The Samsung SyncMaster 204B has a secret identity. It may look like a mild-mannered business monitor, but its wide array of features and handsome styling make it a multimedia hero for your home. With an ultra-high 800:1 contrast ratio for amazing colors, super-fast 5ms response time for seamless movies and impressive 1600 x 1200 maximum resolution, you're ready to tackle anything!
Equipped with Samsung’s suite of “Magic” tools, you have complete control over the look of the images on your screen, allowing you to adjust your view to the smallest particular. The extra 1.1" of screen real estate can make a dramatic difference over a 19” monitor. This monitor provides an immersive and brilliant experience for gaming, along with substantial workspace for graphics and video. It represents a great investment for your monitor dollar.
High Screen Resolution and Ultra Fast Response TimeMassive 1600x1200 screen resolution is equivalent to a 4:3 format enabling simultaneous multi-window applications without toggling. The ultra-fast 5ms response time draws natural moving images with extreme clarity when watching DVDs or streaming videos.
Samsung MagicColorPowered by the ASE (Adaptive Saturation Enhancement) chip, MagicColor analyzes the colors from the input signal to determine and preserve the optimum saturation for the most natural and vivid colors displayed. MagicColor has four adjustment modes: "off", "demo", "MagicColor 1", and "MagicColor 2".
Samsung MagicZoneMagicZone helps to enhance brightness in a specific area of the screen to improve the clarity of animations, multimedia and photos.
Samsung MagicTuneSamsung's OSD solution, MagicTune provides simple and convenient adjustment for optimum image quality and is especially ideal for photographers, designers and multimedia artists.
Samsung MagicBright2The powerful MagicBright2 provides an optimized viewing environment based on the images being displayed with six viewing modes: Document, Internet, Games, Sports, Movie, and Customized. With the pre-configured Brightness, Gamma and Contrast in each mode, conveniently select the best preset environment with a simple push of the MagicBright button.
Premium StandWhen working on documents or graphics, you can rotate your screen 90°for extra length and adjust the height of the screen for maximum comfort.
Pros: 1600x1200 resolution and DVI produce nice, crisp text and lots of screen area. So much better than 1280x1024. Screed door effect much less noticable than the 19-inchers too. Response time is good and I find it a pleasure to game on. It's an LCD so there's still ghosting, but I don't find it to be an issue, personally. The stand's flexibility is great, especially the pivoting of the base. Analog and Digital inputs are handy and the switch for the modes is right on the bezel for easy access; great if you have two machines plugged into it. Standard 4:3 ratio means resolution is almost guaranteed to be supported and scaling won't result in aspect ratio problems.
Cons: As has been said before, the vertical viewing angle on this display is pretty lousy resulting in the top of the screen appearing darker at the top than bottom. It's a common problem and definitely present on this one. I was able to angle the monitor very close to vertical on my old 710N and mostly mask the effect but not so with this one. You just have to put up with it. I don't find it to be an issue in gaming or movies/TV but on the desktop if there's a pattern or solid background you can see it pretty easily so if you're buying it for graphical design work or are very bothered by this issue, you probably want to look elsewhere. Colors aren't bad, but they're not outstanding either. On its own though I think the display looks fine. Default settings are pretty bright. Plan on turning it down if you're not in the habit of wearing sunglasses indoors. Some backlight bleeding around the edges is apparent on dark screens
Overall Review: Overall for the price I find this to be a great monitor. It's not perfect, but none of the alternatives are either. I do hope Samsung will conquer the vertical viewing angle issue eventually, but none of the cons above detract enough from the enjoyment of this monitor to make me regret the purchase. Great deal overall!