Originally posted by: BernardP
Originally posted by: fillalph
Another one of the suggestion posts.
Size wise: 19 - 24
Price: 399 or so (MAYBE a bit more if it was worth it)
Usage: I have a dSLR and want to get into some post processing (I am a hobbyist only though). Spend time doing "office" work such as surfing the net, word processing, MATLAB, I use AutoCAD a bit too. As for gaming, I don't really.Location: Vancouver, Canada (not sure if it would help)
The Samsung 215T looked alright, but the input lag was a turn off.
I gave the 226WT/WTX a good look but this thread really turned me off from it:
http://forums.dpreview.com/for...=22694763&q=226wt&qf=m
I thought about the Samsung 226BW. I didn't see it listed anywhere in xtknight's recommendation list though.
(Is it worth waiting for the Samsung 226CW or the high gamut from LG?)
Input lag is a turnoff mostly for hardcore gamers in FPS games. NCIX, in Vancouver has the 215TW for less than $500 now, so it could be an option.
As for the 226CW (Samsung) and L227WT (LG) high-gamut monitors, I think they are worth the wait, if only because initially at least, they should have true Samsung and LG-Philips panels respectively.
The 226CW has been available on BestBuy.ca for some time, and went on sale for $C 399 at some point, but now it is no longer listed. It is becoming available in the US, so I guess it will be widely available before the LG L227, which is not expected before September, possibly later. I read in an LCD industry article that LG-Philips can't produce enough 22-inch wide panels and that additional capacity for this size will only come online sometimes in August.
In my own case, I am waiting to see the LG L227 with my own eyes before I decide anything. In Canada, it is almost certain that it will be priced significantly lower than the Samsung 226CW. For some reason, LG has a very agressive pricing stategy in Canada, while Samsung seems to maintain premium prices like a Korean Sony
I just bought a Samsung 226CW at Best Buy in Portland Oregon. I had found this forum to be very valuable in my decsion making process, and since it appears that very few people have gotten an opportunity to get their hands on a 226CW, I wanted to share my experience.
I have no prior experience with LCD monitors, so I cannot comment on whether the 226CW does anything better than any other 22" TN panel. What I can say is that I can find nothing to complain about with the 226CW. I run it at 1680X1050, with the DVI cable (and, by the way, the DVI-D cable WAS included). It came from the factory at 100% brightness and 75% contrast and RGBs at 50/50/50, and, frankly, we find that we like running it at those settings. In the future we will probably turn the brightness down, but right now we are enjoying how vivid and crisp everything looks at those settings, from jpegs to screen savers to text. I don't know what blacklight bleeding really looks like, but I stare at a mostly black screen (like when running the Mystify screensaver) and I just don't see any edge-of-screen phenomenon to comment on.
Here are the identifiers - sometimes those tell people "in the know" alot about the true nature of the panel...
Backside label (under plastic pop-off cover that hides the input ports)
Model: 226CW
Model Code: L22MEXSFV/XAA
Color Display Unit Type: GH22WS
SA LR50298
Safety Mark 062506-11
N363 CE
SN: ME22H9NP######Z
Made in Dongguan China (XINF)
Manufactured: June 2007
BN68-######-01
Service Panel (accessed the same way as the 226BW)
Auto Auto On
Pixel Shift Off
Country English
HDCPHotPlug Off
HotPlug Time 9
Scaler-MCU MStar
Version: M-ME22X0CAA-1000
Checksum F56F
All of my comments are to try to help us understand whether Samsung has indeed shipped the 226CW as "the best of the 226BWs, with Wide Gamut", which is their intent, as reported in June in their announcements. I am not experienced enough to know. Like I say, I can't find anything to fault with it, and my expectations on clarity and color vividness have been met. I had originally fallen in love with the LG226WTY-BF I saw on the store floor displays, which I thought had a very crisp, clean look to them, but I couldn't find any local store with a floor model with firmware above 1.10, so I wasn't willing to take my chances that a v1.14 or higher was in the stockroom. The HP2207 was mesmerizing, but our home setup has large windows, so glare from the glossy HP was a deal killer. After seeing the HP2007/2207 in action, you can't say that the colors on the Samsung or LG are 'eye-popping", but, honestly, they are probably more 'real'. The unexpected chance to get a "good" Samsung 22" TN panel, with Wide Gamut to boot, led me to take a chance on buying this 226CW sight-unseen (it was on the Best Buy shelves, but not on floor display, so I was buying on faith). I feel that I made a good decision.