that will be well-accepted by end users. If you flip through various forums, you'll see that the 225BW was plagued with different QA/QC problems whereas the 226BW has already been welcomed with open arms. While it doesn't have all the available adjustments as seen on the P family, the price difference makes it worth while. Keep in mind that you'll want to find an original Samsung panel instead of any third party supplied panels.

Please read
page three
for details on how to identify if the panel is made by Samsung.

Advantages

Analog and digital interface
Fast response time
Superior contrast ratio

Disadvantage

Not enough monitor adjustments

Overclockers Online would like to thank Samsung Canada for making this review possible.