SAMSUNG 216BW 21.6" WSXGA+ 1680 x 1050 D-Sub, DVI-D LCD Monitor

Pros: Good contrast & black level, *if* you're careful to sit directly in front of the monitor. Backlight bleed unnoticeable on anything but fully black screen. Setting "Color Tone" to "Warm" makes images and movies look more natural. Very dark scenes are still look a bit washed-out. Decent scaling of non-native resolutions. Very lower power consumption for its size, especially at reduced brightness. A benefit of TN panels rarely discussed is that they use less power, compared to MVA, PVA, or IPS. Some measurements from a Kill-a-Watt meter: bright. wattage 0% : 18 W 7% : 22 W ("Text" default) 25% : 29 W 33% : 31 W 50% : 34 W 100%: 41 W 100% is painfully bright. I run mine at 0%(!) most of the time, plenty for text work, browsing etc, in a dimly-lit room. For movies, 5-10% looks best. Under bright overhead lights in an office, some might want to go as high as 50%. Extra brightness headroom does allow for tube aging. Price is hard to beat!

Cons: Vertical viewing angle should be within 30deg of dead-center for best results (typical TN); sitting too close can be a problem. No support for 1:1 pixel mapping, and no way to force 4:3 aspect. Resolutions like 1024x768, 800x600, or 640x480 will be "stretched" to fill the screen; can be bad if you like older games, or need to run other legacy app. needing a particular res. Dynamic-Contrast mode is mostly useless. It should adjust brightness based on picture content, but is too slow to react to changes, and also forces brightness to 100% (no manual adjustment). In other MagicBright modes, any change (even brt/contrast) will shift to Custom mode, overwriting any previous Custom parameters. Best to just leave it on Custom. Mine sometimes emits a soft hum from its backlight inverter. Thumping or squeezing the case can make this go away for a while. Most people wouldn't be bothered, as it probably can't be heard over the noise of a typical PC, fan, AC, etc. but SPCR folks m

Overall Review: Switching from a 22" Mitsubish 2040u CRT, I lost ~ 1/2" of screen height, but gained ~ 3" of width. Sharpness, linearity, geometry are near perfect, contrast only slightly worse (CRT was ~ 2000:1). Decided on 216BW vs. 226BW because of improved contrast ratio. I run this via DVI from a Linux machine, using a Matrox G550 card. Analog is nearly as good, but DVI gives a slightly better black level. Here are some X.org modes that work well for me: # Native @ 59Hz; 112 MHz dotclock limit via DVI on G550 ModeLine "1680x1050" 112 1680 1696 1704 1800 1050 1051 1053 1059 +hsync -vsync # some lower-res 16:10 modes for old games (MAME, etc) # 372 lines is the lowest non-Doublescan vertical resolution a 216BW # will upscale to full-screen in DVI ModeLine "768x480" 30.21 768 784 896 960 480 490 492 525 -hsync -vsync ModeLine "640x400" 25.17 640 656 752 800 400 412 414 449 -hsync +vsync ModeLine "592x372" 22.20 592 608 696 744 372 376 378 415 -hsync +vsync

Pros: Beautiful display, vivid colors and amazing brightness/contrast. It will literally make your other screens look like trash if you were to stand this one up next to it. Very easy to install, hell - there is no install, plug it in and its ready! Its Samsung.. you can't go wrong with it. I was about to buy that Acer or HannsG but decided to pay the little extra to have a name I trusted. I'm extremely glad I did so. You will feel like a little school girl when this screen gets to your house and you turn on this beauty. I seriously had to tone the brightness AND the contrast AND turn off the special color feature so that this thing wasn't so overwhelming. My brightness/contrast is set to 60% and its still just flat out amazing. Wait till you see pictures/movies and especially wallpaper on this baby... its just so amazingly clear and vivid. And seriously, I researched like every screen within this price range and the 0.4 inch upgrade really isn't worth it.

Cons: Glossy finish scratches a bit easily, so treat it with care.

Overall Review: My main concern about getting this laptop was whether or not it was going to support the 1680X1050 resolution since I didn't see it in the display list. Don't worry about it too much, the resolution automatically comes up in your display settings and most modern computers will be able to handle the resolution. If you're computer card can handle 1600X1200 then you shouldn't have a problem. Came with ZERO dead pixels. A guy a couple doors down has the 22" and believe me, you're not missing anything with this screen, I can't tell a difference between the two. You aren't missing any 0.4 inches. Bottom line, yea you'll see some reviews on this screen about people that got really unlucky with delivery or just don't know what the hell they're doing. Relax.... its Samsung. Get on the boat.

Pros: The obsidian black trim makes it an instant eye pleaser. Even more so, the display colors were smooth and bright. No haze. Even using the default settings the contrast was every bit of what you would expect out of a 1000:1 Static Contrast Ratio(SC) I'm running my 216BW on a DVI connector, stemming from a Nvidia GeForce 6800 GS (Windows tweaks diabled). I fired up Need for Speed: Carbon and although my video card only supports 60hz (instead of the recommended 75hz) the 216BW still rendered the graphics from my card without 'shadowing' the colors. For my contrast/sharpness test I fired up Final Fantasy XI Online. Took my level 75 Summoner outside and spammed avatars. For those of you not familiar with this, just understand that summoning employs the most intense, brightest and complex colors on the game. Again, I was amazed. Seizure inducing detail.

Cons: Although the carousel is very funtional and sturdy. I find the monitor to be slighty top heavy. And then there is the issue with the display adjustment buttons being underneath the monitor. What the...? How the heck am I supposed to watch my monitor for proper adjustment when I'm contantly peering underneath the monitor to see where the buttons are at. If not, it would be like tring to read braille (which I can't do either) Lastly, the brightness, you must adjust the default brightness setting from 100 to 50-80ish or risk being blinded. This monitor cranks out some major light. When the Samsung first fired up I wasn't sure if it was a monitor or an X-ray machine. (ok, mabye not a legitimate complaint...)

Overall Review: All in all this is a great monitor, its worth all of its 270 bucks. Of course if you want a $1000.00 dollar picture, you gotta buy a $1000.00 monitor.

Pros: great monitor, compared to my 19' vx900 viewsonic monitor. this monitor is awesome, the images are clear. only reason i got this monitor is because my previous one is out of date. i also tried my brother's VX2235wm viewsonic monitor. if i have to compare both monitor.. i have to say, mine is better, it's brighter, looks somewhat better and 70$ cheaper. for the comment that said something about this monitor being bad on FPS game. i truly disagree with you, i tried this monitor on FEAR, DOOM3, CS:S, CZ, CS and N4SMW, all those games seems normal, response time is great.

Cons: cons.. nothing really.

Overall Review: currently using the 7950 gx2 with a fx-62 chipset/ asus crosshair. oh and there is absolutely NO DEAD PIXEL. i've spend 18 hours gaming last night using this monitor. there was no ghosting/bleeding. at 1680x1050, i can only run at 60htz refresh time. still good i guess.

Pros: Sturdy construction, excellent image and contrast, plus numerous options for color preference customization with included software. 130' degree viewing before distortion. Included swivel base is useful and well constructed. Hard to tell it's not a 22"

Cons: Display menu control buttons are underneath the frame. Still easy to engage, but would be easier to manipulate if they were on the front next to the power switch.

Overall Review: Was ordered on Tuesday and arrived Thursday over 1000 miles from Newegg. Am very Impressed. Video card being used is a EVGA Geforce 6800xt 256mb, resolution is set at 1600 x 1050.

Pros: This is quite a stunning monitor. I took it out of the box and my first impression was "WOW! That's large!". No dead pixels, great contrast, and stunning resolution at 1680x1050, and its quick at 5ms. Oh, and it also does HDCP. Samsung never fails to amaze me! I own 2 Samsung HDTVs (DLP), 1 CRT, and now this LCD, and they're all beautiful aesthetically; not to mention the picture is incredible. If you want a great monitor, this is a great buy.

Cons: Well, it can be hard to find desktop backgrounds that fit this behemoth, but that's not Samsung's fault.

Overall Review: If you are planning to use this monitor, make sure you have a decent graphics card and CPU to run this resolution well. I tested this monitor on various setups, and it actually noticeably slowed down my mom's (albeit slow already) computer.

Pros: Just about everything you could ask for in a monitor. The contrast ratio is retina-burning. It's absolutelty outstanding, perhaps the best I've ever seen on any monitor. The dynamic contrast is optional (you can turn it off in the monitor settings!) for those of you who may be distracted by the backlight adjustment.

Cons: It's not 22", it's not 2ms responsive. It is, however, unoticable that it has a 5ms response, and that it's only 21.6 in.

Overall Review: Don't waste your money on the 22". This monitor is an absolute steal at this price. I couldn't have asked for more in a monitor without upgrading the size to a 42" LCD tv. When newegg dropped the price for a week by 10 bucks my jaw hit the floor and I sunk my teeth right into this baby. Playing games like dark messiah on this thing over my old 17" 450:1 Acer is like night and day. Everything is more vibrant, much richer in color, and infinetely more immersive in widescreen. You absolutelty can't go wrong with this monitor. Buy 2 and go dual screen with these things if you can afford it!

Pros: First off this thing is massive, the pictures do not do justice to the actual size. Secondly no Dead/frozen pixels. No noticeable ghosting, and I do play games like Battlefield 2, Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter 1 and 2. Love that fact that Samsung includes the DVI cable. Movies are great.

Cons: Ummm.. The fact that Newegg didn't offer a buy one get one free? Just one, there is a minuscule amount of light bleed at the top, but no where near as much as I was expecting, not enough to take an Egg away.

Overall Review: Coming from a 17" CRT this is like heaven. I would recommend this monitor to any of my friends, and family for that matter :D