Samsung's latest SyncMaster LCD monitors look mighty fine

What's that, you ask? No, it's not a miniaturized version of Samsung's LN40650T HDTV. Rather, it's the firm's 19-inch 953BW -- the oh-so-sexy $239 addition to its SyncMaster lineup. Said monitor boasts a 1,440 x 900 resolution, 300 cd/m2 brightness and a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, and it's joined by the 20-inch 2053BW ($299), 22-inch 2253LW ($319) and 22-inch 2253BW ($349), all of which feature a 1,680 x 1,050 resolution and two-millisecond response time. Each unit also possesses an HDCP-compliant DVI port, intelligent MagicColor controls and a piano-black glossy finish that you'll likely have a hard time keeping free of dust and fingerprints. The best news, however, is that the whole lot is available right now.

[Via Electronista]

[Meld @ Mar 12th 2008 11:46AM]

Beautiful. Can't... resist...

[James @ Mar 12th 2008 11:47AM]

These should be excellent, I have a SyncMaster 940MG and it's awesome. Even though the contrast ration is relatively low along with the brightness, it still shows and outstanding picture.

May buy one of these babies!

[James @ Mar 12th 2008 11:51AM]

Oh, Engadget - you forgot to put the 2ms response time in the specification! Tis great!

[LongshotX @ Mar 12th 2008 12:07PM]

What is the difference between 2ms and 5ms? And I refuse to pay of $200 for a 19 inch widescreen monitor.

[James @ Mar 12th 2008 12:12PM]

Ghosting possibly on extremely fast video etc...

[Sinical1 @ Mar 13th 2008 5:28PM]

They put the 2ms response time, they just spelled it out two millisecond. :)

[Jeremy @ Mar 12th 2008 11:57AM]

22-inch 253BW ($349) Don't you mean 25-inch?

[VampireHunter Z @ Mar 12th 2008 12:08PM]

I paid around the same $300 for my 20.1" a couple months back from BenQ. But these have better refresh rates and probably better contrast ratios.

[m.edgar @ Mar 12th 2008 12:20PM]

Refresh rates like that? TN panels. So if you want to do serious work on them (3d, video or 2d), these suck. But then, if you did work were colour was important, you'd already know that :)

If you want a nice monitor, get one with a (A)S-IPS panel; better colours, better blacks, better viewing angles. Even though they have longer refresh times, you won't see any ghosting on 14/15/16 ms. Great for work, video and gaming.

[Only morons take this seriously. @ Mar 12th 2008 12:37PM]

speaking of, how can you tell what kind of panel a monitor has? I need a new monitor for photo editing and am willing to pay top dollar... any links you can post would be welcome.

[RobJ @ Mar 12th 2008 1:23PM]

Anything less than 5 or 6ms is a TN panel, which you want to avoid. Manufactures will generally list the type of panel on their product pages, you just have to hunt around to find it sometimes. For photo editing, what you want is either S-IPS or S-PVA.

[Kevin @ Mar 12th 2008 12:23PM]

I really want the standard 24" resolution of 1920x1200 to be shrunk into a 22" package

[Jhonka @ Mar 17th 2008 11:11AM]

Try the Lenovo L220x
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/peripherals/lenovos-l220x-monitor-the-first-22+inch-with-a-1920-by-1200-pixel-count-300738.php

[mark @ Mar 12th 2008 1:56PM]

I agree.

These Resolutions need to be bumped up a bit.

19" should be - 1680 x 1050
20" or 22" should be - 1920x1200

What's with the hesitation to go full out HD in 20"+ monitors?

[Peter Tripp @ Mar 12th 2008 5:56PM]

The Lenovo L220X is probably the kind of thing you're looking for. 22" 1920x1200 and it's an IPS and not a TN panel. Too bad their panel provider (Lite-On) had a fire in their factory, so they are unavailable and my Lenovo rep says they may never actually be available again.
http://www.engadget.com/tag/l220x/

[David Kendall @ Mar 12th 2008 12:37PM]

So is the 253BW the successor of the 226BW? Or are they completely different? Just ordered my 226BW and saw this few minutes later...

[Charlie @ Mar 12th 2008 1:15PM]

The 226BW is a nice monitor, but they're not all manufactured in the same factory and not all by Samsung either, so the quality varies. Mine unfortunately has a fair bit of bleed around the edges. That said, it's only obvious when the monitor is supposed to be showing black; for games and mild photo editing it's fine.

[pio!pio! @ Mar 12th 2008 12:38PM]

are these all TN panels?

[Jhonka @ Mar 17th 2008 11:11AM]

They have to be TN panels .. 2ms response times.

You can usually tell if the viewing angles are not 178º. If you see it in person and look it from a steep angle vertically and the picture looks like a photo negative, you've got yourself a TN.

[hp540 @ Mar 12th 2008 12:59PM]

TN panels are horrible compared to IPS panels.

I always had an IPS panel (Dell 2005FPW) and recently picked up a regular 22" TN panel and noticed the difference immediately (not believing comments like this): dramatically diminished viewing angles and poor colour reproduction despite hardware calibration.

Oh well.

[dbam987 @ Mar 12th 2008 1:02PM]

LOL, I placed an order for one a couple hours before this came up on Engadget. I like it, as now I know I made the right choice.

Can't wait for it to arrive.

[David Kendall @ Mar 12th 2008 1:09PM]

@dbam987: Where can you already buy it? I don't even find any more specs or pictures...

[Mark @ Mar 12th 2008 1:58PM]

It's called Newegg

[Andrew Pollack @ Mar 12th 2008 1:14PM]

Lets see, my 15" laptop widescreen does much higher resolution than that. I turn it DOWN to 1440x900 because otherwise the dots are too small. But if 1440x900 is comfortable on my 15" laptop, at something over 20% larger it isn't exactly high res. Or do I have that wrong somehow?

[mark @ Mar 12th 2008 2:30PM]

Why would you use non-native resolution on your laptop's LCD panel? You're really hurting the quality of what you see.

Seems kinda stupid, there are better and more viable options to help with reading text and such.

[Andrew Pollack @ Mar 12th 2008 2:54PM]

@Mark --

Well, lets see. At the full native resolution, I can't read it comfortably. If I try to use the "Large Fonts" and "Large Icons" and even many of the utilities out there that re-scale the UI all at once, a good portion of the software I use doesn't obey the rules well. As a result, I get text that runs off the edge of menus and buttons, and general UI crapiness.

I could try moving to Vista, but I'd rather not -- for all the obvious reasons.

After experimenting a great deal, I found that at 1440x900 the lack of clarity is fairly minimal and the trade off is acceptable.

The other alternative would have been to return the laptop and order one with a different screen. Given the absolute hell I went through getting this one shipped, I prefer it the way I have it.

Thanks for your advice though.

[linkbeat @ Mar 12th 2008 1:17PM]

Someone e-mail these specs and prices to [e-mail] please.

[owls @ Mar 12th 2008 1:18PM]

I would never touch Samsung monitors again till they fix the god awful panel lottery. I'm sure everyone remembers the 226BW fiasco.

[Jakob H @ Mar 12th 2008 1:27PM]

WAAAUW!! I'm totally in love (with the design).

[KWoodard @ Mar 12th 2008 1:56PM]

I bought the 22" on Saturday at my local Fry's Electronics. They messed up the pricing and I got it for $199...hehe... Anyway, m.edgar's responce I really cannot agree with. I do a lot of multimedia authoring (I have a BA in Digital Multimedia and I am currently in grad school working towards an Education Tech degree, I do a lot of online video, audio, Flash, Photoshop...) with this monitor and I have not had any issues. The monitor is very bright and the contrast is very good. From time to time I will fire up a game and it looks awesome!

Only issue I have had is with the included driver...Adobe Photoshop CS3 says its a corrupted driver and that the monitor needs to be recalibrated. I know there is supposed to be a tool like this on the CD that comes with the monitor, but mine does not have it.

[CB @ Mar 12th 2008 3:33PM]

2253LW is $266 at Buy.com

[phanbouy @ Mar 12th 2008 3:56PM]

anyone who calls a 19" monitor sexy should get out more

[Jake @ Mar 12th 2008 9:14PM]

im looking for a computer moniter with full HD for my ps3... i was thinking an HP w2408H 24", but im not sure.

any suggestions?

[Derek @ Mar 13th 2008 1:18AM]

I bought the 2253BW a week ago and I am loving it. I had a SyncMaster 712n. It was a great monitor, but 22" with a 8000:1 contrast and 2ms response time I found it time to upgrade. The 2253BW has DVI and VGA source switching, love this feature, so I tried my 360 on the VGA port. I can't seem to get it to work nicely, but I haven't fooled around with all the settings.

[Jhonka @ Mar 17th 2008 11:11AM]

The Lenovo L220x is a 22 with a 1900x1200 res.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/peripherals/lenovos-l220x-monitor-the-first-22+inch-with-a-1920-by-1200-pixel-count-300738.php