Big wide screen with great image that wont take much space on you desk

The context

I waited a long time before changing my old, but wonderful, 19 inches CRT monitor, a Samsung SyncMaster 900p. I wanted to change it for the sole reason that it is really big and takes too much space on my desk. I have a small home office and my desk place is really restricted.

At this point in time, I decided that, at prices between 350 and 450 Canadian dollars for a brand name LCD screen of 19 inches and over, it was time to change. After some shopping in stores and on-line, checking user’s opinions and studying the specs, I decided to go for the Samsung SyncMaster 225BW (22’’ wide screen). Like I said, I was very satisfied with my previous Samsung CRT monitor that I used for 10 years (great image and no problems) so I was confident in going with Samsung again.

The needs

I wanted a monitor with plenty of space on the screen and little desk space. Also, I wanted as much positions adjustments as possible, since I prefer that a device adapts to me than the opposite. I wanted a screen with very good specs for regular office work, Internet surfing, web page editing, image and photo editing, video editing and DVD viewing. I did not care about the specs for action gaming since I’m not a gamer at all.

The good things

There are a lot of good things with this monitor. First, it’s a wide screen, a really wide one. At first, I was even a little bit disoriented. When I opened a well known application (Firefox, Word, Excel, etc.) all the buttons and menus were spread apart and everything was displaying differently. So, I spent some time changing the font and button sizes and rearranging the different windows and button bars. But when I was finished, I found out that bigger is better, like I thought.

There is a digital signal input (DVI) and an analog signal input (RGB). I plugged my desktop using the digital connector and my laptop to the analog connector. By a single press of a button, I can switch the display between my desktop and my laptop (although the laptop display looks a little grainy and stretchy because, it of the original aspect ratio of 3:2 and screen resolution of 1024 x 768).

I set the screen resolution on the 225BW to the native (and highest) resolution of 1680 x 1050 because I read that using a different resolution can result in lower display quality. I tested other lower resolutions and I found out that what I read was true. I adjusted Windows and my applications settings so that I can read the characters properly. Since it’s not always possible to adjust the size of everything displayed, I find some text and buttons a bit too small.

The display is crisp, bright, precise and responsive. I find it great to work with Windows apps or watch a DVD. When watching a DVD in full screen it’s better to set yourself back a little in order to have a nice image.

It’s easy to adjust the height and the viewing angle (tilt) of the monitor and the base is mounted on a pivoting disc. You just have to adjust the position by hand and it stays there. Take note that it’s no possible to rotate the monitor to portrait orientation. Personally, I was not looking for that feature.

The base is round and the whole monitor takes little space on the desk. Before purchasing the monitor I was thinking of buying a desk mount or wall mount arm to gain more desk space, but now, I’m not sure.

The design is neat with thin bevels, small front setting buttons (maybe a little bit too small). In black, the monitor is very discrete.

By using a single front setting button, called MagicBright, you can change the brightness and tint according to presets values. This permits to adjust easily the display to your taste and to different light environment.

The annoyances

It’s a bit difficult to plug the video and power cables in the back. I had to lay down the monitor in order to plug the cables and fix them properly with the screws. By doing that, I had to be very careful not to damage the monitor. But I guess it’s not very important unless you have to move it often.

Like I said before the front buttons (set-up menu, brightness settings, analog and digital input switching) are a little small so the icon on them are difficult to read.

Samsung ships the monitor with a piece of software called Magic Tune. It seems like a Windows version of the hardware set-up menu. So what is the real use of that? I don’t know yet. There is also a colour management software called Natural Color that I did not try yet.

The bad things

No bad things to say about it