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• Samsung SyncMaster 226BW Black 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor

• Price Range

  $239.00 - $399.99
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  • RATING
• Overall Rating
  4 Star Review

  Reviewed by: CloudyBright

  Updated:02-16-08

  Duration of ownership:8 Months

  Strengths: Nice color - sharp. Worked out-of-the-box when connected to a MacPro with the DVI connector. A PC is connected to the Analog connector and I can switch between them easily. Truly a plug and play. Samsung technical support was responsive. I called them on a Saturday at 5:30 pm west coast time and they walked me through a problem. Details in the Overall evaluation.

  Weaknesses: Color adjustment is awkward and is done through buttons on the monitor and adjustment to the video card driver. It took me a while to figure it out, but I'm quite satisfied that I can achieve the "look" that I want.

  Overall Evaluation: The color/contrast/sharpness will knock your socks off. But after eight months of use, the color/contrast went wacky. None of my attempts to adjust it worked. I finally called Samsung. Their simple procedure restored everything back to normal. The "fix" process was to disconnect the monitor from power and video. Then plug in power and watch screen until the RGB floating box came up. Then plug in the video cable. Voilà! Color/contrast returned to normal! (All disconnects/connects were made hot. . .no computer shut down.) The on-monitor control buttons and the video card control adjustments have to each be adjusted to fine tune the color/contrast/gamma . . .I find this rather complex and while the picture looks great and internet sites looks outstanding, the desktop icon text looks slightly drop-shadowed. I'm not technical enough to know how to make everything perfect. This monitor is definitely not no-brainer equipment.

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: tpals

  Updated:01-13-08

  Duration of ownership:6 Months

  Strengths: I am a serious amateur photographer and our family's historian I have found this moniter true to life for color reproduction and I love the work space in the 22' model and it does not use up to much desk real estate.

  Weaknesses: I found the moniter adjustments overly complicated but that could be me as my experience is limited

  Overall Evaluation: I really like this monitor paired with my Hp Quad-Core. It is fast and keeps up with my enhanced processing abilities..I would recommend this to any budding photographer and you just can't beat the price. Overall it is terrific

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: DarCowAlways

  Updated:12-30-07

  Duration of ownership:2 Days

  Strengths: Big and Beautiful, clear, bright, high resolution, great contrast ratio, insane response time, digital and analog inputs, large enough to replace a TV

  Weaknesses: Blue power button light may be annoying in a dark room, though I haven't had any such troubles.

  Overall Evaluation: I don't care how many negative reviews you've read, this monitor is phenomenal in every sense of the word. I've read about bad viewing angles and bad heights for the stand, but this is not at all a problem, and is actually quite nice. The monitor itself runs at 1680x1050 resolution, and has a very nice LCD-standard crisp and clear look to it, with a very bright, colorful screen, without being blinding. I personally like the blue power ring, as long as it doesn't flash while I try to sleep, so I'll just turn off the monitor when I'm done for the day. I personally didn't have any of the problems some users seemed to have, such as having one of the bad models (A, C, or S), or having dead pixels. This monitor is plug-and-play, and doesn't have any complicated instructions or software to be installed, and I had it put together and running within minutes. The stand for the monitor is very simple yet effective, with one of those systems like that of the average cell phone, to connect it in, with two plastic pieces lowered and two holes to hook them into. After that, the monitor end is screwed in with the built-in screw on the bottom of the base. It's as simple as that. Overall, this monitor really is a step up to nearly any computer user, and should be considered just as magnificent as it is. Don't listen to those users who are impossible to please, this monitor really exceeded my already high expectations. Buy one! Heck, buy two!

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: mdoc

  Updated:08-09-07

  Duration of ownership:2 Days

  Strengths: only 2 ms response time, high contrast ratio, digital DVI input

  Weaknesses: horiz and vertical viewing angle limitation

  Overall Evaluation: A very good monitor. Came with no dead pixels. Although there is no viewing adjustment, the monitor tilt angle and its height is just right on a standard desktop. By standard, I mean one that is about 28 inches from the floor. The vertical viewing angle at only 160 degrees is the only drawback. For optimal viewing, you need to be sitting at the desk looking at it. If you stand up (and you are 6 feet tall), you will start to lose a very small amount of viewability, but the screen contents can still be seen clearly. It will only look a bit "shaded". Horizontal viewing angle is not as important as the vertical because you can swivel the monitor to share with others. Menu navigation via menu controls at bottom right takes a little getting used to, but this is a conventional standard found on other monitors having the same navigation style. Nevertheless, because you use these controls perhaps once or twice and never touch them again, there is a learning curve everytime you do use it. This is another drawback, and I blame this on the engineers for not "thinking outside the box." On this wise, there's another anomolous discepancy: in the Natural Color Pro software that came on the included CD, in screen number 3 of the Monitor Cal. & Profiling section, a contrast calibration graphics box is blocked by the monitor's menu system (which pops up in another box overlaying the calibration box) because they are both centered on screen, so that you can't do the contrast calibration. Talk about thinking outside the box. (Get it?) But that's just the software. The monitor is superb.

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: choiwonchull

  Updated:06-04-07

  Duration of ownership:2 Months

  Strengths:

  Weaknesses:

  Overall Evaluation:

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: crisderaud

  Updated:05-27-07

  Duration of ownership:1 Days

  Strengths: Big, beautiful crisp and clear. Has the HD digital cable to plug into the white port of my nVidia 7800 GT video card. Photos look fantastic. Tons of room to work and edit.

  Weaknesses: I wish the mount were a little taller. The bottom of the screen sits only 3 inches off the desktop so few items can slide under it. The base has a cool lazy Susan swivel and the screen tilts but it is just too low. Screen adjust menus hard to use. My solution below works fine.

  Overall Evaluation: I bought this yesterday while armed with the knowledge I learned from other reviews. I'll address those concerns. Model: A C or S: I got a C model. No problem with it at all. Dead Pixels: I used UndeadPixel 2.2 to test screen. (free program) No pixels are dead in any color nor or any stuck on. Lightness around edges of screen when black: I used UndeadPixel again to make screen solid black. All I see is black. The contrast ratio is spectacular. There is no back-light bleed that some reviewers complained of. Bright power light: A small bit of first aid paper tape over the button allows light through but damps the brightness. Settings and controls: Too hard to use. My old Samsung CRT was too hard to use too. I turned off their Magic Brightness and set it on high contrast setting with the rest set at factory default. I use nVidia nTune program to set contrast and gamma and to optimize the video card performance. Also a free program. I have a Pantone Huey device to monitor and adjust the screen for changing light conditions in the room. Ghosting: I haven't seen one yet and I've been looking. My overall evaluation is this: I like it a lot.

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: mptoledo

  Updated:05-13-07

  Duration of ownership:1 Months

  Strengths: vivid color, options galore! refresh rate is incredible. The best I have seen for gaming!!

  Weaknesses: The only weakness I can think of is the blue power light is a little annoying.

  Overall Evaluation: Now on to the a/s panel debate. I Purchased this through circuit city for 329. . After reading all the negative reviews on the a panel and the fact the CC lets you return it for any bad pixles(which it had none), I didn't mind paying a little more to guarantee I got the s panel Games run flawlessly. Screen size took about a day to get used to,but now I have trouble using a normal screen. Nothing but accolades for this monitor. If you are looking for a 22 inch game monitor, Look no further!!

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: TomManolo

  Updated:12-17-07

  Duration of ownership:

  Strengths: bright colors, excellent contrast, default factory settings perfect for me and worth the ?

  Weaknesses: none worth mentioning here

  Overall Evaluation: This screen is big bang for the buck. Order online and you will pay cheaper than you would buying from your neighborhood's store, even with the manufacturer rebate.I did not have to change any of the settings, which was a nice plus, but most importantly, this screen just works in all lighting conditions. My desk is in a corner area where there can be from none to very bright back-lighting and the anti-glare works pure magic.My typical use for this scree ranges from watching videos, playing games, to developing software. I used to feel pain while working at home vs. my dual-screen display at work. Now, it feels the same with a resolution of 1600xwhatever.

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: bmountfo

  Updated:11-27-07

  Duration of ownership:

  Strengths: Crisp, bright colors. Great looking monitor.

  Weaknesses: Blinking LED when in standby is annoying.

  Overall Evaluation: I bought this for my wife and now I wish it were mine. It makes my old Apple 20" cinema display look like a dinosaur. My only problem with it so far is that the blue power LED is quite bright and blinks annoyingly when in standby. If I leave the door to the office open at night, I can see the blinking light filling the hallway outside. It is a minor thing, I know.

• Overall Rating
  2 Star Review

  Reviewed by: jdsppg

  Updated:11-26-07

  Duration of ownership:1 Days

  Strengths: thin bezel, bright, lightweight

  Weaknesses: severly limited viewing angle causes brightness and color change from top to bottom

  Overall Evaluation: For work that does not depend on critical color and brightness quality, this monitor is probably ok. It displays clear, sharp text, the backlight is even, and it gives a nice, bright image. The manual controls also give a reasonable amount of adjustment. 2 inputs (DVI & d-sub) are also helpful. But here is the caveat. This monitor is not suitable for color-critical work with photography or design. From a normal working distance, the top of the screen looks significantly yellower and darker than the bottom of the screen. Side-to-side variance is not as bad, but is still marginal. I am a professional photographer, and make my living working with photographs on my computer screen all day, every day. I must admit that I was VERY disappointed that a highly rated monitor from such a reputable manufacturer (Samsung) would perform so poorly. Another problem is that it has poor tonal separation in brightest image areas. But its biggest problem is its extreme sensitivity to viewing angle. If you had a photo of a scene of evenly lit pale blue fog, on this monitor the top of the photo would appear slightly darker and definitely greenish gray. The bottom of the photo would have a harsh brightness to it and be much bluer. One of my monitors is a Dell 2005 FPW. It is not perfect, but its viewing angle consistency is far superior to the Samsung 226bw. I am sorry that I do not yet know of a current monitor suitable for critical photo work, that I can steer you towards. But for critical phtography work, or even semi-critical viewing, the Samsung 226bw is NOT your monitor. This one goes back to the dealer tomorrow.

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Samsung SyncMaster 226BW Black 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor

$239.00(3 sellers) • Avg User Rating •Specs