Samsung SyncMaster 205BW

Reviewed by: SteveShavkin

Duration of ownership: 1 Day

Strengths: I've only had the monitor for a few hours but thought that my first impressions would be helpful. Quality was evident right out of the box. Stand was already attached. Smooth height and tilt adjustments. BIG screen....lots of real estate. OS controls very easy to use. No dead pixels and colors are vivid. Bought from Sam's Club because of their 90 day return policy in case of a problem.

Weaknesses: Haven't found any yet.

Overall: This is my first LCD monitor (it replaced a 6 year old 19" IBM P96 CRT). Out of the box the screen is way too bright but easy to adjust to your liking. I'm impressed with the overall picture sharpness. Colors look true, text is sharp and I don't see any ghosting or blurriness. The wide screen takes some getting used to. After some trial and error I settled on a resolution of 1152 x 864 pixels and adjusted my icon size, text and spacing to suit me. At the highest resolution you'll need the Hubble Telescope to read text etc. For the money ($299) I don't think you could do any better than the 205BW.

Reviewed by: PrivateBenDover

Strengths: Great Images, Nice size, Great Price

Weaknesses: Stand strength.

Overall: The monitor is a joy to play games on visually. My one GREAT BIG COMPLAINT......The monitor stand does not lean back, in fact over time it has slowly drooped forward due to the weight of the monitor itself. I now have to prop the front of the base up with a book just to get a straight on view. The monitor almost wants to face the floor. POOR POOR stand design...very weak.

Reviewed by: hosseinadib

Strengths: Great Qyality for Image Editing and movie very good choice to upgrade from 17" CRT . Highly recommended ...

Weaknesses: Very Low Quality for Text if you enable Clear type effect in your windows display settings .

Overall: The Color Fidelity is perfect and response time is good enough but Text quality is very Low. I have ATI Radeon 7000 and Plug this LCD to DVI and I have 1680*1050 resolution but the text has some color shadow and is blure this will be worse when i'm using Analog input maybe this problem related to my graphic card but i don't think so...I replaced my VGA card with ATI Radeon 9250 and Geforce 5200 and 7300 128MB but my problem about text quality exist yet is there any solution or no ?!!!At last The Problem Solved ...Well ,the problem was not from VGA or Monitor but from windows i Canceled the Clear Type Effect from Display Settings and the more of problem became solved .

Reviewed by: andyzhang

Strengths: * It's crisp and bright * Wide Screen Format is fantastic * Has both VGA and DVI inputs and is selectable from the front panel. * The monitor comes with DVI and VGA cables.

Weaknesses: With Built in speaker would be better. Sometimes restard by itself. Maybe it is my NV6600's problem

Overall: I got this lovely toy on thanksgiving sale to replace my MAG 19" LCD LT976. Now got used to the widescreen. Highly recommended. unlike other monitors, it comes with both DVI and VGA cables. Save you another $20 to buy the DVI cable.

Reviewed by: jpelon

Strengths: Got it at a great price. Crisp, vivid, large!

Weaknesses: Have to get used to the widescreen. . .

Overall: I got this monitor for my parents the day after Thanksgiving for $180 after rebates. They had an old 17" clunky Dell monitor. This hooked up no problem. Works great. The picture and color is amazing. All in all they love it!!! The monitor defaults to a "stretch to fit" screen which makes everything look a little wide. I'm guessing there are ways to alter it, but have been too lazy/busy to look play with it. I have friends who have Samsung tvs and the picture is amazing, so that's what convinced me to get this monitor when I saw the deal, and I have to say, I am NOT disappointed. With Samsung's great performance and customer service, who wouldn't want this monitor at the price it's available.

Reviewed by: achan12

Strengths: Picture Quality. Height Adjustable. Space Saving. Swivel Stand. DVI or Analog capability. Brand Name. Stylish.

Weaknesses: It is a little heavy but I suppose that is expected with monitor of this size. Make sure your current video card can support it's native resolution to ensure the best picture quality.

Overall: This is a great monitor. There is is not anything negative I can say about it. I don't think there is better monitor with as many features as this one for it's price. I got an excellent deal on it and I'm very happy with it.