Samsung 30 inch and LED monitor review

30 inch by Samsung

The Korean company Samsung has been active in the monitor market for quite a while now. Their TFT panels are used by many manufacturers for use in their monitors and televisions, and they have been quite successfull lately under their own name as well. Recently Samsung has introduced two interesting new screens that deserve a closer look: the first 30 inch widescreen monitor that uses an S-PVA panel and a 20 inch model with an LED backlight.

30 inch by Samsung

We have admired 30 inch monitors in our test labratory before, coming from Apple and Dell. Those two monitors are very similar on a technical basis, as they both use the Super In Plane Switching (S-IPS) technology in their panels. S-IPS is a TFT technology that is used by LG.Philips in the manufacturing of panels. The clear advantages of S-IPS are the very naturalistic colour transitions and viewing angle that is achieved. Drawbacks are the relatively high response time and a contrast with room for improvement.

Samsung is a staunch supporter -and manufacturer- of a different TFT technolongy, called "Supper Patterned Vertical Alignment" (S-PVA). S-PVA offers an even greater viewing angle than S-IPS, which is very important for larger screens as the edges of the screen are observed from a different angle than the centre. To achieve a constant spread of colour, a good viewing angle is crucial. S-PVA also offers a very high contrast ratio and does a better job of masking the backlight, improving the level of black in the display. These days, S-PVA screens have much improved their ability to accurately depict colours and to achieve a low response time.

Samsung 305T, 30 inch by Samsung

SyncMaster 305t

When Samsung announced its 30 inch monitor we were interested to see the results, as the company would be using an S-PVA panel in its monitor. The new model, the SyncMaster 305T, has a native resolution of 2560x1600 pixels, just like Dell's and Apple's monitors. One regular DVI connection at 165 MHz does not provide enough bandwidth to transmit a signal at that resolution with 60 frames per second, and so a so-called dual link DVI connection has to be used. A dual link connection is in fact nothing more than two DVI connections that are combined and so effectively possesses twice the bandwidth of a regular connection. A standard DVI port is suited to both single and dual link connections, but it remains to be seen whether the grahics card that is used in the setup can create a dual link signal. Dual link is different to combining two DVI signals from two ports of a graphics card, it is a separate, unique signal that has to come from a single suitable port.

Older videocards do not support dual link DVI and ATI has only started supporting it since the introduction of the X1000 cards, while nVidia started compatibility from its GeForce 7 range. The case is that not all cards of either manufacturer are capable of generating a dual link signal. If you want to get started with a 30 inch monitor, check first if your graphics card supports a Dual Link signal.

Impressive

For the SyncMaster 305T Samsung claims a viewing angle of 178 degrees in all directions, and a response time of 6 ms from grey to grey. The brightness of the monitor is specified as 400 cd/m2 and the contrast is noted as being no less than 1000:1. Our measurements show that the screen does perform very well indeed. The response time was a very respectable 15 ms. The contrast is always measured significantly lower than the manufacturer's claims, but with a measured on/off figure of 210:1 the screen is a good performer. The brightness at 307 cd/m2 is more than adequate.

Using a 30 inch monitor is a real experience. A 24 inch model is big enough, but compared to this giant such a monitor is literally dwarfed. Taking it one step further, many people would think 30 inches of monitor is simply too big. At a regular 60 cm viewing distance you literally have to move your head with the cursor when you move from the start button at the bottom left to the "close" button at the top right. However, the amount of available desktop space is addictive. A regular 17 or 19 inch monitor has just over 1.3 million available pixels, while this screen has more than 4 million. Therefore, it shouldn't be a problem to have several webpages, a browser and MSN Messenger running on screen at the same time. For graphical designers or people who are often busy editing photos or film, a screen of this size is ideal. Gaming is of course also a joy with this monitor, although not all games actually support the high native resolution that this monitor can offer.