Samsung's 305T, the latest 30-incher

Another day, another 30-inch monitor to add to our collection (which, thus far, consists of a Dell, an Apple, an HP, a Quixun, etc.). Nothing here that's going to make us shy away from the king of the hill, Dell's 3007WFP, but it's got on-par specs for it's $2000 price tag: 2560 x 1600 resolution, 400cd/m² brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 6ms pixel response time, 178° viewing angle, 4 port USB hub, and DVI (and only DVI) input. Still, it's a step above the Apple on the hardware end, and Samsung displays aren't nothin' to thumb your nose at -- it's just a hard sell when Dell's behemoth is going for as much as $500 less.

[scryber @ Oct 10th 2006 1:42PM]

The Dell 30" is selling as low as $1442--straight up, no rebates, just that price. That's amazing considering less than a year ago it was $800 more. Could we be seeing a sub-$1000 30" display in 2007?

For these other manufacturers to even compete they are going to need to seriously cut the price.

[max andrews @ Oct 10th 2006 1:57PM]

I have a hard time believing these panels from different manufacturers would look any different from each other, given that there is only one 30" panel available, meaning that image quality and specs across the board should be exactly the same.

[anonymous @ Oct 10th 2006 2:07PM]

ooo nice. wish it had more inputs though

[Shaun @ Oct 10th 2006 3:10PM]

The difference is in the back lighting, the power regulators and the other analogue components. You can bet those aren't all the same.

Also, some manufacturers are less extravagant with their claims than others and some have their monitors tuned more for the suited purpose than others. A fast response time and ultra-bright backlight is useless to a graphics designer if the monitor can't display colours accurately across the whole display.

[Peter @ Oct 10th 2006 3:10PM]

This one is different. It is Samsungs own PVA Panel. Most of the others use LG S-IPS. So it will look different. There will be much more tone shift on the Samsung and soon the Dell when they switch to using the sampsung PVA panel.

[enzo @ Oct 10th 2006 3:42PM]

That really is nice... I've always been a fan of Samsung's slim-bezel monitors. Nothing against Dell, but I think I'd prefer a Samsung logo at the bottom of my 30 monitor then Dell's logo.

[shredsled87 @ Oct 10th 2006 6:26PM]

$2000 dollars?! And ONE DVI port?!?!

[joe_bruin @ Oct 10th 2006 7:37PM]

The reason Dells are so much cheaper is their high, er, tolerance for bad pixels. That is, if you get a monitor from Dell and it has no dead pixels, you lucked out. However, if you do have less than a "significant" number of dead pixels, you can forget about getting an exchange from Dell, they won't take it back.
Samsung used to have a zero dead pixel policy. I don't know if they still do and if it applies to this panel.

[fms72 @ Oct 11th 2006 7:13AM]

Someone needs to come out with a 30 with multiple input options. I think Benq announced something but will wait to see reviews on that. Apple's Cinema 30 and Dell's 3007 both use the same panel (LG as per Peter's post). I'm sitting in front of a 3007--no dead pixels. Neither do 2 other friends who have 3007s or another with a Cinema 30. Have a Samsung 213T and well they're all great monitors. Competition's good.

[Muazzam Lateef @ Oct 11th 2006 9:13AM]

Really, do we need this! Price will drop 30% after Jan 1 2007

[Merchant of Seoul @ Oct 11th 2006 4:55PM]

Let us not forget HP's LP3065 30" LCD monitor. It is about the same money as the Samsung, but offers three dual-link DVI-D inputs (and two dual-link DVI cables).

But the most important thing about the HP vs. the Samsung/Dell/Apple monitors, is that the HP offers professional level brightness (300 nits) instead of the gee-whiz video-in-your-face brightness levels offered by Dell and Apple (and now Samsung).

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/07/hp-lp3065-30-inch-monitor-details-revealed/

I suppose the easy way to differentiate these monitors is based on how you interact with content:

content-consumer: Dell, Apple, Samsung
content-creator: HP

HP deserves kudos for doing right by the content creators ;-)

[Sammy Eath @ Oct 11th 2006 9:21PM]

Its sexy, so shut up.

[Michel @ Jan 5th 2007 3:58AM]

At http://www.NokiaDownload.net we all use the Samsung 305T. We are very happy about this product despite the comments above.

[Robert Daravi @ Jan 9th 2007 6:39PM]

I keep hearing that these 30 inch monitors lack other connections and have only DVI connection. It is not that they forgot. The answer is simple, these monitors are large enough to be used as a TV. The manufacturer wants to sell you another unit to be used as TV.

[Dave Swantek @ Sep 20th 2007 2:48PM]

Not True!,

I read an artical on Annand Tech regarding the HP 30 incher which stated that the lack of inputs is due to the lack of a display controller, (chip) that can handel the super high resolution. They rely on the graphics card for adjustments and only support full and half resultions. I will not buy one of these things until this problem is solved, (probubly some time next year). It would hert too much to shell out 1,500 smakers to end up without the added functionality. This exlains why every body is comming with 27 inch units with the same resolution as my 24 inch Dell.

My 2 cents; Dave