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Samsung Syncmaster 172MP LCD Monitor Review
Author: Jakester
Date Posted: September 29th, 2003
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Bottom Line: Samsung gave us another monitor to review, sort of... The Samsung 172MP is a 17" LCD multifunctional display unit with the capability to perform as a monitor, TV (using its optional TV tuner) , or both with its Picture-in-Picture feature. This monitor looked very promising. Did it stand up to our expectations? Find out in our official review....
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Performance
Now we put the 172MP to the test. In this section I will be testing out the
following display "functions"; PC, PC with PIP (Picture-in-Picture),
Cable TV, and DVD quality. First we start off with how it performs as a PC
monitor. To push it to the limits I ran the Display Mate program, which puts the monitor through many
tests via producing strenuous images to be displayed. Below are some pictures of
what is displayed during this testing. This is important: The
172MP is designed towards the average user that is heavy into multitasking.
Samsung's main focus when creating this unit was its ability to perform all of
its functions well. This means that the display quality of 172MP will not weigh
nearly as heavily upon its final grade as will its functionality. Since this is
a review, however, I will include the results from the display testing anyways.
The good news is that the 172MP has zero dead pixels. So far,
out of
all the Samsung monitors I have reviewed, I haven't come across a single dead
pixel. Quite impressive! However, during the Display Mate testing, I noticed a
weird display problem with the 172MP when trying to display gradient of
black-to-white vertical lines. To see a video of the problem please click
here. At first the weird
lines are because of the camera recording the display of the monitor but as I
move the camera closer you will begin to see horizontal lines moving upwards in
the image. These lines were very easy to see during some of the testing and
shows that the 172MP has difficulty displaying images with black and white
pixels mixed together. Despite these results, average monitor usage
(browsing the web and working with applications) was quite a pleasant experience.
At full resolution(1280x1024) and 75 Hz refresh rate, the picture was vibrant
and pleasing to the eye. I should also add that the horizontal lines problem was
only seen during the Display Mate testing and I did not come across it during
normal usage.
The 172MP does very well as a monitor for the less-demanding
user, but what about those darn gamers. They (myself included) are dying to find
the perfect gaming LCD monitor. With that said, let's see how the 172MP handles
high frame rates (70-80 FPS). To test this I used my normal FPS shooter Tactical
Operations, an Unreal Tournament Mod.
As you can see the monitor has a minor problem with ghosting at
high frame rate games. Game play is definitely playable but ghosting makes the
game appear to look slightly fuzzy when playing. In reality, only the hardcore
gamers will notice the blurring of the image. Average gamers will be quite
satisfied with the 172MP's performance.
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